‘Ink Master’ season 8, episode 4 review: Double elimination day has everyone worried
On the last episode of “Ink Master” season 8 we saw Geary go home, but tonight we are facing a double elimination and all of the artists should be worried. We are happy that the show is doing this tonight, because as much as we like the Peck vs Nunez twist, it was kind of strange seeing a whole group of artists not compete at all last week.
Elimination tattoo: Both teams are competing this week, but this time around we are facing a double elimination – one artist from each team will be eliminated and there will be no flash challenge this week. They will each transform their canvas into a warrior by tattooing shoulder armor (testing their texture skills) and they have to work in pairs (someone from their own team) as they tattoo both of the canvases shoulders at the same time.
The duos are chosen by the teams mentors (Chris Nunez and Oliver Peck) with Peck’s team tattooing leather armor and Nunez’s team tattooing metal armor. Pairs will be judged together, so this week there are no jury of peers.
Oliver Peck’s pairings: Gian and Gia, Mike and Ryan, Matt and Boneface, Nate and Dave.
Chris Nunez’s pairings: Eric and SketchyLawyer, Kevin and Tuff Tito, Kelly and Nikki, John and Sirvone.
While some of the artists are working together to make sure that both tattoos look similar, there are a few artists that are looking to out do the person they are tattooing with thinking that this is a head to head challenge more so then a work together challenge.
Judging: There were some really cool designs and even a few artists that really worked well together to make the tattoos look like the same person did them. Team Peck was up first and Gian and Gia were standouts for us, along with Ryan and Mike. Nate and Dave ended up in the bottom 2 for team Peck and they will tattoo against each other to see who stays and who goes home. Team Nunez calls the shots and the style they must tattoo is black and grey realism and the subject is animals. Now for team Nunez – our favorites were hands down Nikki and Kelly and it wasn’t even close. John and Sirvone were dropped into the bottom and it seems that the blue color they used for their “metal” look really sunk them. Team Peck chose what John and Sirvone will tattoo and it will be realistic black and grey animals as well.
Dave is really worried because he’s only done a few black and grey realism tattoos, where as these are Nate’s specialty. Was this strategy by the women to get Dave out? It sure was as they knew that Nate was going to blow this tattoo out of the water. Sirvone also has the upper hand in this one, because this is something he’s comfortable with where as John is more of an American traditional tattooer. So who did we lose tonight? Both John and Sirvone produced some beautiful tattoos, but Sirvone gave us our favorite tattoo of the season so far. Nate’s tattoo was incredible and blew Dave out of the water, but for a guy that doesn’t do black and grey realism, Dave did a great job. Unfortunately we lost both John and Dave tonight.
We were worried that Oliver and Chris were going to have troubles being unbiased when judging each other’s teams, but they did a great job tonight. Now that they are involved in the competition they are even more invested in making sure the right person gets the title. Of course they both want someone from their own team to win, so even though they are playing nice now, we are curious to see how it shakes out in the finale if there is someone from each of their teams there. Episode grade: B+
Who do you think should have been eliminated on tonight’s episode of “Ink Master”? Leave us a comment in the box below.