Reprinted with permission from www.redesignrevolution.com

The contestants gather at the headquarters for Pastry Footwear, which is a sneaker line designed the offspring of hip hop moguls and this week’s guest judges, Angela and Vanessa Simmons. They explain branding to the contestants and introduce the Flash Challenge. The artists have one hour to stamp their own individual brand onto Pastry shoes. The winner will get $2,000 and some sort of bragging rights.

Ralph is painting eyes and lips in honor of his girlfriend, someone actually said “chicks dig candy,” I see sparkles, cherries, and DJ takes the shoelaces out because that’s more street. Teresa gives some long and boring explanation of the symbolism. Jerod paints words, so whatever. Ralph slaps some blue paint on the gold sneakers. Dollarz made a stupid musical note. Kelly decorated the sneakers with sprinkles. Brittney put a rebel flag on one shoe and an American flag on the other. Tylor painted a red rose and a black and white rose. Derek put candy and pastries all over the sneakers because he thought that was the assignment. Alli made “like cute, and a little tough.” DJ brought it back to hip hop’s roots by making some really ugly sneakers with tiger stripes. Basically, he’s sucking up to Run DMC’s relatives.

The top two artists are Ralph (seriously?) and DJ (SERIOUSLY?). DJ wins this round with his boring tiger-striped sneakers that don’t even have any laces. Derek understands me and says “DJ put some stripes on his shoes and won.”

For the Ink Challenge, pairs! Five teams of two, and each team will be assigned a pair of family members who want a tattoo that highlights their bond. They will each have four hours to ink the tattoos. The skins tell their sob stories, and here are the pairs:

• Kelly and Brittney inking twins who want to show their bond with a horse with wings and fire and hair.
• DJ and Derek will be making angels with wings for cancer survivors.
• Dollarz and Jerod are working with a father and son who want a macaw and something about Venezuela.
• Tylor and Ralph are inking a mother and daughter with some kind of birds.
• Teresa and Alli have skins who lost their father, and are designing something involving a puzzle piece that has to go around a gunshot entry wound.

Teresa is a little annoyed with Alli because she lacks confidence and possibly creativity. Their sketches are kind of lame, with flowers and puzzle pieces. Kelly’s drawing of a Pegasus sucks but she won’t take any of Brittney’s help. The winged angels that Derek and DJ sketched are really quite nice, and Tylor and Ralph made birdies that look so good that their skins start crying.

Kelly is having technical difficulties and keeps changing her needle. Joe checks in with her and says something about maybe going back in to clean up the lines, which must be super comforting for the skin to hear. Teresa’s skin is bouncing all over the place, and Dollarz is inking a very ordinary parrot. Joe mentions the teamwork thing because Jarod and Dollarz don’t seem to be making matching tattoos. And, with only one hour left, everyone’s scrambling. Time’s up, machine’s down, and some of the tattoos look better than others. Well, to be honest, some of them are truly terrible. And by terrible, I mean Kelly has no business painting permanent pictures on peoples’ bodies and I’m embarrassed for the poor guy who has to walk around with whatever Dollarz scratched into his arm.

It’s time to face the judges. The judges like Derek and DJ’s teamwork because there are several unifying elements in both tattoos. The overall story in the mother and daughter tattoos is a big hit, but the judges didn’t like seeing so many birds in Ralph and Tylor’s tattoos. Jerod and Dollarz also made birdies, but oh boy. It’s not good. Jerod’s bird looks like it’s farting, and Dollarz made a cloud and a rainbow that’s supposed to be a bird and Venezuela. Alli and Teresa talk their way through the puzzle piece concept. Teresa’s tattoo is artistic and well executed, but Alli’s is a little…garish? Brittney and Kelly tattooed twin Pegasus horses on fire that do not look like they belong in the same room. There was clearly a teamwork problems, but if you ask me, that’s the least of Kelly’s problems.

The judges pick their top three: Derek, Teresa, and Ralph. And this week’s win goes to Teresa, who has immunity for next week’s Ink Challenge. The top three artists deliberate on which contestants to select for the bottom three. Ralph nominates Dollarz, Teresa picks Kelly, and Derek thinks maybe Jerod or Tylor? In the end, it’s Dollarz, Kelly, and Jerod. The judges let Jerod stay because his black and grey line work is top notch. Dollarz and Kelly get quite the talking to, and because Kelly has been in the bottom three for three weeks and nobody wants her to inflict any more damage on an unsuspecting skin, they send her home. Finally.

Next week, it’s an abstract tattoo challenge.

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