The previews for this show frame it in such a way to suggest a lot of drama will happen each episode. But this is almost entirely gimmick, and very little actually happens. It took until the end of the episode before Kat decided to “lay down the law” with Pixie after being a big passive aggressive baby. It’s interesting to me she tells Pixie she’s mad because she went to Mexico, and now screws around. Pixie contends Kat left Cory in charge, and Cory gave her the okay. I don’t know about you, but my boss definitely wouldn’t want me calling her on vacation to ask her for time off. If you’re going to leave people in charge you have to empower them to really be in charge. Kat can’t chastise her friends for essentially the same thing Miami Ink fired her for. I don’t exactly see her doing a lot of “work” either other than showing her ugly mug any place a camera is present.

Hannah’s back of course, as if there were any real doubt beyond the previews. She does a great magnolia tattoo, but I’m left wondering why she muddies down brilliant colors with black shading.

Cory tattoos a giant letter B on some douchebag with his own line of hair products. The problem is, the dude’s neck is tilted, and Cory applies the letter straight. A tattoo should flow with the contours of a person’s body. Instead this looks incredibly awkward, like a sticker, and is pretty patchy and poorly executed. Also the client’s mom comes in to throw a fit (coincidence she knew where to find him, yes TLC?) about the tattoo he’s getting, even though she’s wearing a tattoo tshirt. I loathe that it’s okay to appropriate tattoo culture without also embracing tattoos.

Cory’s portrait of someone’s grandmother turns out considerably better than the portrait Kat does later in the episode. This is the first of his tattoos on the show we see with any dimension or sense of light, a big step up for him. Unfortunately his overly delicate work on the face completely healed out of the tattoo, and he drew the mouth on crooked. When you emphasize the wrong lines in a portrait drawing, you end up making the subject look considerably older. The face ends up looking like a police sketch.

Cleveland native, Derek Hess, shows up for a tattoo from Kim. As a Clevelander I’ve grown to despise Derek Hess after seeing his stupid scribble drawings everywhere. He repeats the same crappy gesture drawings (as in Figure Drawing 101) over and over again, scribbles on them, prints them on a dark color, and boom instant hardcore record cover. Wow, if it has scribbles he must be anguished and tormented. Let that be a lesson to all you artists out there, Scribbles = Deep Meaning. Truth be told, he can’t draw which is why he chooses this style, so he doesn’t have to draw faces or fingers. Kim does a good job on his tattoo considering the subject matter, tanks drawn in a similar style by his father.

And holy coincidence batman, Derek Hess’ like biggest fan EVAR shows up for a tattoo at the exact same time ZOMG! The client wants a vertical tattoo, but the design Hannah applies is horizontal to avoid having to do a lot of the line work. This is understandable given the sensitive area she’s tattooing, however she probably should’ve just had him get the design elsewhere because it doesn’t look right at all on his ribcage. She should’ve convinced him to keep a few other design elements (in the original piece the figure had a bird on his shoulder and overhead) that really completed the piece as well. One of the things I love about Hannah is she really uses the show as an opportunity to educate people about tattoos, and she mentions this episode how white works great as a highlight but when used alone generally looks kind of gross in a tattoo, and really isn’t meant to be used that way.

Kat shows us why she only ever does script lettering, because she botches any other style beyond recognition. Her client wants a portrait of his grandmother with some lettering. The picture he brings in, however, has very little contrast and while a beautiful photograph it makes for a poor tattoo reference. She should’ve asked him to bring something else, because she ends up faking definition on the portrait, which makes it look flat and unrealistic. Great artists say tattoo what you see, not what you know. And it’s true, you can’t try to add shading and contrast if it doesn’t already exist in the reference, you just end up with a very fake and flat looking portrait. At the very least you can try and alter the contrast in Photoshop. She doesn’t understand contrast very well, so she uses too much dark in her letters losing a lot of the small details and basically haloing the design, this delicate portrait, with a giant clunky blob that on closer inspection possibly resembles letters. The design is applied in a manner so the tattoo looks crooked when his arm is resting at his side. And the letters should be immediately readable from the front but instead she chooses to wrap them somewhat around his arm, poor form.

The show ultimately fails to deliver even the contrived drama they’ve attempted to create with clever editing.

Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 11:13 am | Leave A Comment | Comments Feed
Filed under: Tattoos, Television Tags: Cleveland, coreymiller, derek hess, hannahaitchison, katvond, kimsaigh, laink, Tattoos