‘Ink Master’ exclusive: Erik Campbell on elimination, alliances and second chances

Erik Campbell was an artist that we easily saw tattooing his way into the finale on “Ink Master” season 6. Everyone else on the cast had their attention split between doing great tattoos and taking out other alliances that no one seemed to notice how well Erik was doing and how far he was going in the competition without any help from the house alliances. In our opinion, he was poised to silently ninja a spot in the finale without any trouble.

Unfortunately, he made it far enough into the competition this season that just one tricky tattoo could send you home, and we lost Erik during our favorite episode of “Ink Master” this season (really our favorite episode of the show ever). Erik put his focus first and foremost on creating cool designs that his canvas was happy with, and isn’t that really what tattooing is all about? We had a chance to talk to Erik about his time on the show and he had some great insight into the alliances, his elimination and what an amazing experience it was to work with the guest artists that had Down-Syndrome.

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CarterMatt.com: Working with the artists with Down-Syndrome was a really touching episode to watch. What was that experience like?

Erik Campbell: Having the opportunity to work alongside Down-syndrome artists and their family members was truly a great experience. This was a wonderful break and reality check in the competition. I felt blessed to be a part of making someone feel special and giving them something meaningful!

You have been a silent ninja producing beautiful tattoos all season without being part of an alliance: Why did you decided to not make Chris and Tyler part of the randomized skull selection process for the Victorian challenge?

Throughout the competition both Chris and Tyler were solid guys to me, collectively the 3 of us bounced ideas off one another and had a good rapport. I have the utmost respect for Chris and his deliberate approach to life and tattooing, and Tyler is a clean tattooist. Honestly on a throat tattoo, its pretty tough to hook anyone up!

What was it like having so many alliances in the game this season, and do you feel that they helped or hindered the artists?

I don’t really feel alliances do a whole lot of good. You get dealt what you get dealt and your stuck owning what you did regardless.

We were sure that you were going to stealth your way to the finale this year, were you surprised that you were eliminated?

I was definitely disappointed to be eliminated, I felt at that point whoever had the human canvas vote would be the one to go. I’m happy none of the tattoos I did were nominated as the worst in the human canvas jury.

If you had a second chance at this competition, what would you do differently?

If I had a second shot I think I would try and relax a bit more (if that’s possible for me! haha) and stand up more for the tattoos I did!

With the show currently airing, have you found that life has changed for you?

Things are not a whole lot different, I stayed busy before the show. I’d say the biggest change has been the flow of encouraging and positive feedback from friends, family and fans of the show. It’s been truly humbling.

If clients want to book you for a tattoo, what’s the best way for them to go about doing that?

For tattoo inquiries contact [email protected]

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A super big thanks to Erik for chatting with us here at CarterMatt about his experience on “Ink Master”. It was tough to see Erik go and we will definitely miss watching him every week since he designed some really fun tattoos this season.