‘Ink Master’ season 6, episode 9 review: Will King Neptune trip up Matt O’Baugh, Craig Foster?

Matt Ink MasterLast time on “Ink Master” we lost Big Ceeze and Craig had his revenge for his mentor Miami, but what we are really curious about is if we are going to see even more game play from Craig moving forward. Now that Chris has admitted that his move to battle St. Marq was a strategic move for himself and not to help out the team, Craig stepped up his strategic game. He worked with Matt to target Chris and some of his alliance members (Dave and Tyler) and while none of them actually went home, we did see Tyler in the bottom.

Flash challenge: Today the artists are working with fire to showcase their skills in saturation and are working in teams of two. With Craig winning tattoo of the day he got to choose the teams: Craig and Chris, Tyler and Katie, Marisa and Dave, Erik and Matt and  Kruseman and Duffy. We loved seeing Craig pick Chris, because it shows the judges that Craig feels that he is on the same level as Chris. We really loved Kruseman and Duffy’s Mandala, but we were also impressed with Marisa and Dave’s night island scene. The judges had a tough choice, but in the end Marisa and Dave won the skull pick.

Elimination tattoo: The guest judge this week is Justin Weatherholtz who is a master at saturation and he will be helping judge the artists as they tattoo Neptune – the god of the ocean (outside of Aquaman of course).

Chris tries to get into Marisa and Dave’s ear to get them to hit Craig and Matt hard and get revenge for last week, but are they going to listen to Chris or do they have their own plans? Because they are aligned with Chris they decide to go after Craig and Matt giving Matt a canvas that has only sat for an hour before, wants it on her ribs and is refusing to have the trident included. Who has Neptune without a trident? That’s like tattooing Catwoman without her whip or Donald Trump without a hair piece. Tyler is also upset because he got the only black and grey tattoo and he’s so thrown off by Marisa and Dave throwing him a tough piece that he’s not able to focus on the job as well as he hoped.

Judging: This was a rough judging for the artists and while it’s usually pinup week that throws everyone off, this time it was King Neptune. There wasn’t enough color saturation going on, but more then that it seems like quite a few artist had trouble with anatomy. Chris wins tattoo of the day and it was really down to Chris and Erik, since the judges pretty much hated every other tattoo there. So who ended up in the bottom? Marisa, Duffy, Tyler, Craig, and Matt with the human canvas jury picking Craig. After Tyler has a melt down, Chris gives Tyler his vote to go home, but after apologizing to the judges and saying that he’s going to change his attitude he’s saved – and we lost Marisa.

We were really surprised how difficult this King Neptune tattoo was for everyone and we are hoping that they will have pin up week soon so we can see who understands anatomy and who doesn’t, which is something we feel an Ink Master should have a handle on. Episode grade: B-

What did you think of this episode of “Ink Master” and do you think that the right artist went home this week? Leave us a comment below and have your say. If you are looking for more news on the show, then head over to the link here where you can get previews, reviews, interviews with the artists and listen to our weekly podcasts with Jessa and Bart. Also, if you want to sign up for our weekly CarterMatt newsletter, you can get some great TV news sent straight to your inbox. (Photo: Spike TV)

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