Ink Master (season 4)

Ink Master (season 4)
Country of origin United States
No. of episodes 13
Release
Original network Spike
Original release February 25 (2014-02-25) – May 20, 2014 (2014-05-20)

Ink Master (season 4) is the fourth season of the Spike reality tattooing competition series, Ink Master. It premiered on February 25, 2014. The rules and format are similar to those of previous seasons. Kyle Dunbar, a contestant from the show's third season, returned. Season four follows seventeen tattoo artists competing in an elimination-style contest, with the winner receiving a $100,000 prize, a feature in Inked Magazine and the title of Ink Master.[1]

Judges, guest judges, and special appearances

The judging panel consists of three primary judges plus any guest judge for that episode if one is chosen. A guest judge is selected for an appearance and participation in some episodes. He or she collaborates with the judging panel to finalize the voting decision. In past seasons, the guest judge normally specialized in an area which the contestants were to be tested. Sometimes the guest judge was well versed in the skill presented in that episode.

Matti Hixson and Sausage are currently on Ink Master: Revenge (Season 7). Matti Hixson was introduced in Episode 4 and is still competing. Sausage was introduced in Episode 3 and was eliminated in Episode 9.

Judges

The judges for season four were Chris Núñez, Oliver Peck, and Dave Navarro who also serves as host of the show.

Guest judges

The guest judges this season have been Tommy Montoya (Episode 2), Carlos Torres (Episode 3), C.C. Sabathia (Episode 4), Hugh Jackman (Episode 5), Greg Christian (Episode 6), Freddy Corbin (Episode 7), Rob Zombie (Episode 8), Brandon Rios (Episode 9), Luke Wessman (Episode 10), and Horitaka (Episode 11). Brandon Rios is the only judge to serve on the flash challenge and elimination challenge judging panels.

Guest appearances

Joey Hamilton made a guest appearance in the live finale. He applied a tattoo to a client during the live broadcast.

Judging and ranking

The ranking of the artists on Ink Master this season is similar to seasons past. The artist with the best tattoo, as deemed by the judges, wins the challenge. The one that is the worst is sent home. The number of wins combined does not affect ranking, but a win affects the ranking for that episode only. A contestant can be on the verge of elimination the entire season, and still theoretically win the title of Ink Master, so long as they produce at minimum, a better tattoo than another artist up to the final challenge. Minor changes in the judging and associated rules have occurred throughout the seasons in order to attempt to keep the audience's interest. The changes are usually made to try to enhance the anticipation, and to try to keep the viewer's attention longer by adding suspense.

Judging panel

The judging panel is responsible for passing judgement on each artist. They collaborate and use information from their own perception, the audience vote, human canvas vote, and the winner's worst vote to determine who should be sent home. Weight of decisions is set by the terms of the challenge skill.

Audience voting

Audience voting which was introduced in season two is done through Facebook and Twitter, using the tattoo's available for vote on the Ink Master website. The audience vote directly affects the contestant lineup for the following season. Based on highest vote count, the audience decided on the return.

Human canvas voting

The canvases for the challenge gather after the tattoos are completed and vote on the best and worst of the days tattoos. While the primary judges have the final say, the weight of the canvas vote does affect the final decision of the judging panel.

Winner's worst vote

The winner of each elimination challenge is asked to pick an artist that he or she believes should be sent home based on their performance in the episode. However, this is not always the case. Some winners have selected persons for elimination who had applied a tattoo that was ranked among the top. The winner may pull his or her personal feelings and interpretations into their vote, as happened is episode three. Winner's Worst voting was introduced in season four.

Win or lose

The show has a basic format that is present in all episodes. Contestants compete on a scale to test each ones skill over the various aspects of the art of tattooing. In competition there are winners and losers. For Ink Master, this presents a challenge, as you can only have one winner in the end, and it can be very difficult to determine a winner when you have multiple people each doing a different tattoo. To determine the winner, the judges must decide who has the best tattoo, but the tattoo must follow the guidelines for the skill being tested. For example, a contestant will lose if they create a wonderful cartoon flower tattoo with smooth shading and solid line work if the skill being tested was creating a human pinup or portrait. To win, a contestant must out-do each of the other artists in the challenge while adhering to the skill chosen for the challenge. The best one will win. The worst will be eliminated.[2]

Contestants and progress

These tables indicate the placement of each artist throughout the season.

Flash challenge progress

Episode Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Most wins
Flash Challenge
Winner
None Halo Roland
Sausage
Bubba
Scott Matti Matti Halo Halo
Scott
Scott None Halo Halo
4 wins

Elimination challenge progress

Artist Name[3] Years
Experience
Residence 1 c2 2 c3 3 4 5 6 c4 7 8 9c7 10 11 12 13
Scott Marshall 16 Chicago, Illinois IN IN HIGH WIN WIN HIGH HIGH IN IN WIN LOW IN INK MASTER
Walter "Sausage" Frank 14 Las Vegas, Nevada IN IN WIN HIGH HIGH WIN IN WIN IN LOW IN WIN RUNNER UP
Matti Hixson 12 Virginia Beach, Virginia IN IN IN HIGH IN HIGH IN IN WIN LOW WIN IN FINALIST
"Halo"c1 Jankowski 11 Baltimore, Maryland IN IN HIGH IN HIGH IN WIN LOW IN WIN EDGE OUT
Melissa Monroe 6 Farmington, Wisconsin IN IN IN IN IN HIGH LOW LOW LOW F/O OUT
"Gentle Jay" Blondel 15 Massapequa, New York IN IN IN IN LOW IN LOW IN LOW OUT
Lydia Bruno 11 Albany, New York IN IN IN IN LOW IN IN OUT
Kyle Dunbar 19 Genesee County, Michigan IN IN HIGH IN IN IN LOW DQ
Jim Francis 13 Milwaukee, Wisconsin IN IN IN HIGH IN LOW OUT
Josh "King Ruck" Glover 7 Las Vegas, Nevada IN IN LOW LOW IN LOW OUT
Aaron "Bubba" Irwin 8 Scottsdale, Arizona IN IN LOW LOW IN OUT
Keith Diffenderfer 14 York, Pennsylvania IN IN IN IN LOW OUT
Roland Pacheco 9 Hawi, Hawaii LOW LOW EDGEc5 LOW OUT
Randy Vollink 9 Mesa, Arizona LOW LOW LOW OUT
David Bell 21 Fredericksburg, Virginia IN IN OUT
Ashley Bennett 7 South Windsor, Connecticut IN QUIT
Damon Butler 4 Boston, Massachusetts OUT

Credit Order: Sausage, Scott, Melissa, Jim, Bubba, Gentle Jay, Matti, King Ruck, David, Lydia, Halo, Randy, Ashley, Damon, Roland, Keith, Kyle

<span style="background-color:white "legend"; color:; border:1px solid darkgray; text-align:center;">    Legend
 INKMASTER  The contestant won the competition and was named Ink Master.
 RUNNER UP  The contestant was the runner-up on Ink Master.
 WIN  The contestant won best tattoo of the week.
 HIGH  The contestant was given an honorable mention in the judges recall.
 HIGH  The contestant was considered to be among the top.
 LOW  The contestant was considered to be in the bottom.
 LOW  The contestant was among the bottom group in the judges recall.
 LOW  The contestant was voted worst artist by the human canvas jury.
 LOW  The contestant was voted worst artist by the human canvas jury, selected for elimination by the challenge winner, and ranked low by the judges in the recall.
 F/O  The contestant won the face-off.
 EDGE  The contestant was selected for elimination by the elimination challenge winner, however not eliminated.c5
 OUT  The contestant was eliminated from the competition.
 OUT  The contestant was voted worst by the human canvas jury and was also eliminated by the judges.
 OUT  The contestant was chosen worst by the elimination challenge winner and was also eliminated by the judges.
  OUT  The contestant was chosen worst by the elimination challenge winner, chosen worst in the human canvas vote, and was also eliminated by the judges.
 QUIT  The contestant quit the competition.
 DQ  The contestant was disqualified from the competition.

Progress Table notes:

^Note c1 : Full name of contestant not given.
^Note c2 : There was no HIGH placement in the judges' recall.[4]
^Note c3 : Ashley quit the competition before final judgment. Ashley was also chosen for elimination by the judges. No winner was chosen.[5]
^Note c4 : This elimination challenge was performed in teams, however each tattoo was evaluated individually. There were two artists eliminated this episode.
^Note c5 : The status of EDGE was created to differentiate from the LOW category, where a LOW faced elimination based on performance in relation to the established criteria for the challenge. The elimination challenge winner may select his candidate for elimination based on personal feelings, not necessarily the performance of the artist in the episode associated with the rating of EDGE. Episode 3 is an example of this scenario.
^Note c6 : Before the flash challenge, Kyle was disqualified due to his physical altercation with Chris Nunez, who said in the previous episode that he should have been at the bottom.
^Note c7 :No contestant was eliminated this week.

Episodes

Episodes begin with a flash challenge which is a task that usually does not deal with tattooing itself, but has the contestants utilize skills which are related to tattooing in an unusual way. Most of the time the skills highlighted in the flash challenge will be needed to complete the elimination tattoo. The winner of the flash challenge gets to pick which human canvas they would like to tattoo during the elimination tattoo and assign each contestant their canvas. For the elimination challenge, once the canvases are assigned,the contestants are given the 'rest of the evening' to meet with their canvas before tattooing them. On the day of elimination, the artist will be given a set amount of time to apply the tattoo the canvas and artist decided on the prior evening. Once the time expires, the judging panel reviews the works and the best tattoos of the week are recognized, the weak tattoos are pointed out, and one contestant is eliminated from the competition.[2]

Episode 1: Earn it!

(aired on February 25, 2014.[4])

Episode 2: Bug Out

(aired on March 4, 2014.[5])

Episode 3: Tatt Ganged

(aired on March 11, 2014.[6])


The Critique: Overall the judges were somewhat optimistic after the previous grillings they had given to the artists.

Episode 4: Nude & Tattooed

(aired on March 18, 2014.[7])



The Critique: This challenge presented some issues to the various artists. The judges had some designs they liked, and others they did not.

The judges said that Scott executed good placement and had well shaded, well feathered, had applied an artistically pleasing design with a lot of depth.

Matti was slightly criticized for the black at the top but overall, a well done, nicely shaded bold tattoo with great line-work.

The judges thought Kyle was able to get a lot of detail one part of his design, but not in all, giving it an unfinished look.

Jim had a nice drawing and put small extra touches within the tattoo which made it look great.

Keith's tattoo was hard to read, due to the anchor and snake being of the same tone.

The judges felt that Halo had some issues when the flow of the design. He was also hit for his line-work

The judges said that Melissa's design appeared dull and unappealing.

King Ruck's tattoo was just a shark and a seal, with little to no indication that it was happening underwater. He received criticism for playing it too safe.

Roland received criticism from the judges because his overall design was poor. He had colors that were not solid and color blends that are not smooth.

Lydia received praise for her placement however the colors of her design hurt her.

Jay's overall result was decent, but the judges felt that the detail was lacking.

Bubba's critique was not what he expected. The judges said that he had a poorly drawn and executed design.

Sausage drew some awe from the judges. He was praised for having amazing drawing, detail and his placement made him shine brighter than the design itself.

Randy rolled out the session with weak outlines. The judges thought his work was too large for the amount of detail he applied. He also was coached about his color saturation levels.

Episode 5: X-Men's Hugh Jackman

(aired on March 25, 2014.[8])

Episode 6: 2-on-1 Tat-Astrophe

(aired on April 1, 2014[9])

Episode 7: Artist Slaughter

{aired on April 8, 2014.[10])



Episode 8: Ink Master Explosion

(aired on April 15, 2014.[11])

Episode 9: Fighting Dirty

(aired April 22, 2014.[12])

Episode 10: Tag Team Tatt

(aired April 29, 2014.[13])

Episode 11: Karma's a Bitch

(aired May 6, 2014)

Episode 12: Fight to the Finish

(aired May 13, 2014)

Episode 13: Ink Master Live

(aired May 20, 2014)

Scott Marshall's Death

On October 27, 2015, it was reported that Scott Marshall died in his sleep due to heart issues the night before. The autopsy on November 14, 2015 showed that Marshall died of an accidental heroin overdose.I[14][15] He leaves behind his wife, Johanna, and three children. He was 41 years old.[16]

References

Notes

  1. "Meet the Contestants of "Ink Master" Season 4 – Premieres Tues., Feb 25 « Spike Press". Spike.com. 2014-01-14. Retrieved 2014-04-29.
  2. 1 2 "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes". Spike. Retrieved 2014-05-21.
  3. "Ink Master Bios: Season Four". Spike TV. Retrieved 2014-03-02. Blondel's last name given at his bio capsule
  4. 1 2 "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | Earn It!". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  5. 1 2 "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | Bug Out". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  6. "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | Tatt Ganged". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  7. "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | Nude & Tattooed". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  8. "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | X-Men's Hugh Jackman". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  9. "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | 2 On 1 Tat-Astrophe". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  10. "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | Artist Slaughter". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  11. "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | Ink Master Explosion". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  12. "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | Fighting Dirty". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  13. "Ink Master | Tattoo Competition Reality Show | Full Episodes | Spike | Tag Team Tatt". SPIKE. Retrieved 2014-04-27.
  14. http://www.tmz.com/2015/10/27/ink-master-winner-dead/
  15. http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/scott-marshalls-ink-master-costars-mourn-his-death-20152710
  16. http://www.inkedmag.com/ink-master-scott-marshall-dead-at-41/

External links

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