Cross-Stitch Tattoos Take Center Stage on This Week’s Episode of Ink Master

After losing Pony Wave in last week’s episode, the teams were split 7-to-6. And for this week, the veteran coaches were back to help their teams to victory. This episode, it was season 4 and 7’s Sausage, as well as, season 6’s Duffy who returned to the set. And for their flash challenge, the men and women’s teams were tasked with engraving designs into a full metal suit of armor, showing consistency throughout the design.

The men’s team was first up to be judged on their flash challenge, with Oliver Peck complimented the big, open shapes in the design. The women’s team on the other hand approached the challenge with finer and more delicate details, which Chris Nunez appreciated. In the end, the judges determined that the men had won the flash challenge, which gave them the opportunity to assign the skull picks this week.

For this week’s elimination tattoo challenge, the prompt was cross-stitch and the judges would be looking for consistent line work to convey the design concept.

First up, Cam was praised for the soft shading in the eye and Peck complimented the clean, crisp line work in the cross-stitch pattern.

Pon struggled when it came to creating a design that read as cross-stitch and was knocked on the inconsistency in the leaves.

“A cross-stitch volcano, what a mess,” said Nunez of Tito’s design. And while he did see a cross-stitch approach to his design, Tito was again knocked on the application of the tattoo.

Front runner Fon dropped the ball this week, facing critiques for not nailing the challenge and inconsistent line work that made the tattoo look messy.

Jake’s tattoo was called “totally wild” by Peck, but not in a good way. This heavy hitter was knocked for almost every aspect of the design, from the skull to the flame to the cross-stitch pattern.

Navarro enjoyed the creativity in Creepy Jason’s tattoo, appreciating the mixing of styles. However, Nunez did note that the Xs were inconsistent throughout.

Onto the women’s team, Ashley was told that her tattoo was difficult to read when it came to the cross-stitch elements and the shading in the face was rough.

Alexis had another rough week, with the judges knocking the varying colors and sizes of the cross-stitch pattern.

Ash failed when it came to understanding the prompt, creating what Nunez called a “fishnet mouth.” He also noted her tattoo had tonality issues and the line work was inconsistent.

Although Laura didn’t nail the cross-stitch approach, she was told that her tattoo was very clean.

Holly’s tattoo embodied the spirit of the challenge and won the judges over in the consistency category as well.

Janelle succeeded in her ability to blend cross-stitch with a realistic image and the judges appreciated her ability to create dimension using different colored Xs.

“I hate this tattoo, because people are going to want this shit,” said Nunez of Dani’s design, which was simple and solidly applied.

When it came down to picking Best Tattoo of the Day, it was Cam who took home another win for the men’s team. This gave the men’s team the opportunity to put an artist up for elimination, with the artist’s selecting Ash. Ash was joined by Ashley and Jake in the bottom three and although there were reasons for each of them to go home for their tattoos this week, Ashley was eliminated. This meant that Duffy would be going to the live finale to compete against the coaches for $25,000.

What do you think of this week’s episode? Did Cam’s tattoo deserve to win tattoo of the day? Did Ashley deserve to be sent home? Let us know your thoughts on this episode in the comments section.