‘Ink Master’ season 3, episode 12 preview: Final 4 showcase their best and worst skills

We are already down to the final four on “Ink Master” season 3… doesn’t it feel like this season has just flown by? Even though we haven’t liked the judging style this season since most of it was wishy washy and favoring Tatu Baby, we still enjoyed the cast of artists that they had this year. So what tests are the artists facing this week to knock 4 down to 3?

The flash challenge portion of the competition is now over and next week has everyone tattooing the same canvas at once (poor canvas!). Not only that, but the artwork will be designed by some of the guest judges that we have seen this season (luckily they are all designed by tattoo artists and not some NFL pro with a bunch of tattoos claiming to be an expert) and they will only have 3 hours to complete it while testing every skill from line work to coloring, to finesse. What’s going to be great about this challenge (which you can see a sneak peek of over at Spike TV) is that they are going to each be given a design that will test their specific weakness (sorry Jime, no new school this time). After watching the judges hand hold Tatu Baby this season we were a little worried that she was going to be given an easy design that plays to her strengths with claims that it doesn’t, but we were pleasantly surprised when they didn’t do that.

After this challenge each artist will then immediately have 6 hours to tattoo a different human canvas with any design of their choice to show off their best work. We love the idea of showcasing their weakest tattooing skills with their best. It gives the audience at home a chance to see where their favorite artist is really lacking compared to what they are comfortable with. Pretty important since America’s vote counts in the end, don’t you think?

What is also great about this episode is that the human canvas jury is gone. We didn’t really like the idea of a bunch of people sitting in a room ripping each others tattoos apart, especially a few weeks ago when Kyle tattooed the image of the older woman and she was in tears over some of the things said about her face. Mostly we didn’t like this part of the show because it really had no bearing on if someone was eliminated or not. A few artists that made it to the final 5 (Tatu Baby and Joshua) had been voted the worst more then once by the jury and still made it to the final five.

If you missed last week’s episode of “Ink Master” season 3, and want to know who left just click here and all will be revealed.

Photo: Spike TV