Ink Master season 11 episode 3 review: Is it all about the canvas?

Ink Master

Ink Master is a competition where skill plays an enormous role in how far you go, however it’s also clear that luck is just as important. Sometimes, you get stuck with a design that is hard to execute, but even in this situation you do have some control over how you go at it.

However, what you don’t have any control over is the canvas — or at least the behavior of them once they are chosen. Even if on paper you think that they will be good, you don’t know how receptive they are going to be to pain or just sitting for a long period of time.

In the case of Tiara Gordon on Tuesday night’s new episode of the series, it was clearly the canvas that did her in. While her base design may not have been perfect, she was forced to dramatically reduce it after her canvas wouldn’t stay still. With that in mind, the end result of her tattoo was just a fraction of what it was originally supposed to be. Her elimination is sad given that we do think she is a much stronger artist than her placement this season shows.

Also, all things considered her elimination was still somewhat of a surprise. Just remember for a minute here that Oba created a tattoo that was described by most of the judges as just unappealing. Maybe technically it didn’t have too many issues, but it just wasn’t an easy tattoo to look at. While Tiara’s tattoo was very much incomplete, at the same time we did think that it had some merit.

For Christian Buckingham, tonight has to be considered somewhat of a win. His team managed to pick someone off of Cleen Rock One’s team and with that, there’s a level field moving forward again. Yet, we are still worried about Christian’s team in that there seems to be a couple weak links here that aren’t there with Cleen’s team.

Related – Check out our exclusive interviews with Christian Buckingham and Cleen Rock One!

CarterMatt Verdict

Losing good tattoo artists early is always lousy to watch, but we will give Ink Master credit tonight for delivering some good drama and a reason to have some fun debates with friends this week over the elimination. They may have also brought you one of the hardest Flash Challenges ever courtesy of what ended up happening with the domino rally. Tying to design something attractive was hard enough, but then trying to make all of these dominoes stand up was impossible.

Did the right person go home on Ink Master season 11 episode 3? Let us know right now in the comments!

Also, remember to like CarterMatt on Facebook in the event you want more reviews, previews and interviews with the eliminated artists. (Photo: Paramount Network.)

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