‘Ink Master’ Season 14 Oral History: Chaos, Curveballs, and One Cute CATerpillar

If you had to sum up Ink Master Season 14 in two words, you could do the job with “chaos reigns” — but in a good way. An all-star cast, a brand new panel of judges, a new host, more prize money, shocking twists and breakneck turns, the involvement of an actual Master of Chaos — that’s the kind of chaos that creates a season of TV that you just can’t miss.

But Ink Master is no stranger to chaos. 2020 was a chaotic year for tattoo competition series. The COVID-19 pandemic caused Season 13 to end abruptly with no live finale and therefore no winner was named. A few months later, Paramount Network canceled the show as part of a larger shift in the channel’s focus.

But almost as swiftly as the show was canceled, Ink Master found a new home on Paramount+. The series returned with bigger stakes and bolder tattoos, knocking out a season that reminded viewers why they became obsessed with Ink Master in the first place. Heading into the Season 14 finale, the five finalists — DJ Tambe, Creepy Jason, Angel Rose, Gian Karle, and Bob Jones — spoke with Decider about the twisted trail they traveled to this moment.

After an unceremonious hiatus, an all-star lineup of tattoo artists return to the shop for the biggest competition in Ink Master history.

Creepy Jason: I did know that it was an entirely new production, but I wasn’t aware of all the technical hiccups and all that kind of bullshit. I thought it was going to be the same old bullshit it was last time, and it was a whole lot of new bullshit.

Bob Jones: I’m in close contact with Angel. We actually work at the same shop. She was like, “I’m going to go on” and I was like, “Of course I’m gonna.”

Angel Rose: Bob and myself, we didn’t get our normal Ink Master title [after Season 13]. This is the big one. This felt like the next step for us. I think we got to where we got [in Season 13] and that was an accomplishment, but if there’s a bigger prize to win, both Bob and myself are gonna go get it.

Gian Karle: I was super excited. As soon as I got the call, I was like, “I’m in.” I didn’t even give them a second. I was 100% down, whatever it was — but it was definitely nerve-wracking.

Ink Master has routinely brought back previous contestants, but Season 14 would be the first all-stars season — a season comprised entirely of Ink Master veterans. 

Creepy Jason: I was the first one there and I get into the conference room, the meeting place for all the production, and there’s a whiteboard with everybody’s name on it. I was like, “Oh shit, this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought it was going to be.”

Gian Karle: As soon as I heard it’s gonna be a season of all stars, I was like, “Dammit, man, I wanted the run of this.”

Angel Rose: I enjoy my time at Ink Master. I love the whole process. I love everything that happens off-camera. I love the goofy moments where I’m making faces at people right before I walk on set. I am very alive and happy on any television set. But they did this thing where the very first shot of the season is me walking in there first. I rounded the corner and walked into the studio and there’s eight cameras pointed at me, and I forgot this is also a TV show. There’s this weird, woozy excitement. It’s nervousness and you just do that for two months, and you’re never fully relaxed.

In addition to a new network, Ink Master Season 14 introduced a new panel of judges: Ami James, Nikko Hurtado, and Ink Master Season 8 winner Ryan Ashley.

Creepy Jason: Ami James and Nikko Hurtado are literal legends in the industry, so having them critique your stuff, I felt like it was at a higher degree. Plus, it was very constructive. They just didn’t tear your tattoos apart. They told you what you’re doing wrong and then they say, “Here’s what you should do right next time.” It was it was just as comforting as it was brutal to get critiqued by them.

Gian Karle: it was crazy seeing [Ryan Ashley] there. I was hoping that she would give me a little bit of leeway just because we went through so much together [on Season 8], but she definitely didn’t. I thought she was a great judge and it was a pleasure working with her and all the judges.

Angel Rose: I was pleasantly surprised as I saw them starting to judge because I was looking at people that really care and genuinely want to see us produce the best. They give us a lot of direction comparatively to the previous judges. The previous judges were these scary-ass figures. They were these looming, evil gods that decided our fates.” Talking to Nikko and Ryan in particular, they would see something and be like, “You’re so close on this. It would be so cool to see this. We think what you would benefit from is this.” It was very constructive and it was very respectful.

Bob Jones: It was really difficult for me because I just got off just got out of doing season 13 and now I got to learn all these rules for these three judges that I don’t know.

The show added Joel Madden of Good Charlotte as its new host, but previous host Dave Navarro still had a part to play in Season 14. Now dubbed Master of Chaos, Navarro would appear via TV screen and introduce game-changing twists for every challenge.

DJ Tambe: [Joel is a] super nice guy. He’s really into art. Joel, pretty much like Dave, has collected tattoos over the years and he knows what he visually likes. I think you need someone who’s generally not biased of styles or anything like that and just knows what’s something interesting to look at.

Angel Rose: [Dave] knew that he made us nervous and he was okay with that. I think Joel is just stoked to see it happen. Joel’s like, “Oh, this is cool!”

Creepy Jason: [Joel’s] like a sweet baby angel, is what he is.

Bob Jones: Dave[‘s return] was a surprise. It’s like “Here’s a familiar face, but also every time you see his face, he’s mixing things up and making it a lot harder.” Tattooing is already not the easiest thing in the world and then they’re throwing us a random challenge and then you’ve got Dave dropping in and you’re like, “Oh man, I had a plan and now I don’t have a plan.”

Angel Rose: It’s almost like Dave has done this role for so many years that he’s ascended to god status. He showed up and I was like, “Why is he backlit? Is he in Heaven? Is he talking to us from Ink Master afterlife right now?”

The elimination tattoos on Season 14 proved to be tougher than ever — although one artist’s idea of tough was not necessarily the rest. 

Bob Jones: It’s really hard for me to decide what’s the easy skull pick and what’s the hard one. I picked that Kandinsky jellyfish and everybody was like, “I don’t want to do that thing at all. That’s a mess I can’t wrap my head around.” And I was like, “I think this one’s the good one.”

Gian Karle: I wasn’t expected on winning [the Creativity challenge]. I was just trying to get stay out of the bottom, especially that early in the competition. Something that happened to me was that the first challenge I won, or I got to pass through, and immediately I felt the eyes of everybody just looking at me, like, “This guy, I gotta get him out.” You start doing good right off the bat, and then you might go home. It’s not just about how good you can tattoo or about how good the canvases are. There’s a lot of luck involved here.

For the Detail challenge, the artists had to tattoo pinups of animals.

Bob Jones: I do pinup style anime girl tattoos all the time, so putting anthropomorphic features on them wasn’t super hard. Gian and I had the advantage that day. so we got the skull pick. I feel like with that giraffe one, I was just like, “It’s a Detail challenge. It’s got all these spots and stuff, now I just got to add everything together to make a successful piece.” The hardest part was just getting it done in five hours.

Angel Rose: This is an all-star season. I want to see some shit that has never existed before, and I can tell you honestly that “sexy giraffe in a pink harness” was not on my bingo card for Ink Master Season 14.

Creepy Jason knocked out a pinup tattoo of an elephant in 1980s aerobics gear — but viewers need to think again before requesting something similar to what they see on TV in the artists’ shop.

Creepy Jason: That tattoo specifically I love. The backlash to this, though, is now people want to bring me — in the real world — these very complicated and crazy fucking ideas because they think I enjoy doing that all the time. And I don’t. I like to do regular tattoos.

DJ Tambe: In my everyday career, when I get emails for color portraits, they always get talked into black and gray.

For Episode 4’s Adaptability challenge, the artists had to “match a master” — meaning, show they could tattoo as well as — if not better than — an Ink Master winner in their style of choice.

Creepy Jason: Steve Tefft is a legend in the industry, not just as an [Ink Master] contestant. When he called that shot of freehand black and gray, I was like, “Fuck it, I’m taking it man. Nobody else here has the balls to do that.” I would have been a lot more comfortable doing illustrative or neo-traditional, but I was like, “Screw it, man. I want to do something that’s out of the box for me, something nobody has seen me do that I can have a lot of fun with at the same time.”

Angel Rose: Again, Creepy Jason doing black and gray just to flex on Steve Tefft was also not on my bingo card. I just love shit I didn’t see coming.

Angel Rose may not have matched her master, but the freehand CATerpillar tattoo she knocked out in the face-off challenge has become a sensation.

Angel Rose: I actually am talking with a toy company right now and we’re drawing mock-ups right now for the CATerpillar plush. When it happened, I knew I gotta put this on merch. People love this. And then I was like, “What would be cooler than making the toy?” So we’re gonna do it and I don’t know how long it’s gonna take, but it will definitely be a thing.”

In the biggest twist of the season, the four masters were invited back into the competition. While this was a twist to the contestants, the masters knew it was coming — and decided to have a little fun with it.

DJ Tambe: I knew when I got the call that I was staying. I think [the network] was just going to let the artists know, “You thought these guys were here for one challenge? Well, they’re staying.” So we were like, “You should throw it to us. We’ll play around for a minute, make it sound like we were unsure and then just let them have it.”

Creepy Jason: We had no clue. The shock on our faces was pretty genuine.

Gian Karle: I really thought they were coming in, they’re gonna be there for a day, “Good challenge guys, see you next time.” And when they told us they were gonna stay it was devastating. That was a real curveball.

The addition of four new competitors to the competition threw all of the established alliances into chaos.

Creepy Jason: I didn’t even have an alliance. I wasn’t even aware probably until the third week that there was an alliance of five fucking people — and I wasn’t in it. It makes sense watching it now how I get the shit end o the stick every week. They’re all working against me and Katie all the time. Then the second the masters returned, those alliances didn’t mean anything at that point, man. It was everybody trying to buddy up with whoever they think can get them to the end the easiest.

Gian Karle: Alliances is the new thing. It’s something I did not do in my last season. Alliances are something I would never even think about, but you gotta do it.

Bob Jones: Gian’s smart. He’s puppet mastering this whole thing from behind the scenes. He definitely was making good moves. Gian’s insight [of] we have to win the flash challenges, we have to get the advantage, it really plays to the favor of people who are playing the game as well as doing good tattoos.

For Episode 5’s Artistry challenge, the artists had to tattoo landmarks in the new school style and merge it with black and grey realism.  

Gian Karle: I think merging the two styles was the craziest thing I’ve ever done. It was a tough one, man.

Bob Jones: Behind the scenes we were questioning, like, “So what do you want from us?” We were so confused. We had to pull all the judges around us and the producers to be like, “This is what we want.” They all wanted a different thing.

Angel Rose: I realized that the judges responded to being surprised. The previous week I ended up in the bottom and then I ended up doing my freehand caterpillar that is now everybody’s favorite thing. And the judges’ souls lit on fire. They were like, “Dude, this is why we fucking do this show. This is why we love tattooing.” They call my name with the fucking Machu Picchu thing and I get this canvas and I’m like, “All right. Okay, it’s time for me to kill this.” Thank God I have the black and gray realism experience to actually pull off a tiny city. I knew that part wasn’t gonna be hard for me, because I’ve done that before. I was excited about making this weird ass idea into something fun for myself.

Bob Jones: I was walking around the room when we were doing that mashup, I walked over to Angel and she’s all stressed and sweating, head down, and I’m like, “Why are you trying so hard? You already won. Have you taken a look around the room?”

Angel Rose: And I was like, “No.” He’s like, “I wouldn’t worry about yours. You could not finish and you’d probably still win.”

Angel Rose did win that challenge.

Episode 6’s Contrast challenge found the artists tattooing in judge Ryan Ashley’s specialty: black and grey bug tattoos — cue the Master of Chaos — on the throat.

Gian Karle: I wasn’t expecting to win that one either. I was like, “I’m just gonna do a cool tattoo on the throat. Let me not do something too fancy. I don’t want to go home.” That was my main thing. And winning that one was amazing, especially after hearing everybody’s critique of my tattoo. Most people didn’t really like it. So I was like, “I’m probably going to be in the bottom for this one.”

In Episode 8’s Precision challenge, the artists had to tackle color realism via portraits of a canvas’s loved one. Returning master DJ Tambe won the challenge, but it wasn’t easy.

DJ Tambe: That [portrait] tattoo was super hard. Just the overall tone of it, it was just a giant orange picture. You know how those those photos look from back in the day. I was finding myself mixing orange and every color that I had to put into that just to keep kind of that tone. It’s hard under that time constraint. Nikko will tell you like that stuff takes multiple sessions. I mean, Nikko would have done that tattoo in probably three sessions, right? That’s a really hard challenge and I think everyone did pretty good at it.

Bob Jones: Like the portrait challenges, you have to take the canvas into account and what they want. Just because you’re like, “I need to win this challenge,” you can’t just do what you want to do all the time. You got to take them into consideration. If we can’t give you 100% of what you want, we got to be able to work with you and be able to work with the challenge at hand and accomplish a really well-done tattoo at the end of the day. If that person walks out of there and is upset with the tattoo that they got, you kind of failed anyway.

Not everything on Ink Master is as intense as what we see on TV, though. Some ridiculous moments end up on the cutting room floor.

DJ Tambe: I was mad at [Episode 8] because they didn’t show how funny that critique was. Jason had every producer, director, every cameraman, the judges, everybody crying in laughter. He’s in the middle of critique and he pulled a candy bar out of your hat. And he’s got a candy bar in the middle of filming during critique. And the producers like, “Jason, what are you doing?” And he’s like, “I’m eating a candy bar.”

Ink Master Season 14 may be the show’s first all-star season, but it could just as easily be called an all-heart season. Time and time again, the artists reached out and helped each other when they could, proving that a competition doesn’t have to be cold-hearted.

DJ Tambe: I think Anthony [Michaels] said it, like, he’s a human. He has a heart. I help whenever I can. If the artists are unsure about something and I be able to teach them a little something in that moment, I’m gonna do it. You got to be pretty cold-hearted to just say, “I’m not I’m not helping you with shit.”

Angel Rose: The cool thing about this season is that we are all veterans and we all know this game. It’s a very tight playing field compared to a normal Ink Master season and we have this respect for each other. If I am able to help someone or they need help with something, I’m gonna help them. As much as I don’t want to be beat by DJ, if I see him struggling with the printer I’m gonna help him. There’s a lot of respect among competitors. I think that was actually maybe hard for the story team because we were not really trying to smack each other emotionally in our like reality scenes because we were so level with each other. When one of us went home, there was an incredible amount of empathy amongst us. There was a lot of crying at almost every elimination. We all understand the stakes and we all know that they didn’t do poorly necessarily. This is a hard competition and it’s the hardest it’s ever been.

The Ink Master Season 14 finale premieres on Paramount+ on Wednesday, November 2.

Stream Ink Master on Paramount+