Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Finale)
By Victor Farinelli Well, the end is finally here. In the two-episode finale of this season of Ink Master, I have been left wondering the meaning of life. Well no, not really, but it has a good ring to it. Our contestants are finally whittled down to the last four. In the first of the two episodes, the contestants did not have to do a flash challenge. It was straight to the elimination challenge. They had to demonstrate all the different aspects of tattooing to see who gets to go to the live finale… (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episode 11)
By Victor Farinelli It is getting down to the wire. Just a few more episodes to go until one of the contestants gets a $100,000 paycheck they have to pay taxes on and a feature in Inked Magazine. “Inked.” I hate that term. It is just as bad as “human canvases.” Hey man, I am going to go down to the tat shop and get inked! YOLO! Then, I am going to go watch The Hobbit! FRODO! (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episode 10)
By Victor Farinelli
Just when I start to think that some of these cats are humble and are willing to learn, then they go say some arrogant stupid shit. The show starts off with Jesse fucking saying, “You know what coasting is? That is what I did for the Japanese challenge… I would rather lose for doing me than win for not doing me.” Then why the fuck did he want to be on the show? It’s not some fucking highfalutin serious goddamn art exposition. It is a fucking game show. Period. End of fucking explanation. I will take “Douche Bags” for $200 please, Alex. At the end of the season the winner gets a paycheck they have to pay taxes on. If you got into this for any other reason than the money, and being on TV, you are fucking fooling yourself. You do what you have to do to play the game because at the end of the day, that’s all this is… a game. If it was not on Spike, it would be on the Game Show Network… (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episode 9)
By Victor Farinelli
This week’s episode opens with Sarah bitching about the judges not giving her a good honest critic. I call bullshit. The judges have actually done a pretty good job of telling this motley crew what they did wrong and what they need to improve on. I have been in a lot of shops in my years and have observed a lot of apprentices on their road to Tattooville, and I have seen some who have been torn new assholes for the tattoos they have attempted to do… (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episode 8)
By Victor Farinelli
Ink Master is a train wreck and Sarah Miller is the engineer. As I said in my last post, she needs serious mood stabilizing medication. She is a shitstorm of manic depression. This episode is not different.
This episode was the black and gray challenge, and the special guest judge was Mr. Freddy Negrete. The twist this time around was that they had to work in teams. For the flash challenge, the contestants had to create an image on scratchboard. Since Tatu Baby was the winner of last week’s elimination challenge, she got to pick the teams for this flash challenge. She stuck Sarah with Mark “I got one foot out the door” Matthews. The other teams were Clint Cummings with Jamie Davis, Steve Tefft with Sebastian Murphy, and Tatu Baby with Jesse Smith… (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episode 7)
By Victor Farinelli
A long time ago in, in a galaxy far, far away… a girl needed lithium. Sarah Miller needs some serious medication. One minute, she is bouncing off the walls she is so excited, the next she is about to kill herself. She displayed this so well in this episode: The Star Wars challenge… (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episode 6)
By Victor Farinelli
Let’s celebrate the land of the free, home of the brave with GUNS! Sorta like banjos, only different. Episode VI was “all about attention to detail,” Dave Navarro emphasized. For the flash challenge, the contestants had to carve an image into the stock of a gun. Guns owned by real, meat-eating, beer-bellied, heart-diseased ‘Mericans! Where’s my Rascal scooter? (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episode 5)
By Victor Farinelli
Before I get started on the recap, I want to rattle some cages. There is some gab on the inter-webs about the contestants on Ink Master “stealing” tattoos from other artists. Don’t know if it is true or not, but some interesting tidbit came to my awareness that is kinda funny. Not funny: “ha-ha,” I mean funny “hmmmm.”
On Episode IV, Trey “Big Daddy” Benham did a piston with flames on his client’s arm for the new school challenge. It was a decent tattoo, one of the better ones I have seen of that kind of idea. Well, buzz-buzz, the inter-webs start throwing around the suggestion that this was actually taken, almost exactly, from a tattoo that was done by one of last year’s contestants, Jeremy Miller. So like the old “You Make the Call” segment on Monday Night Football… well, yeah; you make the call… (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episode 4)
By Victor Farinelli “Tattoo Her What?!” or “I am a Tattoo Artist That Leads a Sheltered Life.”
So the big hub-bub about this episode is that a gal wanted to get a phoenix coming out of her tunnel of love. It seems that all the artists thought this was over the top. They played this little segment on every preview. Come on folks. This is old hat. Dave Lum was thinking shit up like this all day in the late 80s/early 90s – and much better ideas I might add. Steve “throw the horns” Tefft asked, “Where do they get these people?” I think that they are in every town. One just hasn’t popped in your shop yet Mr. Tefft… (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episode 3)
By Victor Farinelli
This week’s episode is titled “80-Year-Old Virgin” or “I Have No Respect for Traditional Tattoos.”
You don’t have to be part of the skinhead retirement program to have respect for traditional tattoos. The masonic temple that is Western tattooing is built on its foundation. It is our history. I was looking forward to this challenge to see if all these photo-realism/new school scamps could pull off something that a lot of middle of the road, i.e. this glum lot, take for granted. In short, do not get a traditional tattoo from any of these wenches and scalawags. It hurt my head to watch it. The only redeeming value of this episode is that Richard Stell was a guest judge, and Oliver looks like he could give two-shits-and-a-fuck about being there. Riddle me this: Why does Dave Navarro always have duckface? It is a peculiar look… (more…)
Victor Farinelli: Ink Master Review (Episodes 1 & 2)
By Victor Farinelli
Let the madness begin! The second season of Ink Masters is upon us. Spike TV aired two episodes this last week for our viewing pleasure.
Episode One: Tattooing the Dead
Let’s start off with the season premiere titled “Tattooing the Dead” or “How bad can I fuck up a snake and dagger tattoo.” They start off with what they call the “flash” challenge. It’s usually a non-tattoo related challenge where the winner of the contest gets an advantage in the actual tattoo challenge… (more…)
Tattoo Artist Magazine: The Ink Master Interview
The Inkmaster Interview – Tattoo Artist Magazine from Richard Kennedy on Vimeo.
Victor Farinelli: ‘Ink Master’ Prologue
By Victor Farinelli On Tuesday October 9th, Ink Masters Season 2 begins. I am not here to say anything pro or con about this show or shows about tattooing in general. I am just a sucker for “reality” TV. I used to watch wrestling when I was a kid. That’s real, right? With that being said, I am here to give you the play-by-play as the color commentator on this season of Days of Our Lives: Tattoo Addition. A regular old “Mean” Gene Okerlund, if you will. Each week I am going to give a recap of each episode. From the funny, to the absurd, to Mr. Peck’s line-of-the-episode. It should be interesting to say the least. So before the show begins, let’s look at the players… (more…)
Ink Master Season 2 Sneak Peak
Courtesy of Spike TV: Spike has more skin in the game going into season two of its highest-rated original series Ink Master, which returns Tuesday, October 9 at 10 PM, ET/PT, with back-to-back one-hour episodes. This season the ante is raised, now with 16 top tattoo artists from around the country battling it out in permanent ink for a $100,000 grand prize, an editorial feature in the preeminent tattoo magazine Inked and the bragging rights title of ‘Ink Master.’ Following the Ink Master double episode premiere, new episodes will telecast Tuesdays at 10 PM, ET/PT and culminate with a LIVE season finale in December… Watch the trailer for Season 2 here: http://www.spike.com/video-clips/9scve2/ink-master-season-2-trailer (more…)
Shawn Barber: The Tattooed Portraits – An Outsider’s View of Another World
Story and photos by Mitch Gurowitz
My trip to the Joshua Liner Gallery for the opening of Shawn Barber’s Memoir: The Tattooed Portraits Series was yet another door opening into another world for me. I went there to view the work of a fine artist who specializes in painting tattooers and tattooed people. While I’m no stranger to art or to galleries, I’ve only recently joined the ranks of the tattooed a few months earlier as a celebration of my 50th birthday.
My mind skipped between the excitement of seeing Shawn’s artwork up close and meeting him and the subjects of some of his work, and also concern that the reception would be a gathering of a very exclusive and private group of professionals… A group that may not appreciate an outsider walking into their world… (more…)
Ink Master: Season 2 Casting in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Austin
Oliver Peck: Hey everyone, in case you didn’t see already they are casting for Season 2 of Ink Master. I have nothing to do with the casting process but would love to see some great tattooers on the show this season, I know a lot of good tattooers turned it down before, and I understand, but if you think you could be up for the challenge it is fuckin’ fun and an amazing experience. And of course the more good tattooers we get on here the better it is for the tattoo community. They are going to make this show with or without us… So might as well be with us!
Sweet
-Oliver
Ink Master: We are in search of highly skilled tattoo artists from across the country! If you have the creativity, artistic skills and personality to impress the judges, we want to meet you in person at one of our Open Casting Calls!
If you canʼt make it to an open call, please visit us at www.CastingInkMaster.com for details on how to submit a home video! For questions, please e-mail us at InkMaster2Casting@gmail.com… (more…)
Oliver Peck: Haters Gonna Hate
By Oliver Peck(er)
(Foreward by Crash)
We have finally convinced Oliver Peck to give us some regular blogs from the road. Everyone who knows O’Peck knows that he lives a rare sort of tattoo life, full of travel, adventure and goddamn great tattoos! He’s going to be sharing some of that with us… But before we even get going, I asked him to make a few comments on his personal experience of doing the Ink Master television show, just to get it out-of-the-way.
Personally, I’ll say that Oliver is one of the most genuine people you will ever meet, in any walk of life, and of ALL the tattooers I know, he’s the guy who should be on TV! A tattooer’s tattooer, bar-none!
-C
Dan Henk: Ink Master
By Dan Henk
So, let’s talk about the new tattoo show, Ink Master. It was originally pitched to me (as I’m sure it was to several artists) by a lady named Lisa. She said, and this is an almost direct quote, “We have people on this show like Jeff Gouge and Guy Aitchison. That’s who we’re talking to. Do you think you can compete?” (more…)
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