Ink Master: Angels review: Did Drew Shurtleff defeat Nikki Simpson?
For the second time this season, we feel like the person selected to do the angel face-off at the end of the episode ended up doing their worst work of the night there; this time around, it happened to Drew Shurtleff. We saw enough through his first two tattoos to know that this is a brilliant, super-artistic guy. Even though we don’t necessarily agree with all of his choices artistically, he delivers them with such a flair that you know he’s going to have his schedule booked up with plenty of clients.
Unfortunately, what happened to cause him to lose unanimously is pretty simple: He squared off against someone in Nikki Simpson who was an unstoppable force with her carved-from-stone tattoo, meant to honor a first responder from the Oklahoma City bombing more than two decades ago. While she could’ve added more texture that critique is somewhat of a nitpick, as this was one of the best tattoos we’ve seen from anyone so far this season. Drew suffered a lot tonight because of a canvas who clearly wasn’t comfortable with some of the pain, but even with that this design still wouldn’t have won out if it was close to perfect. from our vantage point, the blues in the hands were a little too similar to the star and it was a little difficult to get a full picture from afar as to what you were really looking at.
With this said, Drew showed tonight that he is strong when it comes to punching in color. He’s not going to give you a tattoo that fades over time. If he did work like he did in the first two challenges here, maybe he would’ve had a small shot at getting through … though that in itself is far from a certainty. He is still an artist who takes a ton of interesting risks and we wish that there was a way in which to see artists like him back in the franchise again. We’re hoping that some castoffs from Ink Master: Angels season 1 find their way onto Ink Master season 11; maybe Drew can be on season 12 even if he didn’t win a spot on season 11. We have a hard time thinking that producers will forget about him after this.
CarterMatt Verdict
It was cool to see the show head to Oklahoma City just because few other shows do, just like it was also cool to see a cameo in here from Frank Ready of this past season. He’s a really killer artist who should’ve stayed longer on this season.
In general, Ink Master: Angels continues to roll along. This was a good episode with some really good art, though it wasn’t exactly a challenge to predict who the winner was going to be at the end.
Related – Be sure to get some other reviews now from this season
What did you think about this Ink Master: Angels episode, and did the right person win in your eyes? Be sure to share below!
Meanwhile, you can also like CarterMatt on Facebook to secure more news, reviews, and so much more pertaining to the series. (Photo: Paramount Network.)