A Very Icky Canvas - Season 3 Episode 7

Human canvas heat index:

FLASH CHALLENGE: 0 not because we don’t like Auntie Navarro (although we don’t) but because it’s like tattooing your grandmother. Yuck!

ELIMINATION CHALLENGE: Daniel gives this a 10 simply for white trash bro with the tatts, plugs and goatee who NEVER GOT ANY FUCKING CAMERA TIME. Boo. There were several other sexy bros too, so we’ll give this a 7. Well done, casting. We’re going to let you out of the dog house with this track record you’re establishing.

He DID get the golden gate tattooed on him, so I'd guess he plays on our team, Daniel---Dave

Let’s all jump on the bus! Auntie Navarro’s tour bus, that is. Or one that resembles it somewhat. Or something. And then let’s drive around the city for inspiration for some reason.

Auntie’s word of the week? DEPTH *screeeeeammmm*

They got right to it this week, so let’s get right to it, ladies and gentlemen.

FLASH CHALLENGE!

So, upon entering the bus, Auntie Navarro literally said the following: “For this flash challenge you’re designing for a very ICKY canvas……..me.” Boom, folks. Boom

I assume Auntie's actual tour bus would have less FORMICA. 

He asks them to design something in the key of old school, displaying that they have some fucking idea of what the word “depth” means. In a perfect world it would mean that Auntie would have something on her…er…his skin that would look like a 3D object and people, preferably impressionable young ladies, would be grabbing at it hoping to put it in their purse and take it home, whatever it is.

He also wants everybody to make 2 designs…one for good luck and one for bad luck. He’s going to choose one design from two different designers and then they’ll have 90 minutes to do them AT THE SAME TIME TIME TIME time time time. (That’s supposed to be an echo)

a very icky canvas.

Snore. I think the producers of the show looked at her…um…him one day and said, “Bro, for being a rock star you have some god awful tattoos. What happened? Did Flea come at you with a machine while you were passed out on PCP? Anyway, we need to upgrade your tatt status pronto as the twitterati have been destroying both your art and your hair non-stop since this show debuted, and we know you’re not going to change your hair so…” Then everybody shuffled uncomfortably for a bit, hoping he would “get it”. He didn’t, so they spelled it out, and that’s how we got this silly flash challenge.

It was funny to watch people going, “OMG Auntie Navarro sportin’ my artwork! Do you know how many rock show hos would see that shit, bros?” High fives were certainly had all ‘round at the thought. On our end of the broadcast, however, the high fives were replaced with eye rolls.

"As you leave your mark on me, I, in turn, shall mark your souls as property of Yog-Sothoth."

Cousin It With a Face, formerly known as Uncle Fester With a Face on this blog until Dave pointed out to Daniel that Uncle Fester HAD a face and that he had been probably thinking of Cousin It, said something funny. He was like, “Whoa my tatt on the Auntie? That’d be a gnarly way to leave my mark!” (That was paraphrased). We were like, you could also just walk up to the Auntie and slap her across the face and that would definitely leave a mark too, bro. Anyway, Dave was right. Daniel has always had a terrible time with names, even fictional ones. He used to call his Mema, “Chester the Molester” and couldn’t understand why she always seemed so confused; he chalked it up to the onset of Alzheimers (which she never had by the way).

OK…so back to the Flash Challenge! Jersey Jimmy designed 20, count ‘em, 20 tattoos, while only tasked with 2. This is dumb Jersey Jimmy. Make 2 nice tattoos rather than 8 shitty tattoos. You suck more and more and more.

Joshua's canvas later dispels Jersey's bad vibrations via gesticular incantations..

Honestly, Jersey Jimmy and Mrs. Priss, Joshua, are to Ink Master what Coco Channel and Alyssa Edwards were to Ru Paul’s Drag Race last season…lame, drummed up drama between a couple’a drama queens who aren’t really all that great so they kick up dust to get the camera situated on their stupid faces.

Andre 3000’s rabbit/rabbit foot idea was gnarly and Daniel’s favorite, although somewhat sad. L Poor rabbit.

What’s up with Ta2 BB getting stuck on putting her face in every tattoo now? Her good luck flash design was of herself. Booooo! Her good luck tattoo caught the eye of the good Auntie, though, so kudos to her we guess. Yawn.

Ta2 BB's good luck design. A severed torso in a coffin is good luck?

Cousin It’s bad luck planchette (Daniel has no idea how to spell that) won over the Auntie, so under the gun she….er, he went. It was weird because the two artists are sitting there working on Auntie Navarro while everybody circled around them taunting and talking trash. What in the good, glorious, bonafide hell?

An eagle-eye got the brown-gnosed garden gnome his opportunity to mark up Auntie Bruja.

Meanwhile, back on the DeathStar...

Cousin It’s dumb face won overall. His total jackass side came out this episode, or it was always there but now that he actually did something notable we, blessed viewers, get to see it. Yawn x2.

That brings our bored asses to the…

ELIMINATION CHALLENGE!

Nikko Hurtado is the guest judge and though neither of us know who he is, and that doesn’t mean ANYTHING one way or the other, his work examples were quite beautiful and dude looks like he can make realism happen on yo’ skin at a shop near you, yo!

Photo realism is the name of the game this week, and also…landmarks. Yuck. Daniel thought if he was going to get any landmark tattoo it would be the sun coming up at Flex and tweakers scurrying into the bushes. Good times.

"Now's my chance to be evil."

"E V I L!"

(anxious)

"Evil."

Cousin It With a Face thought he was being all clever and crafty and, in the end, just made himself look dumb, dumb, DUMB.

LOL at Jimmy and his Grand Canyon tattoo…maybe we’ll take that back about Cousin It.

That Mount Rushmore tattoo? What in the holy fuck? “I want four faces in _____ hours, miracle worker Ta2 BB. Oh, and please kill yourself. Thanks.” These canvases REALLY need some pep talks about adjusting their expectations. “I want a full body suit in 2 hours please.” Give us, and the contestants, a goddamn break. Do you really want a shitty, shitty, shitty tattoo because you asked for the world? Well then I hope you get said shitty tattoo.

We could work on this canvas all week, every week.

Oh…also…WHY on God’s forsaken, hell-bent earth did Andre’s canvas not get any more camera time? That dude was fucking huge and hot as fuck and he appeared on the episode for exactly 1.7 seconds. Is there someone we can sue for this?

When Kyle put forward that he’s going through a foreclosure while on the show we both wanted to take him in our arms, kiss his forehead lightly, run our fingers through his hair, lay him down, fan him with palm fronds, feed him grapes, massage his li’l toes and tell him that everything would be alright. Poor dude. That blows. They should give him the win just for being such a KEUTI PI.

The two bridges….oh God were these bad…especially Mystery Bro’s (ES). It looked like…well…like something horrible, to be sure. A big black blob.

Ta2 BB’s 2 faces of Rushmore looked like an intentional joke.

"We see what you are doing to us, BB." 

So, in the end, one of the bridge bros, Team Handsome, won. Kyle’s coliseum was pretty cool for the time he was given. AND he threw Mrs. Priss a bone at the judging panel by acknowledging that Joshua’s ability to work with clients is admirable. Do we see a half-hot reality TV relationship forming before our very eyes? Hmmm. We’d be down to see them kiss.

Honestly, This tattoo isn't perfect. I guess it just rises above the rest. 

Framing this somehow would have helped a lot. 

Annnnnnnnd…Mystery Bro totally blew it with his shadowy-ass tattoo. I can’t say whether I’m sad to see him go or not because I always forgot he was there. E.S.? ES? Daniel’s a pedant and not knowing whether there should be periods after those initials or not is mad confusing, yo.

C.Y.L., E.S.

Alright folks, that wraps another episode of tatt bro drama. Sleep well and know that we touch ourselves when we think of you.

Yay, Nay, or GAY. Rating the best and worst. ---Dave

Yay: E.S., for giving no excuses. 'Bout time someone didn't. Kudos.

Yay: Andre 3000's bad-luck bunny.

Nay: BB's bad-luck girl. I liked both of her designs, but didn't see the good/bad in them.

GAY: Jersey Jimmy's 20 roughs. None were finished enough to tattoo, nor were they any good. 

This Is What It Sounds Like...When Bros Cry - Season 3 Episode 5

Human canvas heat index:

BATCH 1 (FLASH CHALLENGE) Both of us say 1.3. Freezing but the nature of the challenge didn’t lend itself to “pretty” or “sexy” very well.

BATCH 2 (ELEMINATION CHALLENGE) Dave says 3, Daniel says 7

Welcome back boyz and girlz! Let’s get right to the goddamn drama because the show sure did…as it always does. This week’s episode started off with the “winners” (those contestants who weren’t kicked off) coming back to the room post judging session and – cue that Price is Right trombone when somebody fucks something up – everybody is bummed that Mrs. Priss (James) “won”. Literally…everybody. That must be a weird feeling to be like, “Yay I won and OMG every single person’s face I can see is filled to the brim with disgust.” We can only guess as to what that feels like because we’ve never won anything in our lives…well Daniel hasn’t anyway, except for that time he won a free small French fry or apple pie (choose one) during that ever-recurring McDonalds Monopoly game deal.

What's up with that twitter handle? Is Brozzley a bottom?

Let’s start by saying that we’re both sad Brozzley Bear went home. What a sweetheart; but more on that later. What we need to say now is that Dave IMMEDIATELY called that Brozzley Bear was getting the looser’s edit. Why? Because they started the episode out giving him face time and a glimpse of personality, both new developments in the short story arc that was Brozzley Bear. Although we don’t watch a ton of television, we DO watch a few competitive reality shows regularly and the editing tricks are so common they’re basically vernacular at this point.

They (production team and Auntie Navarro) jumped right in to the action this episode with two wacko challenges, neither of which had any sort of tie-in that we can remember at this time…although we’ve got a serious hankerin’ for some Taco Bell.

Oh my Josh!

FLASH CHALLENGE!

Scars. Covering up scars. Daniel really dug this challenge because he’s got a bunch of scars on his shoulders and back that he wants to eventually get covered up with some artwork. Dave was fairly skeeved out over this challenge because he’s the visual thinker of the bunch and when he sees somebody with a scar that runs down their entire torso he says he can’t help but picture what they must have looked like splayed open on the operating table. Daniel’s brain shuts off before it goes there because he’s a non-imaginative, squeamish, fussy sissy.

You might see France but I see a rusty draw-bridge.

Anyway, on to the Flash Challenge. Since Mrs. Priss won last episode’s Elimination Challenge (which for some reason is sounding more and more like a race to take the largest dump) he got to choose which scar he wanted to work on. He chose one that didn’t even show up on camera…a tiny speck of a scar on some chicks shoulder. Honestly I’m calling phony. This girl just wanted to be on TV so, when interviewed, was just like, “Well, I’m scarred…on the inside, y’all.”

"Scars are just little kisses from the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young."

Something about the production of this episode was bugging the shit out of us. One good example of this was the way they “revealed” the scars. Whomever worked on the sound design for this episode really went a bit bonkers with this metal guitar lick that they kept inserting every time there was a blemish of the particularly gnarly variety. It got a bit ridiculous:

            Alice bumped her knee on a rock once *silence*

            Joe had a bed collapse on his ass *GHUUUNK-GHUN-GHUN-GHUUUNKKK*

            Susan got a boo boo playing tennis *crickets*

            Harold took a hammer and gouged his eyeball out with it *GHUUUNK-GHU-

GHU-GHUUUUUNKKKK*

Sally pricked her little toe with a needle when she was two *………………..*

It got to be rather obnoxious. I don’t want to fault the post production folks for trying something “new”, but it was annoying and scars really AREN’T Rock ‘n’ Roll. Scars CAN be sexy, but stabbing yourself in the nuts with a letter opener is actually the opposite of rockin’.

Wait, this scar is Rock 'n' Roll! Check out that crack pipe! 

Just kidding. It was really an asthma inhaler. 

 Another interesting note we noticed: Mrs. Priss got to choose which canvas he wanted to work on but the rest was random…the canvases just picked a skull and hoped for the best. The reason, however, was obvious: it would have been pretty shitty if everybody was like, “OH NO I DON’T WANT THAT UGLY DUDE WITH THE FUCKED UP STOMACH THING GOING ON YUCK GROSS EWWW!” Surprising display of humanity, production crew; we’re quite impressed. *clap* *clap* (probably more to do with it being just the flash challenge and not the elimination challenge---Dave)

Today’s word/concept/technique/skill is…um…oh yeah: Value. Dave wasn’t confused by this, of course. Daniel was both confused and oblivious but no surprise there.

A very pretty tattoo over a non-existent scar.

The scar tattoos came out pretty good. Mrs. Priss actually did a damn good job on his non-scarred client. Andre 3000 did a pit bull thing that got praise from everybody including the judges but neither of us could tell what the hell was so great about it. We’re chalking it up to the fact that his canvas had dark skin and it was just hard to really sort out on camera.

Brozzley Bear squealed with delight about not getting raked over the coals. We guess that when you come under the disappointed gaze of Everybody’s Disapproving Father, Chris Nuñez, not getting scolded is a prize in and of itself.

So the chick that all the judges want to fuck won the Flash Challenge. That’s right. Ta2 BB. Dave likes her. Daniel doesn’t…but can’t figure out why because she’s sweet. He’s most likely jealous that Everybody’s Disapproving Father, Chris Nuñez, wants to place his penis inside of Ta2 BB and he spend a lot of time each episode wishing he had the kind of equipment Daddy Nuñez would be interested in smashing. Tough luck Daniel!

Anyway, enough about the scar challenge. Banjo Kazooey is getting impatient! Let’s get on to the…

ELIMINATION CHALLENGE!

C'mon, look at the camera! That's it, baby!

Hot guest judge alert!!!! Ladies and gentlemen, help me welcome Chuey Quintanar to the sewing circle. Yowza.

Again, with the challenge being based on the technique of “Value”, the bros are tasked with creating a tattoo using ONLY black ink. So they can go from dark to light and use the skin as the “white” in the artwork.

Dave explained it to Daniel thusly: a tattoo artist will take black ink and add water to it in varying degrees to make it less dense, therefore allowing the artist to make a lighter black in the skin. By varying this mixture of water and black ink an artist can go from super-dark to super-light and every shade in between without ever having to use any white ink. Once an artist mixes white ink in with their black, they’re actually creating a third color: grey. This is probably very basic color theory but Daniel acted like one of those cute deaf kids who hear sound for the first time and make faces and clap their hands and squeal.

Production notes: spend more on hot canvasses, less on sound design. 

The tatt bros also had to create a Mexican day of the dead themed tattoo.

"I want you to tat me up with your skull, BB, while I figure out how to dispose of the rest of you..."

Um…so what was up with that Stevedore bro begging to have Ta2 BB’s face on his body for the rest of his life. Ta2 BB better be on the lookout for this bro for basically all of eternity because his eyes had a “serial killer in love” look to them that was creepy. Daniel would still tap that, though (just for the record).

Here’s a rhetorical question for you, dear reader: does anybody think that all of these models who are bitching with the tattoo artist are ACTUALLY being cunts or is this just manipulation on the part of the production company? The thing is, neither of us remembers so many bitchy, fussy, cunty clients putting their feet down in episodes past. Do they vet these people at all? Isn’t there some thing they sign that’s like, “You’re skin belongs to us and you get no say in it whatsoever.” I mean, what’s up with dude being like, “Oh no you ain’t goan’ put no Messican dead bro tatt on mah body.” That’s the challenge. Why would they allow something like this to happen? Why is an artist put at a disadvantage with a shitty canvas who isn’t playing by the rules? We’re both calling phony. Drummed up. Tacked on. Hacked in. Clued out. Turned down. You get the idea. The girl that got fuckable fireplug James Danger kicked off the show just seemed to take it a bit far…who knows. That shit was TOO HOT 4 TV.

"Do you mind if your free 6 hour tattoo actually has something to do with the fucking challenge?"

That above rant was obviously about the dude with two beaded goatees who was getting all pissy about Kyle’s (the bro with the eye on his neck) tattoo idea. If you’re not being prodded by production to behave like an asshole then you’re actually an asshole. Is it us? Maybe.

OHGOD…so at the critique Banjo Kazooey kind of flipped out and said, “YOU ALL FUCKING SUCK”

And yeah…a lot of these tattoos really blew chunks.

Andre 3000 really messed up on this one. He’s lucky to still be here because he actually didn’t follow the instructions for the challenge, and everybody was giggling because he actually created a mess of a piece. We’re surprised…and so were several of the contestants on the show. Lesbro was giddy at what a horrible job ‘Dre did.

Andre 3000's weird weird weird one. I'm glad he got called out on not following the stipulations. 

So, so disapproving.  Nunez read in 4...3...2...1...

(sound of Andre getting spanked 3000 times)

Brozzley’s model was a big hot hunk of bro. His tattoo was a big hot hunk of horrible messy turd. Poor dude. He was sweet as hell. We were practically weeping ourselves when he broke down and ran out of the room to cry in the closet. Jersey Jimmy was also uncharacteristically sweet when he chased after him.

This scene made me want to cry as well ---Dave

Anyway, so Brozzley broke down and then got kicked off. When he said, “I’m really sad,” it made us really sad. Seeing big hairy dudes cry kind of gives Daniel a boner too so….

On a serious note, though, boo hoo hoo…Brozzley Bear! You went to soon. We just gave you your cute name, too. *dab at eyes with tissues*

Tune in next week for someone doing something to some end in front of some other somebodies. Is “somebodies” a word?

Yay, Nay, or GAY. Rating the best and worst. ---Dave

Once again, Daniel forgot to mention the winner. Lil' Greaser Bro won with this.

Which brought us this; Ta2 BB getting burned for being nice. 

She pretty much handed Lil'GB the win. Don't worry, BB. You have good Juju.

Yay: Lesbro's tattoo. This deserved the win, it's gorgeous.

Yay: Kyle's "Arabian Luchadore". It's too bad about the background, and the dick-head double dildo "client". It's a beauty and coulda been a contender. Note to contestants: when you have a Mexican guest-judge, research your Aztec shit!

Yay: Kyle's flash challenge tattoo. Finally got to do a real phoenix 

and make up for that cruddy nu-skool one from episode 3. 

Nay: Ta2 BB's selfie. All kinds of creepy. Mostly beautifully rendered, though.

Nay: Well-dressed Bro's tattoo. The girl is nice, but the eyes (and face paint around the eyes) 
are all kinds of wonked-out.

GAY! I couldn't bring myself to call out any of the artists this week after the spanking and reaming they all got from the judges, and all of the tears after Brozzly was tossed into the bear pit. So instead, we will dub this animated gif of Auntie Navaro casting some Bruja magic at your pious selves.