Ink Master (season 7)

• Skill of the Week: Fundamentals

• Flash Challenge: Eight rookie artists squared off in a three-part challenge. They were given four hours to first do a full-body sketch of a nude model, assemble both a liner and shader machine from Seth Cifferi, and then tattoo the drawing they did earlier with the machines they built on a dead pig.

• Winner: Christian Buckingham

• Returning Veteran: St. Marq

• Elimination Tattoo: The rookies were surprised to learn from the judges that they will be faced with a new returning artist from a previous Ink Master season each week, and that the returning artist each week is given the opportunity to choose the elimination tattoo. St. Marq challenges the artists to tattoo one of the seven deadly sins in black and grey, using only shading needles.

• Top Artists: Megan Jean Morris and Christian Buckingham
• Best Tattoo of the Day: Megan Jean Morris
• Bottom: Corey Davis, Ashley Velazquez and St. Marq
• Eliminated: Corey Davis

• Skill of the Week: Contrast

• Flash Challenge: The artists work in teams of two to make a sculpture out of recyclable trash. Then, they must use a beamlight on their sculpture to create a shadow that has contrast.

• Winner: Ashley Velazquez & Alex Rockoff

• Returning Veteran: Cleen Rock One

• Elimination Tattoo: The artists take Cleen's style by tattoing neo-traditional hot rods and choppers.

• Best Tattoo of the Day: Cleen Rock One
• Human Canvas Jury: Cris Gherman, Alex Rockoff and Ashley Velazquez
• Eliminated: Cris Gherman

• Skill of the Week: Creativity

• Flash Challenge: Working in teams of two, the artists use salt to create their masterpiece.

• Winner: Christian Buckingham & Megan Jean Morris

• Returning Veteran: Sausage

• Elimination Tattoo: The artists must use the canvas's likeness in a comic book themed tattoo.

• Top Artists: Sausage and Anthony Michaels
• Best Tattoo of the Day: Anthony Michaels

Bottom: Cleen Rock One, Picasso Dular and Ashley Velazquez

• Eliminated: Ashley Velazquez

• Skill of the Week: Detail

• Flash Challenge: Tattooing a fingerprint of the canvas's loved one, scanned by Adrian Gardner.

• Winner: Cleen Rock One

• Returning Veteran: Matti Hixson

• Elimination Tattoo: The artists must tattoo a Venetian mask, focusing on detail.

• Best Tattoo of the Day: Cleen Rock One
• Bottom: Picasso Dular, Alex Rockoff, Anthony Michaels and Megan Jean Morris
• Eliminated: Picasso Dular

• Skill of the Week: Color Theory

• Flash Challenge: The artists head to Coney Island Freak Show where they must work in teams of two to airbrush a pair of contortionists and create a mind blowing illusion.

• Winner: Megan Jean Morris & Sausage

• Returning Veteran: Jime Litwalk

• Elimination Tattoo: The artists tackle Jime's specialty by tattooing a New School dinosaur.

• Top Artists: Sausage and Cleen Rock One
• Best Tattoo of the Day: Sausage
• Bottom: Megan Jean Morris, Alex Rockoff and St. Marq
• Eliminated: St. Marq

Skill of the Week: Composition

• Flash Challenge: A pair of artists create a dynamic composition on a dirty semi truck using a power washer.

• Winner: Anthony Michaels & Matti Hixson

• Returning Veteran: Sarah Miller

• Elimination Tattoo: An interesting elimination tattoo has the artists tattooing a surrealistic female but Sarah's strategy backfired.

• Best Tattoo of the Day: Megan Jean Morris
• Bottom: Jime Litwalk, Sarah Miller, Alex Rockoff and Cleen Rock One
• Eliminated: Alex Rockoff

• Skill of the Week: Precision

• Flash Challenge: The artists design custom lettering on the knuckles, without using references.

• Winner: Cleen Rock One

• Returning Veteran: Jesse Smith

• Elimination Tattoo: The remaining artists must be on their A game when they have to tattoo a black & grey portrait of a political figure. Jesse redeemed himself from his elimination in Season 2.

• Top Artists: Sausage and Christian Buckingham
• Best Tattoo of the Day: Christian Buckingham
• Bottom: Cleen Rock One, Jime Litwalk and Sarah Miller
• Eliminated: Sarah Miller

• Skill of the Week: Legibility

• Flash Challenge: The artists work in teams of two to make a large-scale legible design out of pushpins.

• Winner: Cleen Rock One & Christian Buckingham

• Returning Veteran: James Vaughn

• Elimination Tattoo: The artists aim to create a Japanese dragon with water.

• Top Artists: James Vaughn, Cleen Rock One and Anthony Michaels
• Best Tattoo of the Day: Cleen Rock One
• Bottom: Jime Litwalk, Sausage, Matti Hixon and Megan Jean Morris
• Eliminated: Megan Jean Morris

• Skill of the Week: Texture

• Elimination Tattoo: The artists work in teams of two to tattoo a full set of wings on the canvas's back at the same time, with one artist working on a "good" wing and the other tattooing an "evil" wing.

• Top Artists: James Vaughn and Christian Buckingham
• Best Tattoo of the Day: James Vaughn
• Bottom: Jime Litwalk and Sausage

• Face Off Tattoo: Jime and Sausage were given one last chance to redeem themselves as Dave asked them each to pick an artist to face for a head-to-head elimination tattoo. The chosen artist picked the style and subject for their face-off. Sausage picked Matti and Jime picked Cleen.

• Eliminated: Jime Litwalk and Sausage

• Skill of the Week: Adaptability

• Elimination Tattoo: The artists work in teams of three to tattoo American traditional clipper ship with one member from each team working on line work, shading or color. The teams must then decide on the weakest member who will then be put up for elimination.

• Face-Off Tattoo: Anthony and Jesse have six hours to adaptability to tattoo their own subject and style from scratch without any references.

• Eliminated: Jesse Smith

• Skill of the Week: Ingenuity

• Flash Challenge: The final five created a design on the canvas's foreheads.

• Winner: James Vaughn

• Elimination Tattoo: The artists must use ingenuity to cover up the canvas' despised tattoo.

• Top Artists: Anthony Michaels and James Vaughn
• Best Tattoo of the Day: Anthony Michaels
• Bottom: Cleen Rock One, Matti Hixson and Christian Buckingham
• Eliminated: Matti Hixson

• Elimination Tattoo: The rookies finally get their revenge by picking the veteran artist they want to face in addition to picking the style and subject. Anthony picked Cleen in the battle to tattoo a realistic black and grey woman they drew while Christian and James duke it out in the realistic full bodied black and grey wolf tattoo. Their strategy gave them a huge advantage to the live finale.

• Face-Off Tattoo: Cleen and James had one last chance to earn a spot in the finale with them calling their own shots this time. While James picked a Japanese fu dog on a peony, Cleen settled in on New School with a snake wrapping a skull on top of a dagger.

• Eliminated: James Vaughn

• Finale Tattoo - Part 1: The final three artists are tasked to do 48 hours of tattooing where they have to tattoo each canvas for 24 hours. In the first part, the judges chose the style for each artist they struggled tattooing during the competition. They then must tattoo their assigned style to the chest with Anthony doing Japanese full color, Christian doing American Traditional and Cleen working on fine line black and grey.

• Finale Tattoo - Part 2: Dave gave the artists good news where they have to tattoo a sleeve in the style of their choice. The judges and the viewers will choose which one artist to advance to the final two along with the second artist chosen by the jury of eliminated artists while the artist who didn't advance to the final will join the jury.

Each artist did their tattoos in their hometown before returning to New York to present their final work. The winner of the chest piece tattoo that was voted by the fans will receive $20,000 from Gildan USA.

• Tattoo Rematch: Matti and Sausage square off with the winner, who was chosen by the loudest reaction from the audience, tattooing their winning design on the artist who loses this rematch.

• Winner: Sausage
• Tattoo: A sausage with the sentence "#TeamSausage" inside.

• Advanced: Anthony Michaels
• Jury's Choice: Cleen Rock One
• Winner: Anthony Michaels