Ink Master season 12 episode 10 review: The sandwich vs. a robot
Yet, we learned through Tuesday night’s episode that there is such a thing as sandwich anatomy. Or, at least the judges are taking a close examination on whether or not your bread looks like how real bread should. Something so simple can come back to bite you if it’s not shaded in a realistic direction and that’s left Alexis packing up her machines and headed home.
Let’s backtrack here for a second. At the start of this episode, the remaining artists had an interesting task. They had to come up with a unique design for the other team to potentially do. The men, for example, had a chance to choose between some of the women’s designs, while the women had the tattoo creations from the men. Perhaps the most contentious moment of the entire first part of this challenge was seeing Cam have a mild freakout over the idea of Laura changing some elements of his dragon. It kind of made sense, though, given that Laura was doing a color version of the dragon, but there are certain things that just worked better in Cam’s head with a more black-and-gray sensibility. (Laura can’t read his mind!)
After these first tattoos were over, The artists then had to flip things around and tattoo their own designs. Following this, some of their art would be compared directly to some of the stuff from the first round. That created some problems, given that you had to show you could tattoo your art better than someone who you just handed your design to. Dani was in a unique position, given that nobody picked her original design; she just had to show it was worthwhile even if no one else wanted to do it.
We gotta say, in general, some of these artists came up with some really cool ideas. Take, for example, Laura’s robot, which was all sorts of awesome with its crazy eyes. (Laura’s a finalist, no? She has to be.) We really like Creepy Jason taking on the design, since he’s probably one of the few people in the competition who is on the same exact wavelength as Laura creatively. Meanwhile, Jason’s weird broccoli design had some appeal to it in its own right. Artistically, they’re two of the most fascinating contestants we’ve had in a while.
Some of the other artists could have done something a little bit flashier. For example, did we really need to see a tattoo of a spider? Probably not, since there are so many other original ideas that are out there. Even with Cam’s Dragon, it feels like there have been about a thousand dragons on Ink Master over the years. For the record, Cam did do a really good job with his Dragon once he was able to restore it to his original black and grey envisioning.
At the end of the episode, Jason was awarded tattoo of the day and understandably so given that both his broccoli creature and also his version of Laura’s robot were all sorts of incredible.
CarterMatt Verdict
This was a weird sort of episode when the dust settled. We would have liked to have seen the people who took creative risks rewarded a little bit more, just because that’s the sort of stuff that gets us excited on Ink Master. Yet, the judges really were looking for technical application just as much as anything else. That’s what got Alexis in trouble more so than Jake, who has played it kind of safe, but as applied most of his tattoos nicely. Alexis’ version of Jason’s broccoli creature just didn’t hold a candle to his, and then it all came back to her own sandwich design. There were too many application issues and she’s been in the bottom too many times. With that, the most experienced female artist is now gone.
Related News – Check out more Ink Master coverage, including a preview for what’s next
What did you think about Ink Master season 12 episode 10?
Did the rest artist go home to you? Be sure to share in the comments. (Photo: Paramount Network.)
This review was written by Jessica Carter. Follow her on Twitter here.