In a heated battle off words the ink war continues.  This week, tempers flared and arguments ensued   on “Ink Master” when Hail Mani aired Tuesday, September 8th. As a strategy to knock Chris Blinston out of the competition Matt O’Baugh enlightened Tyler Nolan to the fact that Chris is only loyal to himself. He felt he would surely throw him to the wolves as he did with last weeks eliminated contestant and alliance member Dave Clark. Tyler, being a loyalist, decided to trust his ten year friendship with Chris and proceeded to put a target on Matt’s head.

For this week’s challenge, the artists had to create permanent matching micro tattoos on the canvas’ finger nails. They needed to demonstrate consistency by creating two different tattoos on each hand.  Matt felt that he had an edge on this challenge because he tattooed his own nails before. Duffy chose patterns which were very consistent while Craig decided to add slight variation in his artistry which caused an issue with the judges seeing that he did not meet the challenge. Katie’s consistency with shapes was an issue causing her to fail the challenge as well. In the end, having good placement and very strong consistency Tyler easily won the challenge.

For the elimination challenge Tyler decided to retaliate with his skull picks by gunning for Matt and Craig. He followed his gut and decided to keep his alliance with Chris strong. The challenge would be a head -to -head with a winner and a loser. Each artist had to tattoo a world renowned painting on their canvas. Painting such as “Starry Night”, “Birth of Venus” and “The Scream” were chosen by the canvases. These paintings are some of the most recognizable in the world. The tattoos needed to be perfectly replicated down to the details.  Carter Foster, a curator for the Whitney museum was the guest judge for the challenge. Carter was there to ensure the works looked authentic.

Tyler strategically chose the most difficult canvas for Katie, Craig and Matt. Tyler gunned for Katie in an attempt to get to Matt. He also placed Chris and Matt head to head with the belief that Matt would lose. Matt’s canvas could not take the pain and sweated the stencil creating additional challenges. Choosing Craig to compete against himself Tyler sent out a clear message that he and Chris wanted him out of the competition. Once again, Craig failed in the challenge by taking liberties in his artwork. In the end, Matt, Katie and Kruseman lost the challenge and were called back to be judged.

As the judges analyzed each element of each tattoo, Katie was found to have not paid attention to details and had a very sloppy feel in her artistic translation. Matt’s outline missed the mark and Kruseman’s consistency did not translate which his artistic choices. In the end, after judging based on overall work over the entire competition Katie was sent packing. After the 11th challenge, 7 artists remain.

  • Chris Blinston (@ChrisBlinston) – Owner/artist at No Hard Feelings in Coral Springs, FL
  • Erik Campbell (@erikcampbelltat) – Owner/artist at Black Pearl Tattoo in Grand Junction, CO
  • Duffy Fortner (@duffyfortner) – Artist at Red Octopus Tattoos in Prince Frederick, MD
  • Craig Foster (@skinwerks) – Owner at Skinwerks Tattoo in Carrollton, GA
  • Kruseman (@davekruseman) – Owner at Oldeline Tattoo in Hagerstown, MD
  • Tyler Nolan (@_tylernolan) – Artist at Vatican Tattoos in Ft. Lauderdale, FL
  • Matt O’Baugh (@mattobaugh) – Owner at Black Cobra Tattoos in Sherwood, AR

Coming up on next week’s episode: The Artists join forces with inspiring guests in an eye-opening, high stakes challenge and Chris forces an Artist to prove loyalty. Painful throat tattoos throw Artists off their game. Don’t miss SLITTING THROATS when it airs Tuesday, September 15th, 2015.

For a first-look at the new episode, please click here