- Stop stop stop tattooing!
Stop tattooing!
Stop tattooing!
Stop tattooing!
Stop tattooing!
Stop tattooing!
(man cheering)
(upbeat music)
- Really happy with her head size.
I've tattooed so many Medusa's!
All right, here we go.
There's a catch!
They take for (loud bleep) ever
because there's so much detail
when it comes to doing writhing snakes.
I feel like I've got a
leg up in this challenge.
- Kelly.
- The shading's beautiful,
the detail on the eyes, the
ridge of the nose, the lips,
everything fits beautifully.
- The fact that you were able to put in
this little figure turning into stone,
you've now created a story.
That's hitting composition
out of the park.
- Thank you.
- Look at you.
- I didn't do new school.
I feel really strong with this design.
I'm doing an illustrative realism peacock.
Growing up, my mom was a single mom
and she had three jobs at a time,
so I was raised by my grandparents.
My grandmother,
she died just as I was
starting my apprenticeship,
and she never got to see me tattoo,
but I like to think that she
would be proud of me right now.
(intense music)
- Team Nunez!
That's Kelly.
You tattooed a peacock!
Come on down, let's see how you did.
- Kelly, the tattooing
here is spectacular.
There's so much texture to that beak,
the way it rises and falls
and the way that you put the
true gray over the white,
directly over the top of the
eye and gave us that indention
really gives that birds
head a lot of shape.
- Today you must transform
your canvas into a warrior
by tattooing shoulder armor.
But that is not all,
you must work in pairs,
tattooing both of your canvases
shoulders at the same time.
- Kelly and Nikki.
- Hell yeah, I'm super stoked
that I'm working with Kelly.
I'm not gonna have to
struggle working with somebody
that doesn't know how to tattoo.
We're going to kick ass.
- Hey Nikki, just anytime
you're gonna like push or pull,
let me know.
- Kay.
- Sweet, thank you.
- Nikki and Kelly.
(intense music)
- Both very nice tattoos,
very well applied.
Kelly, you show some really
nice textures as well.
You did really nice divots.
Your lines are very precise and perfect.
I wasn't really fearing you
guys working together on a team,
and I pretty much put all my faith in it.
- That makes my tummy hurt
but thank you very much.
- Today you must prove that
you understand legibility
by tattooing watercolor tattoos.
- Awesome.
- Bleeding, can't look.
- This is the first time
in the competition that I'm
finally allowed to do color.
So my strategy is to do an absolute
color bomb with this tattoo.
- I like the design.
- It's gonna have like a
frosted kind of look to it.
It's a good day for Kelly.
- Kelly.
(intense music)
- The ink really flows,
bleeding the colors
and really seeing the ink
move in the lower portion
of the neck, with then your
little highlights that really
shows nicely the color
play and the looseness.
You really do a stand up job here.
- You wanted the Colosseum.
- I was looking for like a
action or a battle scene.
Maybe a lion and a
gladiator or a lions down,
head off glowing for any
blood that's on there.
- Oh my God!
My canvas wants everything
but the kitchen sink
in his tattoo.
- I don't know how much I like
his head being overly sized.
Can the body be kinda like proportionate?
- Um...
He doesn't want new
school, on new school day!
I got the hardest canvas of the day.
Thanks Nikki.
(intense music)
- I was a little nervous
at first because I saw
one of the new school tattoos.
I don't know, there was like makeup on it.
- I have like a style that I
do for like feminine new school
and then I have a style that
I do for like masculine new school.
It's just a little bit bolder.
My canvas is a little
nervous about my design
but he's going with it.
The pressure for me to do
a really really good job
on new school day is
absolutely astronomical.
- Kelly's is awesome.
It's not even finished yet
and it already looks like a Colosseum.
And it's new school and it's
everything the guy wanted.
- Kelly.
We're talking about artistry,
Kelly had the foresight to
plan alcoves and little windows
lined in red because this
thing is going to be glowing
from the inside.
- I did morph it a little bit but
I wanted to keep it somewhat true to form
and then use other elements to bring
in a more new school-y kind of feel.
- The judges have decided
that the best tattoo
of the day goes to Kelly.
Well done.
- Thank you.
- Today Kelly and Nikki are facing off.
- They're basically proving right now
who deserves to go to the finale.
- Team Peck gave them
this gypsy girl challenge
which is right up both their alleys.
I'm expecting to see beautiful tattoos.
- There she is (mumbles) gypsy lady.
- This is the worst day for me as a coach
and the toughest day for me as a judge.
- Nikki blows my mind.
I didn't know her before the competition
but I haven't seen
another tattooer like her.
- (canvas) Really?
- She's amazing.
I don't want to do a face
off tattoo against Nikki.
She's kind of my ride or die bitch.
I absolutely adore her.
But I am not ready to be eliminated today.
I have a lot of emotions
that I don't know what
to do with right now.
- Kelly, Team Peck offered up any style,
why did you choose this
particular direction?
- I haven't known you guys
to love new school but
it's what I love more than anything.
She's a gypsy girl but she's bummed out
and her makeups running and she's spooky
and that's what I am.
- I think this is a
pretty immaculate tattoo,
I mean it's really hard for
me to point out anything
that I think is technically wrong with it.
The line work is flawless,
there's a lot of consistency
with the shape and the color.
I'm not like even crazy
about new school tattoos
but I really like this one.
- Beautiful work in the head wrap.
It's blended so nicely, high
gloss and really bright.
- Thank you.
- (crowd cheering) Kelly! Kelly! Kelly!
- Kelly, how you doing, doll?
- Pretty good, I think.
- Wow!
(Kelly giggles)
- You guys, this thing
may be done right now!
I think we found a winner.
(crowd cheers)
Cameraman, take a look at that,
come on in, take a look at that.
Now there's a slight
resemblance to someone we know.
- That's the jawbone of a king.
- What am I? Riding a bat?
- Oh yeah, that's, I
assume, how you get to work.
- It is how I get to work.
Chris! What are your
thoughts for your girl here?
- My girl's making pretty man.
She's working on perfection over there,
I know she's holding it down.
- All right, good luck.
Are you happy with this?
Are you okay with that?
- I'm good.
- Okay, Kelly good luck, all right?
Chris!
How's your only hope for
a win doing over there?
- It's secure, brother.
She's making a beautiful portrait of you
and Kelly all season has
done nothing but impress us
with her drawing skills and her tattooing.
Kelly always seems to design
and make beautiful art
on paper and on skin and
I'm confident in her work.
- For sure man, and just
on subject matter alone,
she's knocking it out of the park.
- Hey, we know how to play this game, bro.
(Dave laughs)
(crowd cheers loudly)
- America assigned you new school,
you had to be stoked about that.
Let's hear from the judges.
Chris? This is your team man.
- Well, Kelly's drawing, as always,
like I said is amazing.
Kelly always pulls it off,
this is not a drawing that
could've been jockeyed
from Google
This is a straight
rendering of you, my friend.
And she killed it, the
tattooing's always smooth.
If you look at the application,
it's consistent everywhere.
The line work's perfect.
Kelly's my girl.
- I gotta say I love it,
I just gotta, I gotta throw that in there!
- And the flood started on Saturday,
I was at work, I decided
to take a chance and leave.
I got two blocks away and
the current took my car
and then I got stuck under a bridge.
Within minutes, the car was filling up
and the electrical power was failing,
I couldn't get the windows down.
- I can't imagine literally
feeling water rising around you.
- I would've felt safer
if I was out of the car
but being trapped in the car
and I couldn't get out of it,
that was the scary part.
Eventually that evening,
two corrections officers
from the facility that I
worked in went out to see
if I just happened to be on the road.
I was able to, ironically,
stick my umbrella out of the sunroof.
I left at noon,
they found me around four
o'clock in the morning.
- Oh my God!
I want to commemorate the
thing that saved your life.
So, here's what I got for ya.
- It's totally cool.
- I wanted to, uh, make
it look like a tree that's
growing to shield itself
with the umbrella.
So you can kinda see down here,
It's the darkness that
you got yourself out of
and new life kind of sprouts out of it
so it's, it's really something that's
bringing life out of
a traumatic situation.
- It's amazing, it's beautiful, I love it.
- Awesome! Yay!
(intense music)
- Honestly, the perfect
thing to do a cover up
is like a really organic
shape that can be any shape.
My canvas has a small tattoo on her ankle
and I know that a cover up
is not part of the challenge
but it would be irresponsible
of me to dodge it
just because it would be easier.
- It was my very first one
but my story's changed so much
I think it's great
covering it up with like,
something so meaningful, so.
- I am very glad that I get to
be the one to do it for you.
- I am voting for Kelly's
tattoo, hands down.
She has amazing shading,
she has amazing detail.
That brightness underneath in the umbrella
seems like that's like
the spark of life regrown.
- Yeah! That's what we were going for!
- It is unbelievable that
Kelly's able to make it
look so packed, so buttery and beautiful!
- If there's anything that
could've been done differently,
maybe if there was a really bold line
to separate the tree from the background,
it would've stood out like her umbrella.
But that's just a small gripe.
- I know.
- Well, let's go let them know.
- All righty, you guys
ready to find out who won?
(crowd cheers and claps loudly)
- The winner of this
face off is Kelly Doty!
(crowd cheers loudly)
- Tomorrow is my mothers birthday but um,
flooding memories coming
back around this day
this time of year.
- I would love to do something
where it incorporates
you and your mother.
- That's so nice.
So fantastic.
- I'm seriously very honored
to do this one for you.
(sniffles)
- Thank you so much,
you're gonna make me cry.
- Here's what I came up with for you.
- Oh, that's beautiful.
- What we'll do is go with
more of realism in the rose
and the gourd and then when it
comes to like the background,
we'll use more of like that
painterly effect in there.
- I love it.
- Thank you very very very
much for trusting me with this.
- Oh, that's just amazing!
- You were made for getting tattooed,
like your skin is just great.
Someone moisturizes.
(laughs)
- T.J is a phenomenal
black and gray artist.
To go up against him
is absolutely daunting.
So I have to rely entirely
on my bag of tricks.
Hearing your story, I would
feel remiss if I didn't
say like, it dredged up
a lot of stuff for me.
I was in very much an
abusive relationship,
it was terrifying and
the things that happened
are, um, still in the back
of my head all the time.
I need you to know how
much it means to me that
I get to be the one to do this for you.
- What do you think about Kelly's?
- Detail in that gourd, man I mean,
it looks like you could taste that thing.
- And her color blends are really smooth.
- We're judging two damn
near perfect tattoos.
I love Kelly's design
with all of the different
painterly strokes,
the watercolor look of
some of the splashes.
- This is one of the
toughest decisions yet.
- It's beautiful.
- Thank you!
(rock music)
