Ink Master season 16

• Elimination Tattoo: Sixteen new artists form two teams: the OGs, who have more than ten years of experience, and the Young Guns, who have barely just begun their tattoo career. They must battle it out with their teams until the very end. Before they battle it out against each other, they must compete to get on one of the six spots on each team. Four artists will be eliminated without getting a shop. The Young Guns compete first. The subject matter is up to then, but the style is not. They must do either American traditional, Japanese or New School. The tattoos will be judged blind. They have 5 hours to tattoo. One by one, the top four artists are revealed and are safe from elimination. The bottom ranked artist is eliminated. The last three artists have one more shot to get a spot on the team.
  • Top Four: Alena Wedderburn, Joseph Serrano, Jade Olivia, and Jenna Coffin
  • Eliminated: Love Duncan
• Face-Off Tattoo: The remaining Young Guns' fate lies within their potential teammates' hands. They decided on a Neo traditional face for them to earn a spot on the team.
  • Eliminated: Johnny Angel

• Elimination Tattoo: It is the OGs' turn to feel the heat, as they compete to snag one of the 6 spots on the team. The OGs must tattoo the same style and subject as one of the four highest ranked Young Guns from the first episode. Their tattoos will be directly compared to the Young Guns.
  • Top Four: James Tex, Anthony Tex, Stephanie Heffron, and Lucy Hu
  • Bottom: Andy Pho, Manny Fernandez, Jorell Elie, and Pony Lawson
• Head-to-Head Tattoo: The lowest ranked artists must compete against each other to get the last two spots on the OG team. They must face off against another artist in a Head to Head. The higher ranked artist will be matched against the lowest ranked. The artist of the lower ranked of the two will choose the style and subject of their tattoo. The lowest was Andy's tattoo was, and he will go against the 5th ranked tattoo, which was Jorell. Andy chose black and grey realistic animal. Pony and Manny will face off, and Pony was ranked lower than Manny's. Pony chose black and grey realistic hand.
  • Eliminated: Manny Fernandez and Andy Pho

• Skill of the Week: Creativity
• Flash Challenge: The teams must create a life sized statue using cardboard to test their creativity in six hours. The winning team have the power to assign the human canvases during the Elimination Tattoo. The Young Guns have trouble finding unity as a team, as everyone has ideas they want to input and Jenna bumping heads with her teammates.
  • Winner: Young Guns
• Elimination Tattoo: To push their creativity, they must tattoo Lettering tattoos. The winning tattoo's team will be able to put one artist up for elimination as a Jury of Peers. The judges were not impressed with the Jury's pick, immediately disregarding their choice and their plan backfired.
  • Best Tattoo of the Day: Pony Lawson
  • Jury of Peers' Pick: Jade Olivia
  • Bottom: Alena Wedderburn and Jorell Elie
  • Eliminated: Alena Wedderburn

• Skill of the Week: Ingenuity
• Flash Challenge: To test their ingenuity, the teams use recyclable objects to make massive work of art on a 8-by-12 foot canvas. The Young Guns struggle with time now that they are down a teammate.
  • Winner: OGs
• Elimination Tattoo: Artists have to tattoo metallic tattoos. Jenna questions whether or not she can handle the pressure of the competition. Although the judges agreed Jenna was in the Bottom Three, she ultimately decided to quit the competition, saving Trevor and Joseph from elimination.
  • Best Tattoo of the Day: James Tex
  • Jury of Peers' Pick: Trevor Burtz
  • Bottom: Joseph Serrano and Jenna Coffin
  • Quit: Jenna Coffin

• Skill of the Week: Composition
• Flash Challenge: Artists must test composition using grass as their canvas.
  • Winner: OGs
• Elimination Tattoo: Artists must tattoo a Japanese Samurai.
  • Best Tattoo of the Day: James Tex
  • Jury of Peers' Pick: Trevor Burtz
  • Bottom: Joseph Serrano and Jorell Elie
  • Eliminated: Jorell Elie

There is no Flash Challenge this episode.

• Skill of the Week: Precision
• Elimination Tattoo: To test precision, artists must tattoo portraits of service dogs. The tattoos will be judged blind. The picking order is randomly assigned. The episode is a double elimination.
  • Best Tattoo of the Day: Cat Castro
  • Bottom: Lucy Hu and James Tex
• Face-Off Tattoo: Lucy and James must face off two different artists, tattooing the same subject and style. They can pick any artist except Cat. The artist they choose get to choose the style and subject. Lucy chose Joseph, and he chose black and grey realistic panda with graffiti. James chose Trevor and he chose black and grey realistic skull and rose.
  • Eliminated: Joseph Serrano and Trevor Burtz

• Skill of the Week: Contrast
• Flash Challenge: Teams must create masterpieces on a concrete wall using tools. Since there are only two Young Guns, they get to choose one member from the OGs to join them, and they chose James.
  • Winner: Young Guns and James Tex
• Elimination Tattoo: Artists must tattoo New School monsters.
  • Best Tattoo of the Day: Anthony Tex
  • Jury of Peers' Pick: Jade Olivia
  • Bottom: Lucy Hu and Stephanie Heffron
  • Eliminated: Lucy Hu

• Skill of the Week: Adaptability
• Flash Challenge: For the last flash challenge of the season, artists must make two works of art on a single pane of glass. Artists have to paint both sides with two different designs and they must share the same negative space. They must compete in teams of two.
  • Winner: Young Guns
• Elimination Tattoo: Artists must do a face tattoo. It must flow seamlessly from the side of the head and down to the cheek.
  • Best Tattoo of the Day: Stephanie Herron
  • Jury of Peers' Pick: Cat Castro
  • Bottom: Jade Olivia and Anthony Tex
  • Eliminated: Jade Olivia

• Skill of the Week: Versatility
• Elimination Tattoo #1: To earn a spot in the finale, artists must create a mashup tattoo. The artists must pick two skulls from two different groups of five. The judges will score these tattoos blind. Stephanie got American traditional geometric, Anthony got Neo traditional fine line black-and-grey, James has Biomechanical watercolor, Pony got New school surrealism, and Cat got Japanese realism.
• Elimination Tattoo #2: The artists must do a second mashup tattoo in the same style and subject another artist did.
  • Advanced: James Tex, Anthony Tex, and Cat Castro
  • Eliminated: Pony Lawson and Stephanie Heffron
• Finale Tattoo: The finalists must tattoo a 24 hour back piece tattoo. The style and subject is up to the artists. In a final twist, the artists must do a second master canvas in a 12 hour leg piece. The opposing team gets to choose the style and subject for their opponents. Cat chose black-and-grey photorealistic lion for both Anthony and James, and they chose an American traditional lion for her.

The finalists unveil their 2 Master Canvases over the course of three days. A spot in the top two is in the hands of a Jury of Peers. Stephanie, Pony and Lucy from the OGs and Jade, Joseph and Trevor from the Young Guns are brought in. The finalists' families sent in videos for them.

• Jury of Peers' Pick: James Tex
• Third Place: Cat Castro
• Runner-Up: Anthony Tex
• Winner: James Tex