Ink Master: Grudge Match (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 8 - Technical Chops - full transcript
Robbed artists face the artists that robbed them as Season 11's Gonzo battles Austin Rose, and Matt Buck and Katie Rhoden rehash their feud from Season 10.
male announcer: In 12
jaw-dropping seasons
of "Ink Master,"
we've witnessed
amazing artists,
insane rivalries,
and wild personalities.
- Any [bleep] camera
follows me,
I swear to God,
I don't even give a [bleep].
I will break
that mother[bleep].
announcer: Now, three
iconic Ink Master champions,
Ryan Ashley, DJ Tambe,
and Cleen Rock One,
have risen to judge status,
deciding grudges
between some of
the competition's
most furious rivals.
- We gonna hash it out
like grown men,
or are you gonna
get in my face again?
- Let's tattoo!
announcer: These foes
will have the opportunity
to settle the score,
once and for all.
- I'm gonna be in your face.
- I'm gonna be in your face.
- Guys, guys, guys, guys,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!
I don't think
that grudge is over.
I think it just got worse.
announcer:
Tonight, two epic grudges
will come to a head.
It's artists who felt robbed
versus the artists
who robbed them.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
In our first grudge match,
season 11's Gonzo
was sent home first,
while Austin Rose was spared.
- On the day that I went home,
it should have been you.
You better believe
I'm coming for blood today.
- You have a mad style,
and I'm not here
to hide from it.
- God damn, that sounds like
a [bleep] fight to me.
announcer: Now,
Gonzo's looking
to prove his superiority.
- I got some plans for you.
- And I ain't scared of shit.
So bring whatever
you got to bring, dog.
- I definitely have a little
bit of history with these guys.
Austin, he ended up on my team.
And he got under everybody's
skin on Team Christian,
and we actually used that
to our advantage.
- Gonzo was on
the opposite team, so you--
- Yes.
- I mean, you guys--
did you go after him?
I mean, he's a pretty
strong player, right?
- We looked at Gonzo
as a very good tattooer,
but he showed up with not one
single line that was done well.
So Gonzo went out first.
- Dude, yours is beat.
I couldn't believe it.
- I don't know
what you mean by beat.
- Like, those lines were beat.
- You know damn well you do not
deserve to be here right now.
- I [bleep] deserve to be here.
- You know you're the weak one.
You are not at the level--
- You think I'm weak.
And you know what,
you can keep believing that.
- You showed me you're weak.
- We'll see, won't we?
- Gonzo, you do not have what
it takes to be Ink Master.
[dramatic music]
- Gonzo, he definitely
feels like he got robbed
because in his head,
he is the best tattooer
ever to step foot
on this competition.
- Great tattooers
have bad days.
And when that happens--
- For sure.
- They're gonna come back in
with a vengeance.
[rock music]
- I just opened
this big, brand-new,
4,000 square foot studio.
This is my first time stepping
out and owning a shop.
I created a place
that I wanted
everyone to enjoy being at.
So that way, you're in
the right environment
to create the
best art possible.
Knowing that I
had you and everyone,
it makes it that much easier.
It's just creating a place
where all of us can thrive.
- Perfect environment
to work in.
- Austin was in the bottom.
Like, he barely made a team.
I want to show the world
that just because
he stayed longer than me
by some mystery fluke,
does not mean that he's
a better artist than me.
I've been thinking
about this non-stop
since the day that I packed
my bags on season 11,
that if I had the opportunity,
I was going to beat
and humiliate this kid.
And I plan on doing
all of that.
♪ ♪
- I can tattoo at a high level,
I can fix my car,
and I can make a spaghetti
squash a la puttanesca
like nobody's business.
Hand me a flat-head.
- Here.
- Oh, sick.
A lot of tattooers
like to work on cars.
They kind of go hand-in-hand.
I definitely don't have
a grudge against
anybody who went out
before me.
I went out 7th.
Gonzo's the guy that went out
on the first challenge.
I'm pretty sure I got this.
- Here he is.
- Oh, there's--
- Oh.
- Hell yeah.
I am back.
And this place looks
[bleep] classy.
- There he is.
- What is that moustache?
- Yeah, I am home.
I'm ready to do this.
- Do you think Gonzo's
gonna walk in
and just start
popping off at the mouth?
- Oh, yeah.
- Letting out some helium.
- Oh, yeah.
- Oh, here we go.
- Oh.
- They let you back
in here, huh?
- [laughs]
He's [bleep] right here.
- Ooh, floated in on
that balloon head.
- Called me out, huh?
- Yeah.
I figured you all
got to take your shot
and it landed pretty hard.
So you better believe
I'm coming for blood today.
- Yeah, I'm ready
for this battle, man.
- The bullshit's
thick in that room.
- I'm gonna take you out.
I don't mean to be a dick,
but you're gonna go home
without that W.
- I don't think so, man.
On the day that I went home,
it should have been you.
- All right, let's go see
what's going on.
- Yeah, let's--I'm--
I'm excited about this.
- All right.
- Okay, let's do it.
- Everybody thought
I was gonna just be gone
one of the first tattoos,
and I stayed around
longer than anybody expected.
And you know why?
Because I'm a fighter, man.
- Hey, guys.
- Here we go.
- This is gonna be good.
- I'm ready to just
kick some ass.
- Hey, that's the Austin
I know.
- I'm here to win, man.
- I feel like
it was a team thing.
He doesn't have his team.
He doesn't have Cleen.
He doesn't have all these
people in his ear helping him.
It's just me and him now.
- Or hurt me.
- I'm gonna be honest, man.
I do feel a lot of ego.
You have to back it up, and you
have to not make excuses.
- I am not defending
that tattoo.
I learned from that.
I've been watching that.
I've been thinking about that
ever since that happened.
So that's why
I'm coming back now
and trying to set it right.
- Gonzo's a
badass mother[bleep]
when it comes to tattooing.
I will not take that from him.
I'm excited to go up against
somebody of his caliber,
because it'll show that
I belong in the competition.
- We just want this to be
an even playing field.
- Yeah.
- So today,
we're gonna give you guys
a 90-minute face-off tattoo
- Yes.
- Where we determine
what both of you guys
are gonna be tattooing.
- The winner of
today's face-off
will have the ability
to determine
either the style
or the subject matter
of tomorrow's six hour
grudge match tattoo.
- And the winner of that
grudge match ends it all.
Squashed.
- That's all I came for.
- This is the time to
set the record straight, guys.
- I'm here to bring it, man.
I didn't come here
to like, get steamrolled, so.
- And I came with
something to prove.
- So what do you think
we're gonna get them to do?
- I think we should really test
the line work on these guys.
- That's fundamentals
right there, at its finest.
- Let's do geometric.
- Why don't we do
geometric animals?
- Yeah, like a little
geometric animal head.
- Liners only.
- Liners only.
- No curved lines.
- So you guys
have to do 90-minute
geometric animal head tattoos
using just a liner.
- Surprise us.
- Sounds like
a little piece of heaven.
- All right, well, get to work.
Let's go.
- Yes, sir.
- Man, oof.
Just lines.
It's gonna be a tough one.
- 90 minutes
is what I do, Gonzo.
I hope you got this, man.
I know you do
pretty long tattoos.
- It should be easy for you
to draw an animal head.
You can just do
a self-portrait.
- All these straight lines?
You good at pulling
straight lines?
I'm really good at it.
- Is there any other
kind of line to pull?
- I'm wondering what your
line work actually looks like.
- Well, you're about
to find out, now.
[dramatic music]
announcer: In our
second grudge,
season 10
master illustrator Matt Buck
went home before the
lower-ranked Katie Rhoden.
- You know your tattoo
robbed me of my rightful shot.
- But at least I can tattoo.
- Ooh.
- Oh, man.
announcer: Now they'll
battle head-to-head.
Artist versus technician.
- This is one of the coolest
tattoos that I've ever done.
- Your line work was trash.
- Baloney.
[dramatic music]
- This is gonna be
a frickin' rumble, dude.
Matt was on my team.
I would say
he's one of
the best illustrators
to ever hit "Ink Master."
- Katie came out swinging
in the beginning
of that season, too, right?
- I mean, her first tattoo
out of the gate
was her best one
the whole season.
- Yeah, they specialize
in two completely different
opposite ends of the spectrum.
- Matt's a classically-trained
illustrator.
- Yeah.
- But when it comes
to tattooing,
he's inexperienced.
- Yeah, that plays a huge part,
because it's a totally
different medium.
- Matt went home, Katie stayed
a little bit longer.
- Let's see the number one
ranked tattoo of the day.
[dramatic music]
Congratulations, Matt.
- Who was number one?
Who was the number one
pick here?
For the first tattoo,
when we're all
on an even playing field.
- I think you're [bleep]
full of yourself.
I think you're cocky.
- Your anatomy sucks.
- How do you know?
- Well, we don't know, because
she only draws traditional.
- I don't only do traditional,
Matt Buck.
- BS.
- Do not [bleep]
poke the [bleep] bear.
- BS.
- Do not [bleep] with me.
- Don't let Matt fool you.
Like, he seems quiet,
but he's cocky.
And Katie is super feisty.
- So do you think
this is gonna get heated?
- They both just have
a problem with each other.
- Yeah.
- This is a mutual grudge.
[rock music]
- Bagel time.
- Bagel time.
- Time for some nosh.
Since season 10, I lost
a little bit of hair,
a little bit of mustache,
and got one of these.
That hits the spot.
Katie was safe on the day
that I went home,
which is a load of BS.
We were both up
for elimination.
I was the stronger artist.
She let the waterworks flow.
I got robbed.
I got to bring the bear
out of hibernation
and show the bear what's what.
- Matt's just jealous that I
made it further than he did.
Just because he can draw
a little bit better than I can
doesn't mean that he
can out-tattoo me.
- What is your favorite animal?
- A Clydesdale.
- You know, for me being
a tattooer,
I'm not that good
at drawing a horse.
Maybe Matt Buck can give me
some instructions.
[laughs]
I want to go back
to this grudge match
to prove to Matt
that I'm better than him.
He's so salty about me
beating him the first time,
it would just be so much better
to beat him a second time.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Ooh, Mr. Matt Buck.
Let's see what you got, boy.
- Ooh, she's coming in
with confidence.
- Super cool tattoos up here.
Looks like the one
you got sent home for.
- Oh, she's calling it out
right out the gate.
- Ooh, look at Matt.
Who is this new guy?
- Looking "GQ."
- If it isn't Katie
"Should Have Gone Home
Before Me" Rhoden.
- Oh, if it isn't Mr. Matt
"Dropped The Ball" Buck.
- You know, your tattoo
robbed me of my rightful shot.
- I might have had
some issues with mine,
but at least I can tattoo.
- Ooh.
- Oh, man.
- Diss.
- Does Matt Buck get angry?
- Dude, he still does that face
when he's--
look, he's angry right now.
[laughter]
- He's just building up
all this rage inside.
- I've been waiting for this
for a while.
- I'm excited to see
what you got up your sleeve.
- No tricks, just talent.
- Let's get in there
and get this thing going.
- Man.
- This time, you don't have
your friends
to back you up, Matt.
- I didn't need any back-up
getting the number one
draft pick.
- Oh, man, I can hear them
already going at it.
- Mr. Illustrator,
Mr. Know-it-all.
- Well, well, well.
Look who's back.
- Hi.
- The world knows
that I was robbed
of my rightful shot.
Pretty much my rightful title.
- Your rightful title.
- Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
- Oh, okay.
- I'm here for vengeance
and to set order
in the universe again.
- So are we.
- Matt is a
wonderful illustrator
but I tattoo better than him.
- It's obvious to all of us
there's definitely some
unfinished business here.
So let's settle the score.
Today, you guys
are gonna face off
against each other
in a 90-minute tattoo.
We get to choose what you guys
are tattooing today
because we want
the playing field
to be totally even.
- Winner of
the 90-minute challenge,
you get to have
a huge advantage tomorrow.
You get to pick
the style or subject
in a six-hour
grudge match tattoo.
- And the winner of that
settles everything.
- Done, no more baggage.
- I'm down, I'm ready.
- We need something
that both of them
can knock out of the park,
because I want to see
great tattoos.
- Yeah, I want to see
some good fundamentals.
- How about just
something timeless?
Sparrows.
- Sparrows.
That's it.
- Bird's the word.
- Bird's the word.
- Why?
You're not that funny.
Stop it.
- I thought it was funny.
- So you guys have 90 minutes
to do a sparrow.
Any style, however you want.
- It's just me and you.
- Well, as long as you don't
get any of your tears
all over that tattoo--
- It's unsanitary.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We know, we know.
- What are you guys
waiting for?
Get to work.
- You only have 90 minutes.
- Good luck, guys.
- Come on, let's go.
- I can't wait for this one.
- Oh, my God.
- Shit.
- This is gonna be fire.
- Sparrows.
- Oh!
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, all right,
my bald-headed beasts.
You guys ready for this?
- I'm ready.
- Damn right.
- All right, guys.
Your 90-minute face-off tattoo,
it starts right now.
- I'm gonna have you
hop up over here.
- Let me get this
stencil on you.
- One sec, I got to grab
some scissors.
Whoa!
- It's be a shame if you fell.
And by "a shame,"
I mean wonderful.
- For this 90-minute challenge,
we gave Gonzo and Austin
geometric animal heads.
Liner only challenge.
I love this.
- Perfect.
- All we want to see
is these guy's line work
and how clean
they can make these things.
Don't show us tons of tricks.
Don't do any of that.
- Make it happen, captain.
- And if you do,
you can only use a line or so.
Hope you got that stuff
under your belt.
[dramatic music]
- Even with stuff like this,
like, I'm still gonna give it
my absolute best, even if it's
not something I do every day.
- The line work?
- Yeah, I don't do much
line work.
I usually use my liners
as shaders.
- Mm.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
- Dropping lines all day.
Gonzo can't pull
any straight lines.
I pull straight lines all day.
Get everything in there,
make sure
all the
line weight's consistent.
Every single line
I pull right now
has to be
crisp, clean, and perfect.
I'm gonna whoop that ass
like it owes me money.
- [laughs]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, Matt and Katie.
You guys ready to set
the story straight?
- Absolutely.
- Yep.
- You guys have 90 minutes
to tattoo a sparrow,
and your face-off starts now.
[rock music]
- All right, hop on up.
- So I'm going to do
a super thick
traditional-style sparrow.
- Last one to start tattooing
a rotten egg.
- Can you stop with
the dad jokes, please?
- What's taking so long, Katie?
Are you, uh--
waiting for that sparrow
to hatch out of its egg?
- Why don't you pay attention
to your damn tattoo, Matt?
- Because I can multi-task.
- Because I can multi-task.
[groans mockingly]
- I can poke the skin and poke
the bear at the same time.
- It's called taking your time
because I'm confident.
Dork.
When I first met Matt, I had
a little fangirl moment
because he's a killer artist.
And then I realized that
he's kind of full of himself
and he doesn't really
need a fangirl
because he's his own fangirl.
Okay, here we go.
[rock music]
I just want to knock him down
from the pedestal
that he sits upon.
I can't wait.
[dramatic music]
- Hey, Matt.
- Hey.
- Don't shit the bed.
- Don't plan on it.
I came in here thinking
that I'm gonna be doing
some elaborate
six-hour masterpiece,
but now, I got to simplify
it down to 90 minutes.
- How's it going?
- Got, like,
80 more feathers left.
- You better put the pedal
to the medal, boy.
[rock music]
- 45 minutes, guys.
45 minutes.
- I don't know if Katie's
gonna have
an advantage in this because,
I mean,
she's going up against me.
But 90 minutes is definitely
more within her wheelhouse.
- You're going traditional
with this?
- He's gonna be just all black,
and we're gonna do
some red behind it.
- The whole sparrow's
gonna be black?
- It's gonna be, like,
with shading, the black.
[tense music]
Matt Buck is
really predictable.
I already know what kind
of sparrow he's gonna do.
It's gonna be some
super light,
illustrative, soft sparrow,
and mine's gonna be
a punched-in,
super solid,
very clean tattoo.
♪ ♪
- Hey, Matt,
I wrote you a song.
- What is it?
- ♪ Matt Buck,
you [bleep] suck ♪
You like it?
- It's almost as funny
as my jokes.
- [laughs]
[dramatic music]
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- What'd you come up with?
- A little dear.
We're liners only.
That doesn't mean that
you can't add shading.
You can saturate.
You can do solid black
with liners,
but they're very
intrusive needles.
I have to be very, very careful
so I don't mess
this person's skin up.
And I'm trying to do
some black areas
so I can give you a little bit
of each fundamental here.
- A liner is so precise that
if you go over the same area
too many times,
it causes a blowout.
The only thing I can imagine
is that Gonzo messed up
a bunch of lines
and he's trying to save his ass
right now.
[dramatic music]
- I'm using a fractal
mathematic equation
to make this S-shaped
curved crane head
making short straight lines
in order to make the illusion
of a curve.
- Austin, are you gonna
leave it completely line work?
- Yes.
- You're not
gonna go and do--
- Don't want to hide anything.
No [bleep] questions, man.
I learned that shit
the hard way.
I'm going simple.
This can go either way.
Going simple could hurt me,
or it could help me.
- 30 minutes left.
30 minutes.
These lines better
be straight as an arrow.
[rock music]
- I'm getting up on
his antlers
and that really thin skin
and I'm noticing
some of my lines are starting
to blow out, which is bad.
My only hope at this point is
putting black in those areas
to hide where the spread is.
And hopefully, they're,
like, good deer, bro.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Five, four, three,
two, one!
Time's up!
Put 'em down!
- We are done.
- All right.
It's a little baby deer.
- I like it.
- What do you think?
- I think it looks great.
- Do you wanna keep it?
- I guess so.
- I got a belt sander
in the back if you don't.
- Thank you so much.
- All right, thanks, Gonzo.
- Have a good one.
- So you think hiding
all that shit
with those dots
is gonna help you out?
- I definitely think
I edged you out
a little bit on that one, man.
- I mean, it adds
a little dimension.
Hides some of the, you know,
the poor line work, but--
- You showed clean line work,
but all you got to ask yourself
is if that's enough.
- I feel like
it could be enough.
It was pretty [bleep] solid,
clean line work.
- Hey, guys.
- Let's get into this.
- All right, today, we gave you
guys a pretty difficult task.
- Trying to go minimalist
like that definitely is
more of a challenge
than I thought it was gonna be.
- I went a little bit
above and beyond
of making it more
of a finished tattoo
than just an outline that looks
like it hasn't been finished.
- Honestly, I was trying to
show what they asked for.
They asked for liners.
I didn't wanna hide anything.
- Austin, I think you did
a great job.
It's hard to break down
a realistic image
into these shapes, you know?
You figured all that out
throughout your piece,
and it really works.
- I love all of
the wispy feathers you put
on the back of the head
and neck of this bird.
The different shapes
that you used
really make this image
take form
with just using lines.
Not every single line
was completely perfect,
but you didn't freak out
and try to hide
all of your mistakes.
And for the most part,
it's a really clean,
very cool tattoo.
- Thank you.
Thank you very much.
- All right, Gonzo, you're up.
At the overall first glance
at this tattoo,
you could tell
that it's a deer.
Once you start dissecting it
as far as technical,
it was hard to find a section
that wasn't blown out.
- No, I know where there
was some trauma,
especially when I was
trying to go back in
and saturate with a liner.
That was a huge
[bleep] mistake,
especially on an area
like the calf
where it's so tight already
to begin with.
- The design got away from you.
It's got these
repetitious triangles
that's like, these alien eyes.
But there's two of them
next to each other
that are also the ears,
so that's a little confusing.
- I won awards everywhere
for portraiture and realism
and this, that, and the other.
But then, coming in, like,
a line is what [bleep] you up.
You know, it's humbling.
- For me, it's pretty clear.
My vote's for Austin.
- My vote's for Austin.
[rock music]
- You blew my mind today, man.
My vote is for you.
- He's gonna start crying.
Look at him.
- I almost am.
- He did a more, like,
intricate design than I did,
and you pulled it off better.
- I appreciate you saying that.
I didn't expect this.
Honestly, this is not how I
expected to see this going.
- All right, well, Austin,
you won the face-off tattoo,
and now, you get to pick
the subject or the style
for the six-hour grudge match.
- I kind of want to go
nose-to-nose with what he does.
I want black and grey.
- Are you sure about that?
- I am sure about that, man.
- I respect
the hell out of that.
- You know, dude, like,
you have a [bleep] mad style,
and I'm not here
to hide from it.
I'm here to, like,
go nose to nose with it.
- Yeah, get it, boy.
- God damn.
That--that sounds like
a [bleep] fight to me.
- I'd get to drawing,
guys, or something.
- Yeah, get to work, man.
- You ain't got much time.
- Good luck, guys.
- Good luck.
- I think Austin is sick.
Something has possessed him.
- Like, that dude's
a warrior, man.
He wants to go down fighting.
- Man, I think you were, like,
high on adrenaline for that.
- You're a badass
at black and grey,
and I want to go up against
what you can do.
- What we're doing tomorrow
is what I do every day,
and I promise you, I'm not
gonna make it easy tomorrow.
- I clearly called this because
I didn't want it to be easy.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[rock music]
- 30 minutes, guys.
There better be some feathers
on these things.
30 minutes left.
♪ ♪
But nobody looks like
they're almost done.
- Absolutely.
- I'm a little worried
about Matt.
- Matt?
I'm way worried about Katie.
As she's coloring
the daggers in solid black,
she's gonna color
the whole sparrow in black.
- Oh.
- These daggers are gonna
fall right back.
But the line work that
she has in is really sold.
Really nice.
- Compared to Matt's.
His aren't solid.
His aren't nice.
- This is exactly
what we expected.
- We expected
a great illustration
with some technical hiccups.
- Which is what we got.
- Yes.
- And then, from Katie,
we expected some
solid-ass line work.
Some solid-ass shading with
some weird design choices.
I don't know how we're
gonna judge this thing.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Time's up.
Put 'em down.
- Finito.
- Shit, yeah.
I don't think I could get any
better line work out of this.
- How do you feel?
- Good.
- You feel victorious?
- No, but I do.
- I asked if you feel
victorious, not delusional.
- Get real.
I'm ready to whoop that ass.
- Never.
- I think my tattoo
possibly has a better shot
than yours.
- And why's that?
- Because yours
is kind of boring.
It's a little monotone.
- My tattoo soars
above the clouds--
- Why, why?
- Of your chicken-dove thingy.
- Chicken-dove?
Really?
Mine was way better than yours,
so [bleep] off.
[tense music]
- Let's get this thing started.
- All right, here we go.
- Whoo.
- Here we go.
- Matt and Katie,
90 minute sparrows.
- I think I crushed it.
I really pushed
the pedal to the medal
within 90 minutes to get
a tattoo that size
with that level of detail done.
- I did not like the banner.
I thought it was kind of empty.
Like, it was
an incomplete thought.
- Banner, not sure what
was going on with that.
- The overall shading
was really nice.
The outline definitely
needed some work.
There's a couple points
that kind of
went over some other lines.
- The top of the head got
a little bit wobbly,
but the illustration
was killer.
- Matt is a great illustrator,
but I feel like it was
too light, bro.
- You guys both had a little
bit of tonality issues.
You know, yours was
really, really light.
Yours was really, really dark.
Katie, when you do a solid,
thick black outline,
with solid, thick,
silhouetted daggers,
and then, you shade black
on top of that,
you lose the quality
of the line work,
and you lose the daggers.
- The one totally almost
disappears in the wing
because the bird was so dark.
- It's just one of
my little pet peeves,
but just the little tips
of those daggers in.
But that [bleep] dagger
right through that bird.
Don't poke the bird.
Don't poke the bear.
You know what I mean?
- I mean--
- We're poking bears.
We're poking birds.
- Yeah, I mean, honestly,
they're both great tattoos.
- In terms of line weight,
Katie, some of the lines
that you put in
are better than a lot of the
lines that Matt put in.
You meant [bleep] business.
But Matt's illustration
was killer design.
- I think I'm gonna go off of
the birds and the birds alone.
I'm gonna go with Matt.
- Yes!
- I'm going with Matt as well.
- Yes!
- I'm gonna pick Matt
on this one.
- Well, that's fine, I'll just
have to kick his ass tomorrow.
- Hell yeah.
- That's what it is, girl.
- That's the attitude.
- That's what it is.
- Hell yeah, girl.
- Congratulations, Matt.
You won the face-off challenge.
You know what this means, dude.
- This means I get to choose
the style or
the subject matter.
- What's it gonna be?
- [exhales]
- Because I'm ready.
- I'm gonna choose
the subject matter because
I would like to compete
against somebody
that's in their element
against me in my element.
Let's do a lady and a feline,
whatever style you wanna do.
- Let's go.
- Don't just do
a lady with, like, a cat mouth.
- Don't tell me what I can
and can't do.
- I'm actually
really excited for this.
- Me, too.
- I want to see some
great tattoos tomorrow.
- Get some sleep.
Bye, guys.
- See you later.
- We're gonna finally
settle this grudge.
- Great, I can't wait
to kick your ass tomorrow.
- Bring it.
- All right.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, Gonzo, Austin.
This is the
black and grey showdown
you guys have been waiting for.
Are you ready?
- Yeah, man.
- Are you ready?
- Let's [bleep] do this.
- Your six-hour grudge match
tattoo starts now.
- Perfect.
- I can't believe Austin
called out black and grey.
- Hell yeah, man.
Let's hop up here
and start [bleep] zapping, bro.
- If you don't do
black and grey
all the time on a daily basis,
it's really hard to get
these super smooth blends.
And Gonzo, that's what
he does every day.
- All right, man.
Good to go?
- Yes, sir.
- I don't know what Austin's
trying to prove,
but this is a ballsy move.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- This is more what you do,
I'm assuming.
- Yeah, man.
What I'm doing today is
this beautiful woman's face
with a nice, harsh
light source.
And then adding a rugged
skull texture morph
into the back of it.
It's kind of like Beauty
and the Beast all in one.
- Man, you might
not know how to line,
but you definitely
know how to shade.
- I'm glad to hear what
weaknesses of mine are,
because that's
how you get better.
If they don't like my outlines,
that's fine.
Because I don't want
to give them to you anyway.
So the only thing that they
can say to me today is that,
"It would have been nice
to see a line from you,
but amazing [bleep] tattoo."
♪ ♪
- All right, what are you
doing over here?
- We got a black and grey rose.
Going simple, less things
for me to [bleep] up.
Less stuff for you guys
to have to judge.
- All right.
- You know?
I'm tattooing what I like
to call an Austin rose.
It's just a straight-up
illustrative rose.
In my season,
I was definitely perceived
as probably one of the
weakest tattooers in the house.
But every boxer's
got a strategy.
Got to put a little stink
on this thing over here
to make sure it looks good.
- [bleep] suicide mission
if you ask me.
- I'm not scared of Gonzo.
Pressure makes diamonds,
and I'm a hard mother[bleep].
Don't [bleep] underestimate me.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, Matt and Katie.
You got six hours to complete
this grudge match tattoo.
Lady and a cat.
Katie, you ready?
- Hell yeah.
- Matt, you ready?
- Born ready.
- All right, let's tattoo.
- Okay.
- Let's do this.
- Party time.
- I was up until 4:30
this morning drawing.
- I can't wait to make this.
- Here we go.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Hey, Katie, try to remember
to go up to the line today.
- I'll make a clean-ass tattoo.
That's all that matters.
- You know,
it really doesn't matter
how clean her outline is.
I could tattoo
this thing blindfolded.
The design is just too good.
You can't touch it.
- Hell yeah.
- Even though
I lost the first round,
I'm very comfortable today.
I don't really do cats, but I
definitely do lady faces.
I do a lot of lady faces.
[bleep] yes.
I'm slaying the [bleep]
out of this tattoo right now.
- Pride goeth before
the fall, Katie.
- You can say
all you want, Matt,
but my lines
are better than yours.
- It's gonna be a cat fight.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- That is a strange
piece of art.
- The bigger the risk,
the bigger the reward.
This design is just
too cool to lose.
I want to show contrast
between light and dark,
feminine and masculine.
The only thing that I regret
about this tattoo
is that it's not going on me.
- Did you illustrate
your own reference,
or is that a Leonardo da Vinci?
- No, I drew that.
da Vinci and Michelangelo
and all those dudes
entered in a lot of the style
of how I draw.
♪ ♪
- I love my drawing.
I know it's gonna be
a sick tattoo
and I know
they're gonna like it.
♪ I'm gonna kick
Matt Buck's ass ♪
- ♪ Only in your dreams ♪
- Ooh, stop, wow.
Oh, whoa, chill out.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, guys,
this is the power hour.
You only have one more hour.
What the hell
is Austin thinking?
If Austin's trying to beat
Gonzo at his own game,
then Austin should have
come here with a design
that was gonna blow Gonzo's
design out of the water.
- One went way simple and
one went crazy as [bleep].
Gonzo's got no lines again,
but he's super smooth.
- I understand that
he's going for the, like,
distressed, you know,
skeleton face morph.
But to me, it just looks like
she had a little issue here.
- Yeah, he's really--
- Needs a better primer,
you know?
- He's got to really punch
different textures
throughout it.
- Yes, that's exactly
what I thought.
- That I know how to texture,
and this is a smooth
girl's face.
- Yes, I mean, who knows?
Maybe Gonzo shits the bed.
- Austin's tattoo,
it's looking pretty clean.
[dramatic music]
- I'm gonna beat you man.
- It was over before it began.
- Good luck.
♪ ♪
- Five, four,
three, two, one.
This grudge match tattoo
is over.
- Bro, insane.
Seriously.
I can't even--
it's freaking bananas.
- Beyond epic.
- Thank you very much, man.
I'm a hugger, bro.
- All right.
- As good of a tattoo
as you did, man,
this is my wheelhouse,
and I put every spoke
of the wheel in that tattoo.
- No matter what
the judges say,
I liked that rose.
- But I feel like in
a six-hour tattoo, man,
you could have shown
a lot more.
If nothing else besides
possibly crazy,
it was definitely ballsy.
- Definitely got both of those.
Crazy and balls.
- I can't believe Austin chose
black and grey realism.
- It was mind-blowing,
but at the same time,
sometimes, you really just
want to shut some dude's up
who just talk way too much.
- What's going on, guys?
- Hey, guys.
- How's it going?
- Austin, we're still
blown away by your
black and grey choice.
- I wanted to go head to head
with what he's good at, man.
You know, and so, I was like,
[bleep] it, why not?
- All right, let's see if you
rose to the occasion.
- Ooh.
- It's a good drawing.
It's nothing super crazy
or out of the box
with a rose,
but I still like it.
- The shading you
put in the leaves,
that texture
is really, really cool.
I love how it contrasts
to the texture that you
actually put in the rose.
- But a lot of the petals,
for me,
need some like,
big, bold contrasts.
It just gets a little tonal
and kind of fell flat.
- But the overall application
of the tattoo
is done really well.
You did a nice rose.
- Austin, it's obvious
that you wanted to focus
on fundamentals,
whereas Gonzo, I think
you focused more on design.
- You got a lot of good tricks
in this thing, man.
I really like that
front contrast on the face
where you use the background
to kind of hold
that face together.
- The lips, the nose, the eye
are super nice and smooth.
But from the forehead back,
you can't even tell
what's going on.
Your textures
aren't so defined.
They're kind of
washed in and tonal.
- You're gonna have
to pull that liner out,
because when you sharpen
your tattoos up,
they're gonna be
that much better.
- We got to figure out
which one of these guys
is gonna win this.
- I'm just kind
of teetering this line
because "Ink Master"
is a competition
where you need to show us
that you're versatile.
- I mean, do you think Austin
showed versatility
from yesterday to today?
- He showed us a ton of shit
he didn't show us yesterday.
- I mean, it's a rose.
Do you bring plain bread
to a bread competition?
- If it's the best [bleep]
bread in the world, you do.
[dramatic music]
- I like that Austin drew it.
I like that it's super solid
and you got these
smooth blends and stuff in it.
But for me, I think you just
got to impress me
a little more.
And even though Gonzo
didn't nail everything,
I think he was
a little more creative.
My vote's for Gonzo.
- Thank you, man.
- All right, well,
I think Austin showed
some super solid fundamentals
and just fell short
with the wow factor.
But at the same time,
I really didn't like
almost more than 50%
of Gonzo's tattoo.
[dramatic music]
So my vote's gonna be
for Austin.
♪ ♪
- Whoa.
That just threw me off.
- Yeah, I didn't see
that one coming.
- Wake up and smell the roses.
- Holy shit, guys.
- Where you at?
[dramatic music]
- This is where
it gets tough for me.
Breaking this down, it's like,
Gonzo, the face of your tattoo,
the nose and the mouth to me,
that's an A.
And the rest of the tattoo
to me is like a C, C-minus.
It's just very, very dark.
It's hard to tell
what's going on.
Whereas Austin's
tattoo overall, it's clean.
It's simple.
- It's a rose, like--
- A little safe for
the six-hour challenge.
Gonzo, you are [bleep] lucky
that Austin chose
black and grey.
I think that was a crazy move
on your part, Austin.
♪ ♪
Gonzo, my vote is for you.
- Thank you.
- Good job, buddy, dude.
- [bleep].
- Good job, dude.
You deserve it.
- Thank you, thank you.
- You deserve it, man.
- Gonzo, congratulations, dude.
You won the grudge match.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- Thank you so much.
- Man.
You guys both did
killer tattoos.
- You guys did some
good tattoos, man.
- Even though I did not win,
I'm 100% happy.
I wanted to show that
I am a badass tattooer,
and that I can go toe-to-toe
with the best of them.
And Gonzo is the best of them,
and he almost got bested.
- [bleep] congratulations, man.
- Thank you, man.
- You deserved it, dude.
- Oh, my [bleep] God, man.
- You came, you brought it
and you fought it.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- You guys only got
three hours left.
You guys are half-way.
You better get to cranking.
You gonna get some
heavy blacks in this?
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
Especially around like,
the edges.
The judges said they wanted
to see more black,
but I'm more of
the school of thought
that negative space
is a good thing,
and I just got to strike
that proper balance.
I got to make every line count.
[tattoo gun buzzing]
- Tattooing is my passion.
It's my everything.
Besides my kid,
it's my everything.
When I got home after losing,
my daughter,
she was really bummed.
And she was like, if you ever
get to do it again,
are you gonna try and win?
And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna
keep doing it, you know?
And she's my reason
why I'm here.
Not to prove to anyone else
but to prove to myself
and to my daughter
that I can do this.
I miss her.
That's okay, though.
I'm here to kick
Matt Buck's ass.
That's all that matters.
- Oh, wow, that's actually
looking really cool.
The question, though, is,
is it cool enough?
- I don't know, man.
It's pretty rad.
- The greater tattoo will win.
- Yeah, it's me, though.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
[dramatic music]
- All right, y'all,
you got one hour left.
Let's end this grudge match.
♪ ♪
- Matt's illustration
is incredible.
- Yeah.
- That sure as [bleep]
ain't no black panther.
That's more like a soft,
little grey kitten.
- Please, put black in.
- You can lead
the horse to water,
but you can't make him drink.
- Katie put these awesome
lines in, you know?
I can't say shit about
her line work.
It is solid today.
She's a neo-traditional artist,
so where was that
secondary line weight?
- Yeah, I would have pulled
a little more neo.
- It's that thick-thin play
which would give it that
shape and that movement.
She's losing that whole part.
♪ ♪
- All right, guys.
Five, four,
three, two, one.
Machines down.
- Okay.
[soft music]
- That's ridiculous.
You are amazing.
- I'm very excited.
- One of the best tattoos
I've ever done.
- Hell yeah, dude.
That thing looks sick.
- I'm jealous.
[dramatic music]
- Let's hope you didn't
drop the ball,
Mr. Matt "Drops The Ball" Buck.
- Not this time.
I'm taking this one, too.
- I don't think so.
I think I'm gonna
beat you at your own.
I'm confident in my tattoo.
- Confident that
it's not enough.
- We will see.
- Matt and Katie.
- It's not even just
black and grey versus color.
It's, like, two completely
different styles
that aren't similar at all.
- I mean 100% opposites
of the spectrum.
- Yeah.
- It's gonna be hard.
- Hey, guys.
- Hi.
- You guys have been going at
it like cats and dogs.
It all comes down to this.
Somebody's gonna win
this thing.
- Yes, I am.
- You can keep saying that,
but I don't think so.
- This is one of the coolest
tattoos that I've ever done.
I crushed it.
- I busted my ass.
I put clean lines.
I put my heart and soul
in that tattoo.
- Katie, let's dig
into your tattoo.
- I totally like
your use of color on it.
You got the punch.
That strong, traditional
fricking, jam it in
with a jackhammer style
- We did see a ton
of super clean
singe pass line work.
Girl, you slammed
those lines in.
- Thank you.
I was so proud of myself.
- But compositionally,
the bottom of
the woman's shoulder
is the same exact width
and falls onto the cat's head.
Now, your cat has a giant fez
with a sparrow on it.
- It literally looks like
he is wearing a hat, 100%.
- It's a cat in the hat.
- I mean, I totally get
what you're saying.
Matt has an advantage over me
because of his
illustrative background.
He knows anatomy very well,
which is why he knew
it was gonna be a struggle
for me to do a cat.
- If we're looking
at cat-on-cat,
my cat would take a bite
out of yours.
- It's like,
the ultimate cat fight.
- Definitely.
- Matt, the way you framed
in the cat
like, with the arm
and the sword.
Exaggerating the cat's head
to where it's a piece of art
and it's not a scene.
- That shit could be in
the Sistine Chapel, honestly.
- da Vinci meets death metal.
- [laughs]
- I did love how small the
girl's head was in her face
and how detailed the face was.
- Oh.
- It was super primo.
- But as a tattoo, like,
as dynamic as
your illustration is,
it lacks a punch when it
translates into a tattoo,
and I think what that punch is
is just high-contrast black.
- It just looks like
it's a color tattoo
that hasn't been colored yet.
- I did love Matt's
tattoo, actually.
I think Matt is
a wonderful illustrator,
but I truly feel that mine
is going to last longer,
and that's ultimately what my
goal is as a tattooer.
- It might be on
the lighter side,
but that's on purpose
to contrast
with the darkness of the cat.
I'm surprised
they didn't bring up
a couple of like,
bulbous hiccups
on the lines in the flower.
- Bulbous hiccups?
- Bulbous.
- Your line work was trash.
- Where?
- The hair specifically
was trash in my opinion.
- Baloney.
- Baloney.
- Okay, well,
that's my opinion.
- I think our opinion
is the only one
that matters right now.
- This is true.
- I think it's time that we
settle this once and for all.
- Katie's is so simple,
where Matt's is
way more complex,
but also opens the door
for more flaws technically.
- When you look at
a traditional tattoo,
and you look at something
that's illustrative next to it,
this one's always gonna
look, like--
- Heavier.
- Heavier, but--
- Simpler.
- Way simpler.
- Matt's drawing is great,
but it definitely looks like
it's an unfinished tattoo
to me.
- Some people would
call it unfinished.
Some people would call it,
you know,
a classic Romantic style.
- I'm a fundamental guy,
and I've been known
for solid-ass tattoos.
[dramatic music]
My vote's for Katie.
- Thank you.
- Matt, you have a gift.
To me, it's just spectacular.
♪ ♪
I vote for Matt.
- Man, I'm up in the air.
I am like a hot air balloon
right now.
Matt's drawing is so dynamic,
you know?
Sometimes, the drawing doesn't
need to be dynamic.
It just needs to be bold
and bright and beautiful.
Matt, I love you, buddy.
But I think
I'm gonna choose Katie.
[tense music]
- [groans]
Oh, right in the back.
- Whoa.
- Katie, you win
the grudge match.
- I can't believe it,
to be honest with you.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Congratulations.
- I'm really happy.
- Good job, guys.
- Yeah.
- I can't wait to see
my daughter's face.
I'm more than excited
to bring home the gold.
- Congrats, man.
You did good.
- I stand by that tattoo.
I think I did one of
the coolest tattoos
that's ever been on
"Ink Master."
Congratulations today, Katie.
I don't think it would happen
a second time.
- See you later.
- Humble pie time.
- [laughs]
jaw-dropping seasons
of "Ink Master,"
we've witnessed
amazing artists,
insane rivalries,
and wild personalities.
- Any [bleep] camera
follows me,
I swear to God,
I don't even give a [bleep].
I will break
that mother[bleep].
announcer: Now, three
iconic Ink Master champions,
Ryan Ashley, DJ Tambe,
and Cleen Rock One,
have risen to judge status,
deciding grudges
between some of
the competition's
most furious rivals.
- We gonna hash it out
like grown men,
or are you gonna
get in my face again?
- Let's tattoo!
announcer: These foes
will have the opportunity
to settle the score,
once and for all.
- I'm gonna be in your face.
- I'm gonna be in your face.
- Guys, guys, guys, guys,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!
I don't think
that grudge is over.
I think it just got worse.
announcer:
Tonight, two epic grudges
will come to a head.
It's artists who felt robbed
versus the artists
who robbed them.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
In our first grudge match,
season 11's Gonzo
was sent home first,
while Austin Rose was spared.
- On the day that I went home,
it should have been you.
You better believe
I'm coming for blood today.
- You have a mad style,
and I'm not here
to hide from it.
- God damn, that sounds like
a [bleep] fight to me.
announcer: Now,
Gonzo's looking
to prove his superiority.
- I got some plans for you.
- And I ain't scared of shit.
So bring whatever
you got to bring, dog.
- I definitely have a little
bit of history with these guys.
Austin, he ended up on my team.
And he got under everybody's
skin on Team Christian,
and we actually used that
to our advantage.
- Gonzo was on
the opposite team, so you--
- Yes.
- I mean, you guys--
did you go after him?
I mean, he's a pretty
strong player, right?
- We looked at Gonzo
as a very good tattooer,
but he showed up with not one
single line that was done well.
So Gonzo went out first.
- Dude, yours is beat.
I couldn't believe it.
- I don't know
what you mean by beat.
- Like, those lines were beat.
- You know damn well you do not
deserve to be here right now.
- I [bleep] deserve to be here.
- You know you're the weak one.
You are not at the level--
- You think I'm weak.
And you know what,
you can keep believing that.
- You showed me you're weak.
- We'll see, won't we?
- Gonzo, you do not have what
it takes to be Ink Master.
[dramatic music]
- Gonzo, he definitely
feels like he got robbed
because in his head,
he is the best tattooer
ever to step foot
on this competition.
- Great tattooers
have bad days.
And when that happens--
- For sure.
- They're gonna come back in
with a vengeance.
[rock music]
- I just opened
this big, brand-new,
4,000 square foot studio.
This is my first time stepping
out and owning a shop.
I created a place
that I wanted
everyone to enjoy being at.
So that way, you're in
the right environment
to create the
best art possible.
Knowing that I
had you and everyone,
it makes it that much easier.
It's just creating a place
where all of us can thrive.
- Perfect environment
to work in.
- Austin was in the bottom.
Like, he barely made a team.
I want to show the world
that just because
he stayed longer than me
by some mystery fluke,
does not mean that he's
a better artist than me.
I've been thinking
about this non-stop
since the day that I packed
my bags on season 11,
that if I had the opportunity,
I was going to beat
and humiliate this kid.
And I plan on doing
all of that.
♪ ♪
- I can tattoo at a high level,
I can fix my car,
and I can make a spaghetti
squash a la puttanesca
like nobody's business.
Hand me a flat-head.
- Here.
- Oh, sick.
A lot of tattooers
like to work on cars.
They kind of go hand-in-hand.
I definitely don't have
a grudge against
anybody who went out
before me.
I went out 7th.
Gonzo's the guy that went out
on the first challenge.
I'm pretty sure I got this.
- Here he is.
- Oh, there's--
- Oh.
- Hell yeah.
I am back.
And this place looks
[bleep] classy.
- There he is.
- What is that moustache?
- Yeah, I am home.
I'm ready to do this.
- Do you think Gonzo's
gonna walk in
and just start
popping off at the mouth?
- Oh, yeah.
- Letting out some helium.
- Oh, yeah.
- Oh, here we go.
- Oh.
- They let you back
in here, huh?
- [laughs]
He's [bleep] right here.
- Ooh, floated in on
that balloon head.
- Called me out, huh?
- Yeah.
I figured you all
got to take your shot
and it landed pretty hard.
So you better believe
I'm coming for blood today.
- Yeah, I'm ready
for this battle, man.
- The bullshit's
thick in that room.
- I'm gonna take you out.
I don't mean to be a dick,
but you're gonna go home
without that W.
- I don't think so, man.
On the day that I went home,
it should have been you.
- All right, let's go see
what's going on.
- Yeah, let's--I'm--
I'm excited about this.
- All right.
- Okay, let's do it.
- Everybody thought
I was gonna just be gone
one of the first tattoos,
and I stayed around
longer than anybody expected.
And you know why?
Because I'm a fighter, man.
- Hey, guys.
- Here we go.
- This is gonna be good.
- I'm ready to just
kick some ass.
- Hey, that's the Austin
I know.
- I'm here to win, man.
- I feel like
it was a team thing.
He doesn't have his team.
He doesn't have Cleen.
He doesn't have all these
people in his ear helping him.
It's just me and him now.
- Or hurt me.
- I'm gonna be honest, man.
I do feel a lot of ego.
You have to back it up, and you
have to not make excuses.
- I am not defending
that tattoo.
I learned from that.
I've been watching that.
I've been thinking about that
ever since that happened.
So that's why
I'm coming back now
and trying to set it right.
- Gonzo's a
badass mother[bleep]
when it comes to tattooing.
I will not take that from him.
I'm excited to go up against
somebody of his caliber,
because it'll show that
I belong in the competition.
- We just want this to be
an even playing field.
- Yeah.
- So today,
we're gonna give you guys
a 90-minute face-off tattoo
- Yes.
- Where we determine
what both of you guys
are gonna be tattooing.
- The winner of
today's face-off
will have the ability
to determine
either the style
or the subject matter
of tomorrow's six hour
grudge match tattoo.
- And the winner of that
grudge match ends it all.
Squashed.
- That's all I came for.
- This is the time to
set the record straight, guys.
- I'm here to bring it, man.
I didn't come here
to like, get steamrolled, so.
- And I came with
something to prove.
- So what do you think
we're gonna get them to do?
- I think we should really test
the line work on these guys.
- That's fundamentals
right there, at its finest.
- Let's do geometric.
- Why don't we do
geometric animals?
- Yeah, like a little
geometric animal head.
- Liners only.
- Liners only.
- No curved lines.
- So you guys
have to do 90-minute
geometric animal head tattoos
using just a liner.
- Surprise us.
- Sounds like
a little piece of heaven.
- All right, well, get to work.
Let's go.
- Yes, sir.
- Man, oof.
Just lines.
It's gonna be a tough one.
- 90 minutes
is what I do, Gonzo.
I hope you got this, man.
I know you do
pretty long tattoos.
- It should be easy for you
to draw an animal head.
You can just do
a self-portrait.
- All these straight lines?
You good at pulling
straight lines?
I'm really good at it.
- Is there any other
kind of line to pull?
- I'm wondering what your
line work actually looks like.
- Well, you're about
to find out, now.
[dramatic music]
announcer: In our
second grudge,
season 10
master illustrator Matt Buck
went home before the
lower-ranked Katie Rhoden.
- You know your tattoo
robbed me of my rightful shot.
- But at least I can tattoo.
- Ooh.
- Oh, man.
announcer: Now they'll
battle head-to-head.
Artist versus technician.
- This is one of the coolest
tattoos that I've ever done.
- Your line work was trash.
- Baloney.
[dramatic music]
- This is gonna be
a frickin' rumble, dude.
Matt was on my team.
I would say
he's one of
the best illustrators
to ever hit "Ink Master."
- Katie came out swinging
in the beginning
of that season, too, right?
- I mean, her first tattoo
out of the gate
was her best one
the whole season.
- Yeah, they specialize
in two completely different
opposite ends of the spectrum.
- Matt's a classically-trained
illustrator.
- Yeah.
- But when it comes
to tattooing,
he's inexperienced.
- Yeah, that plays a huge part,
because it's a totally
different medium.
- Matt went home, Katie stayed
a little bit longer.
- Let's see the number one
ranked tattoo of the day.
[dramatic music]
Congratulations, Matt.
- Who was number one?
Who was the number one
pick here?
For the first tattoo,
when we're all
on an even playing field.
- I think you're [bleep]
full of yourself.
I think you're cocky.
- Your anatomy sucks.
- How do you know?
- Well, we don't know, because
she only draws traditional.
- I don't only do traditional,
Matt Buck.
- BS.
- Do not [bleep]
poke the [bleep] bear.
- BS.
- Do not [bleep] with me.
- Don't let Matt fool you.
Like, he seems quiet,
but he's cocky.
And Katie is super feisty.
- So do you think
this is gonna get heated?
- They both just have
a problem with each other.
- Yeah.
- This is a mutual grudge.
[rock music]
- Bagel time.
- Bagel time.
- Time for some nosh.
Since season 10, I lost
a little bit of hair,
a little bit of mustache,
and got one of these.
That hits the spot.
Katie was safe on the day
that I went home,
which is a load of BS.
We were both up
for elimination.
I was the stronger artist.
She let the waterworks flow.
I got robbed.
I got to bring the bear
out of hibernation
and show the bear what's what.
- Matt's just jealous that I
made it further than he did.
Just because he can draw
a little bit better than I can
doesn't mean that he
can out-tattoo me.
- What is your favorite animal?
- A Clydesdale.
- You know, for me being
a tattooer,
I'm not that good
at drawing a horse.
Maybe Matt Buck can give me
some instructions.
[laughs]
I want to go back
to this grudge match
to prove to Matt
that I'm better than him.
He's so salty about me
beating him the first time,
it would just be so much better
to beat him a second time.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Ooh, Mr. Matt Buck.
Let's see what you got, boy.
- Ooh, she's coming in
with confidence.
- Super cool tattoos up here.
Looks like the one
you got sent home for.
- Oh, she's calling it out
right out the gate.
- Ooh, look at Matt.
Who is this new guy?
- Looking "GQ."
- If it isn't Katie
"Should Have Gone Home
Before Me" Rhoden.
- Oh, if it isn't Mr. Matt
"Dropped The Ball" Buck.
- You know, your tattoo
robbed me of my rightful shot.
- I might have had
some issues with mine,
but at least I can tattoo.
- Ooh.
- Oh, man.
- Diss.
- Does Matt Buck get angry?
- Dude, he still does that face
when he's--
look, he's angry right now.
[laughter]
- He's just building up
all this rage inside.
- I've been waiting for this
for a while.
- I'm excited to see
what you got up your sleeve.
- No tricks, just talent.
- Let's get in there
and get this thing going.
- Man.
- This time, you don't have
your friends
to back you up, Matt.
- I didn't need any back-up
getting the number one
draft pick.
- Oh, man, I can hear them
already going at it.
- Mr. Illustrator,
Mr. Know-it-all.
- Well, well, well.
Look who's back.
- Hi.
- The world knows
that I was robbed
of my rightful shot.
Pretty much my rightful title.
- Your rightful title.
- Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
- Oh, okay.
- I'm here for vengeance
and to set order
in the universe again.
- So are we.
- Matt is a
wonderful illustrator
but I tattoo better than him.
- It's obvious to all of us
there's definitely some
unfinished business here.
So let's settle the score.
Today, you guys
are gonna face off
against each other
in a 90-minute tattoo.
We get to choose what you guys
are tattooing today
because we want
the playing field
to be totally even.
- Winner of
the 90-minute challenge,
you get to have
a huge advantage tomorrow.
You get to pick
the style or subject
in a six-hour
grudge match tattoo.
- And the winner of that
settles everything.
- Done, no more baggage.
- I'm down, I'm ready.
- We need something
that both of them
can knock out of the park,
because I want to see
great tattoos.
- Yeah, I want to see
some good fundamentals.
- How about just
something timeless?
Sparrows.
- Sparrows.
That's it.
- Bird's the word.
- Bird's the word.
- Why?
You're not that funny.
Stop it.
- I thought it was funny.
- So you guys have 90 minutes
to do a sparrow.
Any style, however you want.
- It's just me and you.
- Well, as long as you don't
get any of your tears
all over that tattoo--
- It's unsanitary.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We know, we know.
- What are you guys
waiting for?
Get to work.
- You only have 90 minutes.
- Good luck, guys.
- Come on, let's go.
- I can't wait for this one.
- Oh, my God.
- Shit.
- This is gonna be fire.
- Sparrows.
- Oh!
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, all right,
my bald-headed beasts.
You guys ready for this?
- I'm ready.
- Damn right.
- All right, guys.
Your 90-minute face-off tattoo,
it starts right now.
- I'm gonna have you
hop up over here.
- Let me get this
stencil on you.
- One sec, I got to grab
some scissors.
Whoa!
- It's be a shame if you fell.
And by "a shame,"
I mean wonderful.
- For this 90-minute challenge,
we gave Gonzo and Austin
geometric animal heads.
Liner only challenge.
I love this.
- Perfect.
- All we want to see
is these guy's line work
and how clean
they can make these things.
Don't show us tons of tricks.
Don't do any of that.
- Make it happen, captain.
- And if you do,
you can only use a line or so.
Hope you got that stuff
under your belt.
[dramatic music]
- Even with stuff like this,
like, I'm still gonna give it
my absolute best, even if it's
not something I do every day.
- The line work?
- Yeah, I don't do much
line work.
I usually use my liners
as shaders.
- Mm.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
- Dropping lines all day.
Gonzo can't pull
any straight lines.
I pull straight lines all day.
Get everything in there,
make sure
all the
line weight's consistent.
Every single line
I pull right now
has to be
crisp, clean, and perfect.
I'm gonna whoop that ass
like it owes me money.
- [laughs]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, Matt and Katie.
You guys ready to set
the story straight?
- Absolutely.
- Yep.
- You guys have 90 minutes
to tattoo a sparrow,
and your face-off starts now.
[rock music]
- All right, hop on up.
- So I'm going to do
a super thick
traditional-style sparrow.
- Last one to start tattooing
a rotten egg.
- Can you stop with
the dad jokes, please?
- What's taking so long, Katie?
Are you, uh--
waiting for that sparrow
to hatch out of its egg?
- Why don't you pay attention
to your damn tattoo, Matt?
- Because I can multi-task.
- Because I can multi-task.
[groans mockingly]
- I can poke the skin and poke
the bear at the same time.
- It's called taking your time
because I'm confident.
Dork.
When I first met Matt, I had
a little fangirl moment
because he's a killer artist.
And then I realized that
he's kind of full of himself
and he doesn't really
need a fangirl
because he's his own fangirl.
Okay, here we go.
[rock music]
I just want to knock him down
from the pedestal
that he sits upon.
I can't wait.
[dramatic music]
- Hey, Matt.
- Hey.
- Don't shit the bed.
- Don't plan on it.
I came in here thinking
that I'm gonna be doing
some elaborate
six-hour masterpiece,
but now, I got to simplify
it down to 90 minutes.
- How's it going?
- Got, like,
80 more feathers left.
- You better put the pedal
to the medal, boy.
[rock music]
- 45 minutes, guys.
45 minutes.
- I don't know if Katie's
gonna have
an advantage in this because,
I mean,
she's going up against me.
But 90 minutes is definitely
more within her wheelhouse.
- You're going traditional
with this?
- He's gonna be just all black,
and we're gonna do
some red behind it.
- The whole sparrow's
gonna be black?
- It's gonna be, like,
with shading, the black.
[tense music]
Matt Buck is
really predictable.
I already know what kind
of sparrow he's gonna do.
It's gonna be some
super light,
illustrative, soft sparrow,
and mine's gonna be
a punched-in,
super solid,
very clean tattoo.
♪ ♪
- Hey, Matt,
I wrote you a song.
- What is it?
- ♪ Matt Buck,
you [bleep] suck ♪
You like it?
- It's almost as funny
as my jokes.
- [laughs]
[dramatic music]
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- What'd you come up with?
- A little dear.
We're liners only.
That doesn't mean that
you can't add shading.
You can saturate.
You can do solid black
with liners,
but they're very
intrusive needles.
I have to be very, very careful
so I don't mess
this person's skin up.
And I'm trying to do
some black areas
so I can give you a little bit
of each fundamental here.
- A liner is so precise that
if you go over the same area
too many times,
it causes a blowout.
The only thing I can imagine
is that Gonzo messed up
a bunch of lines
and he's trying to save his ass
right now.
[dramatic music]
- I'm using a fractal
mathematic equation
to make this S-shaped
curved crane head
making short straight lines
in order to make the illusion
of a curve.
- Austin, are you gonna
leave it completely line work?
- Yes.
- You're not
gonna go and do--
- Don't want to hide anything.
No [bleep] questions, man.
I learned that shit
the hard way.
I'm going simple.
This can go either way.
Going simple could hurt me,
or it could help me.
- 30 minutes left.
30 minutes.
These lines better
be straight as an arrow.
[rock music]
- I'm getting up on
his antlers
and that really thin skin
and I'm noticing
some of my lines are starting
to blow out, which is bad.
My only hope at this point is
putting black in those areas
to hide where the spread is.
And hopefully, they're,
like, good deer, bro.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Five, four, three,
two, one!
Time's up!
Put 'em down!
- We are done.
- All right.
It's a little baby deer.
- I like it.
- What do you think?
- I think it looks great.
- Do you wanna keep it?
- I guess so.
- I got a belt sander
in the back if you don't.
- Thank you so much.
- All right, thanks, Gonzo.
- Have a good one.
- So you think hiding
all that shit
with those dots
is gonna help you out?
- I definitely think
I edged you out
a little bit on that one, man.
- I mean, it adds
a little dimension.
Hides some of the, you know,
the poor line work, but--
- You showed clean line work,
but all you got to ask yourself
is if that's enough.
- I feel like
it could be enough.
It was pretty [bleep] solid,
clean line work.
- Hey, guys.
- Let's get into this.
- All right, today, we gave you
guys a pretty difficult task.
- Trying to go minimalist
like that definitely is
more of a challenge
than I thought it was gonna be.
- I went a little bit
above and beyond
of making it more
of a finished tattoo
than just an outline that looks
like it hasn't been finished.
- Honestly, I was trying to
show what they asked for.
They asked for liners.
I didn't wanna hide anything.
- Austin, I think you did
a great job.
It's hard to break down
a realistic image
into these shapes, you know?
You figured all that out
throughout your piece,
and it really works.
- I love all of
the wispy feathers you put
on the back of the head
and neck of this bird.
The different shapes
that you used
really make this image
take form
with just using lines.
Not every single line
was completely perfect,
but you didn't freak out
and try to hide
all of your mistakes.
And for the most part,
it's a really clean,
very cool tattoo.
- Thank you.
Thank you very much.
- All right, Gonzo, you're up.
At the overall first glance
at this tattoo,
you could tell
that it's a deer.
Once you start dissecting it
as far as technical,
it was hard to find a section
that wasn't blown out.
- No, I know where there
was some trauma,
especially when I was
trying to go back in
and saturate with a liner.
That was a huge
[bleep] mistake,
especially on an area
like the calf
where it's so tight already
to begin with.
- The design got away from you.
It's got these
repetitious triangles
that's like, these alien eyes.
But there's two of them
next to each other
that are also the ears,
so that's a little confusing.
- I won awards everywhere
for portraiture and realism
and this, that, and the other.
But then, coming in, like,
a line is what [bleep] you up.
You know, it's humbling.
- For me, it's pretty clear.
My vote's for Austin.
- My vote's for Austin.
[rock music]
- You blew my mind today, man.
My vote is for you.
- He's gonna start crying.
Look at him.
- I almost am.
- He did a more, like,
intricate design than I did,
and you pulled it off better.
- I appreciate you saying that.
I didn't expect this.
Honestly, this is not how I
expected to see this going.
- All right, well, Austin,
you won the face-off tattoo,
and now, you get to pick
the subject or the style
for the six-hour grudge match.
- I kind of want to go
nose-to-nose with what he does.
I want black and grey.
- Are you sure about that?
- I am sure about that, man.
- I respect
the hell out of that.
- You know, dude, like,
you have a [bleep] mad style,
and I'm not here
to hide from it.
I'm here to, like,
go nose to nose with it.
- Yeah, get it, boy.
- God damn.
That--that sounds like
a [bleep] fight to me.
- I'd get to drawing,
guys, or something.
- Yeah, get to work, man.
- You ain't got much time.
- Good luck, guys.
- Good luck.
- I think Austin is sick.
Something has possessed him.
- Like, that dude's
a warrior, man.
He wants to go down fighting.
- Man, I think you were, like,
high on adrenaline for that.
- You're a badass
at black and grey,
and I want to go up against
what you can do.
- What we're doing tomorrow
is what I do every day,
and I promise you, I'm not
gonna make it easy tomorrow.
- I clearly called this because
I didn't want it to be easy.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[rock music]
- 30 minutes, guys.
There better be some feathers
on these things.
30 minutes left.
♪ ♪
But nobody looks like
they're almost done.
- Absolutely.
- I'm a little worried
about Matt.
- Matt?
I'm way worried about Katie.
As she's coloring
the daggers in solid black,
she's gonna color
the whole sparrow in black.
- Oh.
- These daggers are gonna
fall right back.
But the line work that
she has in is really sold.
Really nice.
- Compared to Matt's.
His aren't solid.
His aren't nice.
- This is exactly
what we expected.
- We expected
a great illustration
with some technical hiccups.
- Which is what we got.
- Yes.
- And then, from Katie,
we expected some
solid-ass line work.
Some solid-ass shading with
some weird design choices.
I don't know how we're
gonna judge this thing.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Time's up.
Put 'em down.
- Finito.
- Shit, yeah.
I don't think I could get any
better line work out of this.
- How do you feel?
- Good.
- You feel victorious?
- No, but I do.
- I asked if you feel
victorious, not delusional.
- Get real.
I'm ready to whoop that ass.
- Never.
- I think my tattoo
possibly has a better shot
than yours.
- And why's that?
- Because yours
is kind of boring.
It's a little monotone.
- My tattoo soars
above the clouds--
- Why, why?
- Of your chicken-dove thingy.
- Chicken-dove?
Really?
Mine was way better than yours,
so [bleep] off.
[tense music]
- Let's get this thing started.
- All right, here we go.
- Whoo.
- Here we go.
- Matt and Katie,
90 minute sparrows.
- I think I crushed it.
I really pushed
the pedal to the medal
within 90 minutes to get
a tattoo that size
with that level of detail done.
- I did not like the banner.
I thought it was kind of empty.
Like, it was
an incomplete thought.
- Banner, not sure what
was going on with that.
- The overall shading
was really nice.
The outline definitely
needed some work.
There's a couple points
that kind of
went over some other lines.
- The top of the head got
a little bit wobbly,
but the illustration
was killer.
- Matt is a great illustrator,
but I feel like it was
too light, bro.
- You guys both had a little
bit of tonality issues.
You know, yours was
really, really light.
Yours was really, really dark.
Katie, when you do a solid,
thick black outline,
with solid, thick,
silhouetted daggers,
and then, you shade black
on top of that,
you lose the quality
of the line work,
and you lose the daggers.
- The one totally almost
disappears in the wing
because the bird was so dark.
- It's just one of
my little pet peeves,
but just the little tips
of those daggers in.
But that [bleep] dagger
right through that bird.
Don't poke the bird.
Don't poke the bear.
You know what I mean?
- I mean--
- We're poking bears.
We're poking birds.
- Yeah, I mean, honestly,
they're both great tattoos.
- In terms of line weight,
Katie, some of the lines
that you put in
are better than a lot of the
lines that Matt put in.
You meant [bleep] business.
But Matt's illustration
was killer design.
- I think I'm gonna go off of
the birds and the birds alone.
I'm gonna go with Matt.
- Yes!
- I'm going with Matt as well.
- Yes!
- I'm gonna pick Matt
on this one.
- Well, that's fine, I'll just
have to kick his ass tomorrow.
- Hell yeah.
- That's what it is, girl.
- That's the attitude.
- That's what it is.
- Hell yeah, girl.
- Congratulations, Matt.
You won the face-off challenge.
You know what this means, dude.
- This means I get to choose
the style or
the subject matter.
- What's it gonna be?
- [exhales]
- Because I'm ready.
- I'm gonna choose
the subject matter because
I would like to compete
against somebody
that's in their element
against me in my element.
Let's do a lady and a feline,
whatever style you wanna do.
- Let's go.
- Don't just do
a lady with, like, a cat mouth.
- Don't tell me what I can
and can't do.
- I'm actually
really excited for this.
- Me, too.
- I want to see some
great tattoos tomorrow.
- Get some sleep.
Bye, guys.
- See you later.
- We're gonna finally
settle this grudge.
- Great, I can't wait
to kick your ass tomorrow.
- Bring it.
- All right.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, Gonzo, Austin.
This is the
black and grey showdown
you guys have been waiting for.
Are you ready?
- Yeah, man.
- Are you ready?
- Let's [bleep] do this.
- Your six-hour grudge match
tattoo starts now.
- Perfect.
- I can't believe Austin
called out black and grey.
- Hell yeah, man.
Let's hop up here
and start [bleep] zapping, bro.
- If you don't do
black and grey
all the time on a daily basis,
it's really hard to get
these super smooth blends.
And Gonzo, that's what
he does every day.
- All right, man.
Good to go?
- Yes, sir.
- I don't know what Austin's
trying to prove,
but this is a ballsy move.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- This is more what you do,
I'm assuming.
- Yeah, man.
What I'm doing today is
this beautiful woman's face
with a nice, harsh
light source.
And then adding a rugged
skull texture morph
into the back of it.
It's kind of like Beauty
and the Beast all in one.
- Man, you might
not know how to line,
but you definitely
know how to shade.
- I'm glad to hear what
weaknesses of mine are,
because that's
how you get better.
If they don't like my outlines,
that's fine.
Because I don't want
to give them to you anyway.
So the only thing that they
can say to me today is that,
"It would have been nice
to see a line from you,
but amazing [bleep] tattoo."
♪ ♪
- All right, what are you
doing over here?
- We got a black and grey rose.
Going simple, less things
for me to [bleep] up.
Less stuff for you guys
to have to judge.
- All right.
- You know?
I'm tattooing what I like
to call an Austin rose.
It's just a straight-up
illustrative rose.
In my season,
I was definitely perceived
as probably one of the
weakest tattooers in the house.
But every boxer's
got a strategy.
Got to put a little stink
on this thing over here
to make sure it looks good.
- [bleep] suicide mission
if you ask me.
- I'm not scared of Gonzo.
Pressure makes diamonds,
and I'm a hard mother[bleep].
Don't [bleep] underestimate me.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, Matt and Katie.
You got six hours to complete
this grudge match tattoo.
Lady and a cat.
Katie, you ready?
- Hell yeah.
- Matt, you ready?
- Born ready.
- All right, let's tattoo.
- Okay.
- Let's do this.
- Party time.
- I was up until 4:30
this morning drawing.
- I can't wait to make this.
- Here we go.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Hey, Katie, try to remember
to go up to the line today.
- I'll make a clean-ass tattoo.
That's all that matters.
- You know,
it really doesn't matter
how clean her outline is.
I could tattoo
this thing blindfolded.
The design is just too good.
You can't touch it.
- Hell yeah.
- Even though
I lost the first round,
I'm very comfortable today.
I don't really do cats, but I
definitely do lady faces.
I do a lot of lady faces.
[bleep] yes.
I'm slaying the [bleep]
out of this tattoo right now.
- Pride goeth before
the fall, Katie.
- You can say
all you want, Matt,
but my lines
are better than yours.
- It's gonna be a cat fight.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- That is a strange
piece of art.
- The bigger the risk,
the bigger the reward.
This design is just
too cool to lose.
I want to show contrast
between light and dark,
feminine and masculine.
The only thing that I regret
about this tattoo
is that it's not going on me.
- Did you illustrate
your own reference,
or is that a Leonardo da Vinci?
- No, I drew that.
da Vinci and Michelangelo
and all those dudes
entered in a lot of the style
of how I draw.
♪ ♪
- I love my drawing.
I know it's gonna be
a sick tattoo
and I know
they're gonna like it.
♪ I'm gonna kick
Matt Buck's ass ♪
- ♪ Only in your dreams ♪
- Ooh, stop, wow.
Oh, whoa, chill out.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, guys,
this is the power hour.
You only have one more hour.
What the hell
is Austin thinking?
If Austin's trying to beat
Gonzo at his own game,
then Austin should have
come here with a design
that was gonna blow Gonzo's
design out of the water.
- One went way simple and
one went crazy as [bleep].
Gonzo's got no lines again,
but he's super smooth.
- I understand that
he's going for the, like,
distressed, you know,
skeleton face morph.
But to me, it just looks like
she had a little issue here.
- Yeah, he's really--
- Needs a better primer,
you know?
- He's got to really punch
different textures
throughout it.
- Yes, that's exactly
what I thought.
- That I know how to texture,
and this is a smooth
girl's face.
- Yes, I mean, who knows?
Maybe Gonzo shits the bed.
- Austin's tattoo,
it's looking pretty clean.
[dramatic music]
- I'm gonna beat you man.
- It was over before it began.
- Good luck.
♪ ♪
- Five, four,
three, two, one.
This grudge match tattoo
is over.
- Bro, insane.
Seriously.
I can't even--
it's freaking bananas.
- Beyond epic.
- Thank you very much, man.
I'm a hugger, bro.
- All right.
- As good of a tattoo
as you did, man,
this is my wheelhouse,
and I put every spoke
of the wheel in that tattoo.
- No matter what
the judges say,
I liked that rose.
- But I feel like in
a six-hour tattoo, man,
you could have shown
a lot more.
If nothing else besides
possibly crazy,
it was definitely ballsy.
- Definitely got both of those.
Crazy and balls.
- I can't believe Austin chose
black and grey realism.
- It was mind-blowing,
but at the same time,
sometimes, you really just
want to shut some dude's up
who just talk way too much.
- What's going on, guys?
- Hey, guys.
- How's it going?
- Austin, we're still
blown away by your
black and grey choice.
- I wanted to go head to head
with what he's good at, man.
You know, and so, I was like,
[bleep] it, why not?
- All right, let's see if you
rose to the occasion.
- Ooh.
- It's a good drawing.
It's nothing super crazy
or out of the box
with a rose,
but I still like it.
- The shading you
put in the leaves,
that texture
is really, really cool.
I love how it contrasts
to the texture that you
actually put in the rose.
- But a lot of the petals,
for me,
need some like,
big, bold contrasts.
It just gets a little tonal
and kind of fell flat.
- But the overall application
of the tattoo
is done really well.
You did a nice rose.
- Austin, it's obvious
that you wanted to focus
on fundamentals,
whereas Gonzo, I think
you focused more on design.
- You got a lot of good tricks
in this thing, man.
I really like that
front contrast on the face
where you use the background
to kind of hold
that face together.
- The lips, the nose, the eye
are super nice and smooth.
But from the forehead back,
you can't even tell
what's going on.
Your textures
aren't so defined.
They're kind of
washed in and tonal.
- You're gonna have
to pull that liner out,
because when you sharpen
your tattoos up,
they're gonna be
that much better.
- We got to figure out
which one of these guys
is gonna win this.
- I'm just kind
of teetering this line
because "Ink Master"
is a competition
where you need to show us
that you're versatile.
- I mean, do you think Austin
showed versatility
from yesterday to today?
- He showed us a ton of shit
he didn't show us yesterday.
- I mean, it's a rose.
Do you bring plain bread
to a bread competition?
- If it's the best [bleep]
bread in the world, you do.
[dramatic music]
- I like that Austin drew it.
I like that it's super solid
and you got these
smooth blends and stuff in it.
But for me, I think you just
got to impress me
a little more.
And even though Gonzo
didn't nail everything,
I think he was
a little more creative.
My vote's for Gonzo.
- Thank you, man.
- All right, well,
I think Austin showed
some super solid fundamentals
and just fell short
with the wow factor.
But at the same time,
I really didn't like
almost more than 50%
of Gonzo's tattoo.
[dramatic music]
So my vote's gonna be
for Austin.
♪ ♪
- Whoa.
That just threw me off.
- Yeah, I didn't see
that one coming.
- Wake up and smell the roses.
- Holy shit, guys.
- Where you at?
[dramatic music]
- This is where
it gets tough for me.
Breaking this down, it's like,
Gonzo, the face of your tattoo,
the nose and the mouth to me,
that's an A.
And the rest of the tattoo
to me is like a C, C-minus.
It's just very, very dark.
It's hard to tell
what's going on.
Whereas Austin's
tattoo overall, it's clean.
It's simple.
- It's a rose, like--
- A little safe for
the six-hour challenge.
Gonzo, you are [bleep] lucky
that Austin chose
black and grey.
I think that was a crazy move
on your part, Austin.
♪ ♪
Gonzo, my vote is for you.
- Thank you.
- Good job, buddy, dude.
- [bleep].
- Good job, dude.
You deserve it.
- Thank you, thank you.
- You deserve it, man.
- Gonzo, congratulations, dude.
You won the grudge match.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- Thank you so much.
- Man.
You guys both did
killer tattoos.
- You guys did some
good tattoos, man.
- Even though I did not win,
I'm 100% happy.
I wanted to show that
I am a badass tattooer,
and that I can go toe-to-toe
with the best of them.
And Gonzo is the best of them,
and he almost got bested.
- [bleep] congratulations, man.
- Thank you, man.
- You deserved it, dude.
- Oh, my [bleep] God, man.
- You came, you brought it
and you fought it.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- You guys only got
three hours left.
You guys are half-way.
You better get to cranking.
You gonna get some
heavy blacks in this?
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
Especially around like,
the edges.
The judges said they wanted
to see more black,
but I'm more of
the school of thought
that negative space
is a good thing,
and I just got to strike
that proper balance.
I got to make every line count.
[tattoo gun buzzing]
- Tattooing is my passion.
It's my everything.
Besides my kid,
it's my everything.
When I got home after losing,
my daughter,
she was really bummed.
And she was like, if you ever
get to do it again,
are you gonna try and win?
And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna
keep doing it, you know?
And she's my reason
why I'm here.
Not to prove to anyone else
but to prove to myself
and to my daughter
that I can do this.
I miss her.
That's okay, though.
I'm here to kick
Matt Buck's ass.
That's all that matters.
- Oh, wow, that's actually
looking really cool.
The question, though, is,
is it cool enough?
- I don't know, man.
It's pretty rad.
- The greater tattoo will win.
- Yeah, it's me, though.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
[dramatic music]
- All right, y'all,
you got one hour left.
Let's end this grudge match.
♪ ♪
- Matt's illustration
is incredible.
- Yeah.
- That sure as [bleep]
ain't no black panther.
That's more like a soft,
little grey kitten.
- Please, put black in.
- You can lead
the horse to water,
but you can't make him drink.
- Katie put these awesome
lines in, you know?
I can't say shit about
her line work.
It is solid today.
She's a neo-traditional artist,
so where was that
secondary line weight?
- Yeah, I would have pulled
a little more neo.
- It's that thick-thin play
which would give it that
shape and that movement.
She's losing that whole part.
♪ ♪
- All right, guys.
Five, four,
three, two, one.
Machines down.
- Okay.
[soft music]
- That's ridiculous.
You are amazing.
- I'm very excited.
- One of the best tattoos
I've ever done.
- Hell yeah, dude.
That thing looks sick.
- I'm jealous.
[dramatic music]
- Let's hope you didn't
drop the ball,
Mr. Matt "Drops The Ball" Buck.
- Not this time.
I'm taking this one, too.
- I don't think so.
I think I'm gonna
beat you at your own.
I'm confident in my tattoo.
- Confident that
it's not enough.
- We will see.
- Matt and Katie.
- It's not even just
black and grey versus color.
It's, like, two completely
different styles
that aren't similar at all.
- I mean 100% opposites
of the spectrum.
- Yeah.
- It's gonna be hard.
- Hey, guys.
- Hi.
- You guys have been going at
it like cats and dogs.
It all comes down to this.
Somebody's gonna win
this thing.
- Yes, I am.
- You can keep saying that,
but I don't think so.
- This is one of the coolest
tattoos that I've ever done.
I crushed it.
- I busted my ass.
I put clean lines.
I put my heart and soul
in that tattoo.
- Katie, let's dig
into your tattoo.
- I totally like
your use of color on it.
You got the punch.
That strong, traditional
fricking, jam it in
with a jackhammer style
- We did see a ton
of super clean
singe pass line work.
Girl, you slammed
those lines in.
- Thank you.
I was so proud of myself.
- But compositionally,
the bottom of
the woman's shoulder
is the same exact width
and falls onto the cat's head.
Now, your cat has a giant fez
with a sparrow on it.
- It literally looks like
he is wearing a hat, 100%.
- It's a cat in the hat.
- I mean, I totally get
what you're saying.
Matt has an advantage over me
because of his
illustrative background.
He knows anatomy very well,
which is why he knew
it was gonna be a struggle
for me to do a cat.
- If we're looking
at cat-on-cat,
my cat would take a bite
out of yours.
- It's like,
the ultimate cat fight.
- Definitely.
- Matt, the way you framed
in the cat
like, with the arm
and the sword.
Exaggerating the cat's head
to where it's a piece of art
and it's not a scene.
- That shit could be in
the Sistine Chapel, honestly.
- da Vinci meets death metal.
- [laughs]
- I did love how small the
girl's head was in her face
and how detailed the face was.
- Oh.
- It was super primo.
- But as a tattoo, like,
as dynamic as
your illustration is,
it lacks a punch when it
translates into a tattoo,
and I think what that punch is
is just high-contrast black.
- It just looks like
it's a color tattoo
that hasn't been colored yet.
- I did love Matt's
tattoo, actually.
I think Matt is
a wonderful illustrator,
but I truly feel that mine
is going to last longer,
and that's ultimately what my
goal is as a tattooer.
- It might be on
the lighter side,
but that's on purpose
to contrast
with the darkness of the cat.
I'm surprised
they didn't bring up
a couple of like,
bulbous hiccups
on the lines in the flower.
- Bulbous hiccups?
- Bulbous.
- Your line work was trash.
- Where?
- The hair specifically
was trash in my opinion.
- Baloney.
- Baloney.
- Okay, well,
that's my opinion.
- I think our opinion
is the only one
that matters right now.
- This is true.
- I think it's time that we
settle this once and for all.
- Katie's is so simple,
where Matt's is
way more complex,
but also opens the door
for more flaws technically.
- When you look at
a traditional tattoo,
and you look at something
that's illustrative next to it,
this one's always gonna
look, like--
- Heavier.
- Heavier, but--
- Simpler.
- Way simpler.
- Matt's drawing is great,
but it definitely looks like
it's an unfinished tattoo
to me.
- Some people would
call it unfinished.
Some people would call it,
you know,
a classic Romantic style.
- I'm a fundamental guy,
and I've been known
for solid-ass tattoos.
[dramatic music]
My vote's for Katie.
- Thank you.
- Matt, you have a gift.
To me, it's just spectacular.
♪ ♪
I vote for Matt.
- Man, I'm up in the air.
I am like a hot air balloon
right now.
Matt's drawing is so dynamic,
you know?
Sometimes, the drawing doesn't
need to be dynamic.
It just needs to be bold
and bright and beautiful.
Matt, I love you, buddy.
But I think
I'm gonna choose Katie.
[tense music]
- [groans]
Oh, right in the back.
- Whoa.
- Katie, you win
the grudge match.
- I can't believe it,
to be honest with you.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Congratulations.
- I'm really happy.
- Good job, guys.
- Yeah.
- I can't wait to see
my daughter's face.
I'm more than excited
to bring home the gold.
- Congrats, man.
You did good.
- I stand by that tattoo.
I think I did one of
the coolest tattoos
that's ever been on
"Ink Master."
Congratulations today, Katie.
I don't think it would happen
a second time.
- See you later.
- Humble pie time.
- [laughs]