LogFAQs > #961160341

@Touch

I think Craigs elimination makes a lot more sense to me in retrospect, since he went to the bottom twice for the exact same fundamental failure. He was an artist who, in his season, was one of the best at his specific discipline, and he put out bulletproof tattoos from within his comfort zone, but he had an opportunity to prepare for something he knew could put him in the bottom again.

I definitely like your interpretation of Joey, he did just keep his head down and focus on creating the best tattoo all season, he definitely made that strategy work in a way that a lot of competitors cant. In some later seasons youll see artists that have that same kind of demeanor, but theyre only making middling tattoos to get by and their first trip to the bottom is the day they close shop, it can be really shocking since you do get artists that just keep coming back upstairs on super poor tattoos.

Its kind of rare and honestly it seems like there are just certain circumstances where the artists are all on the ball, but those are my favorite episodes where the elimination tattoo is a choice between like 6 or 7 incredibly beautiful and flawlessly applied tattoos. Those are the heartbreakers. The competition gets so intensely good when its either a super meaningful tattoo or sometimes theyll do a thing where theyll have the elimination tattoo, then declare a certain number of people safe then have the rest of the field go at each other again.

One thing I love about the show too, is situations like the episode in season four when theyre tasked with tattooing the breast cancer survivors, and it just shows you how profoundly meaningful tattoos can be, and how they help people heal. Tattooing as an industry has an intrinsic level of edge, both philosophically and aesthetically, and sometimes its easy to be cynical about certain things, like I know some of those designs from that day were stuff that I might have looked at before and snickered about how generic or uncool that tattoo might be, but to be shown those examples where I think one of those women described it as helping to restore her femininity was really eye opening and moving.