Legends Return : Ink master Season 14 Ep.1
by Derek Paradis
So here we go! Episode 1 was about speed and versatility so I’m gonna do three posts about it rather than doing it all at once. The ten artists encountered a three-round gauntlet where in the first round, the artists had to tattoo a 60-minute line drawing created by the judges, and based on that, Hiram Casas, Katie McGowan and Chris Shockley tattooed Ryan Ashley’s design of a jeweled beaded snowflake with straight lines and perfect circles and none of the artists earned safety from that tattoo. Also, Pon, Bob Jones, and Gian Karle tattooed Ami James’s design of a Japanese mask Hyottoko and Gian earned safety. Also, Angel Rose, Holli Marie, Creepy Jason, and Deanna James tattooed Nikko Hurtado color realistic line drawing of an all-seeing eye in a heart and Deanna earned safety.
Tattoos by Deanna James & Gian Karle
In the second round of the gauntlet, the 8 artists continuing ( Gian Karle and Deanna James were safe) had to make creative tattoos in some of the most difficult areas to tattoo. Angel Rose created a colorful new school broccoli monster with cheddar cheese riding on it with a sword with awesome composition and saturated color theory and details on the knee ditch; Hiram Casas created a new school zombie bride rubber ducky which I thought was super artistic and creative and super saturated and impressive for a black-and-grey artist; Pon created a new school 45 pound weight flexing it’s muscles in the armpit with awesome color saturation and perfect placement; and Creepy Jason created a new school bike pedal assembly in the shape of a Rottweilers’ head with a Mohawk with awesome textures and creative ingenuity and all four were safe to live another day. On page 2, Bob Jones created a skull with skin rips on the foot in which the judges said it was too dark; Chris Shockley created a clipper ship on fire with pirate clowns to which the judges were on the fence for giving him safety but he decided he wanted to earn it rather than be given it and I respected the hell out of that; Katie McGowan created a dead moth on the head which the judges thought there was no wow factor and Holli Marie created a series of flowers with anatomical facial features in the Center of the flowers but a lack of contrast was there.
Tattoos by Hiram Casas, Angel Rose, Creepy Jason, Pon
In the final round of the gauntlet, the six artists who were safe from elimination assigned Holli Marie and Katie McGowan traditional Japanese and Bob Jones and Chris Shockley color realism ( the styles they didn’t choose from the first round ). So Katie created a traditional Japanese frog holding leaves and the outline is super clean and crisp and solid and the colors are bright; Holli created a peony flower with leaves and the judges said it was clean and colored in solid but the leaves could’ve had a more wow factor and both girls were out of the running for elimination. Bob created a color realistic portrait of his favorite pet, a Corgi and he hit textures and color saturation and dimension but the judges thought it was a little unfinished and some parts of the mouth and ear were questionable; Chris did a color realistic poison dart frog and the judges said that he hit some cool textures, but there was no contrast in the face and was less unappealing and the judges decided to eliminated Chris. I think Chris put up an amazing fight and I really respect that he wanted to earn safety fair and square rather than no fairness at all and there are no losers today. Great job y’all and great fight Chris.
Tattoos by Chris Shockley, Bob Jones