Ink Master season 12 episode 11 review: Was the right artist eliminated?
Let’s just start off with the elimination at the end of the episode, largely because it feels like that’s the thing everyone will be talking about the most after all of this. Did the right artist go home? If you were to just look at the tattoos themselves, we’ll say that Janelle’s version of a big cat tattoo was much more visually appealing than what Cam threw out there. He did a lion without much of a mane and it was hard to quite figure out what was going on in its mouth. Also, Janelle’s tattoo had some really nice color-play going on in it.
Yet, in the eyes of the judges, there were a number of different little issues with Janelle — with a lack of texture being one. Yet, can’t you argue that some of that was an artistic choice, since she wasn’t necessarily going for a photo-realistic jaguar? Cam did do a lot of nice things capturing the fur and the ferocity of the lion, and we’ll say that his design probably had a higher degree of difficulty. With that said, a lot of these were difficult given that we’re talking about cover-ups. These are always difficult since you don’t want them coming across looking like that’s what it is.
So while the elimination may be controversial — unless you consider overall body of work, where Cam may have had an edge — was there more of a unified choice for Tattoo of the Day? We do think so, given that Creepy Jason’s owl was pretty awesome. He had a really big challenge having to create such a huge tattoo of an owl, and he managed to make it both an effective cover-up and something that works really well in its own right as a piece of art. It showed a lot of versatility, and that’s probably the only reason Laura didn’t get more attention. Her tattoo was awesome, but there are so many alien-related things that the judges can see before they start to blend together (or they assume that you’re one of the people trying to storm Area 51).
Should Janelle have listened to Josh Payne?
Josh was the mentor for the women’s team and one of the things the show gave us tonight was some footage of her going against a lot of what he suggested her to do. Granted, he didn’t have the best bedside manner through most of it, since he chose to remind her in the midst of her decision-making that her going home could lead to him not getting to tattoo at the finale (because that’s her motivation for winning of course)… and that’s what happened here.
So should Janelle have listened to Josh? The short answer there is “hard to say,” since we didn’t see the full version of what the tattoo would be with his suggestions. Yet, for the women it has to be frustrating to lose here given that they won the Flash Challenge and had a chance to really make some waves.
CarterMatt Verdict
This isn’t the first Ink Master episode with a polarizing finish and guess what? It won’t be the last. These sort of things are just a natural part of the game at this point and we’ve come to expect them. What we do want to know moving forward now is if the guys can keep the momentum from the past few weeks, or if the women can rally back and start to get some of the guys out the door once more.
Related News – Be sure to get some more news on Ink Master, including a preview for what’s next
What did you think about Ink Master season 12 episode 11 overall?
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This review was written by Jessica Carter. Be sure to follow her on Twitter.