Caricature 36/500: Ink Master

My wife hates tattoos. I have a small one from 25 years ago that I could take or leave. So go figure that when the new reality show Ink Master comes out challenging a dozen or so tattooists to compete for a $100,000 prize we are both completely enthralled with it.


Each week there is a new assignment which involves a bunch of random people showing up and drawing names out of a hat for a randomly themed tattoo by a random contestant. The contestants have 5-6 hours to permanently tattoo these folks with whatever pops into their heads for a grade at the end of the episode. The worst tattoo of the bunch gets the contestant sent home and leaves the "victim" with a lifelong story to tell about how they got the worst tattooist on a long forgotten reality tv show. I'd love to see the waiver forms for this production. The people showing up for their free tattoos, some of which quit halfway through from pain or ask for something so big it can only be half finished in the allotted time, are the most intriguing parts of the show. Some of the tattoos were awesome but some were terrible. If you happen to get stuck with the Tribal Tattoo expert when the assignment is Pinup Girl you are totally screwed... for life!


It is hosted by a couple of expert tattooists and the highly inked Dave Navarro, the guitarist from Jane's Addiction and host of a few other reality competition shows. I'm not sure what qualifies Dave to judge tattoos as his skin is covered with a lot of random bat wings and squigglies but he does a fair enough job of keeping the competition moving and firing people.


The Fair Xty, a "Housewifes of You Name It" expert, says her favorite part of the show is everyone's no-holds-barred brutal honesty. There are no innuendos on this program. If your tattoo sucks, the judges tell you it sucks, the other contestants tell you it sucks and they do everything they can to make you feel like crap for ruining that person's body. They also rake each other over for taking the easy way out or making bad decisions on color use or placement. It all becomes quite dramatic at times.


Anyway, Dave Navarro has a unique look with his long face, extreme eyebrows and makeup so I thought I would work up a full-body caricature of him. As always, I did the sketch in pencil and scanned it it to Photoshop for a digital inking and coloring. I am pretty pleased with the results. My life drawing class has definitely helped with body proportions.