Flash challenges have always been a staple of the Ink Master show format and a pivotal chance for participants to gain a competitive advantage against other competitors. Whatever participant or team wins the week's flash challenge has the ability to assign canvases during the elimination tattoo. The flash challenge also establishes the theme of the episode, and the technical aspect of tattooing competitors will be tested later in the main six-hour challenge.
As the seasons progressed and the show had bigger production values, the producers invested the extra cash into new and inventive ways to design flash challenges that pushed artists to their creative limits.
10 Watercolor Challenge - Season 10: Episode 2
From the first flash challenge of the season, the judges spared the contestants no quarter. Tediously arranging plastic cups of water, then adding color to them to create an image, this challenge had the added difficulty of the contestants not being able to see their work.
Instead, they had to put faith in their team coaches. Each of the coaches stood on lifts that gave them a bird's eye view of the piece, orchestrating the design process from a distance while their team was bickering down below.
9 Fire Challenge - Season 6: Episode 9
A physical challenge that put an emphasis on teamwork, contestants had to use fire to create shading on six different panels that they then assembled to form their canvas. The size of the paneling required the two partner teams to work together at all times, sharing in the responsibility, and therefore also in the blame. Many of the top contenders struggled to meet the saturation challenge, resulting in a tough turn out that worked in the favor of the underdogs.
8 Postcard Challenge - Season 13: Episode 2
When the judges explained this challenge, the contestants resounded in a grumble of expletives. The artists were split into four teams, and, using only postcards, they had to create a discernible image. If that wasn't enough to contend with, rather than have a traditional canvas, they had to paste the postcards on a bus, requiring a lot of coverage, and therefore even more work.
The challenge was six hours, and the teams needed every minute. After the first hour, one team was still brainstorming designs and hadn't stuck a single postcard to their bus. The physical difficulty also triggered another contestant's narcolepsy. It was a rough ride, but the winners had a pretty ingenious design in the end.
7 Garbage Challenge - Season 7: Episode 2
Few other challenges push the artists' ability to think abstractly the way this one did. The competitors had to create an installation using garbage, but there's a twist; a beam of light illuminated the installations, projecting a silhouette on a nearby canvas. The contrast values between the shadows and light had to create an image that would be the subject that the judges evaluate.
As mind-bending as this challenge was for the artists to plan and implement, they also had to contend with the climbing through mounds of trash in search of props, that, while unglamorous for them, was nonetheless for those of us watching at home.
6 Darklight Challenge - Season 6: Episode 5
These tattoo artists are professionals, but several of them commented on the strange experience of confronting nudity so closely. The artists had to airbrush nude models so that, in darkness, the human form disappears, and the glow of the paint would transform into the likeness of something else.
Manipulation of the model's bodies was imperative for this challenge, which made the designs difficult for the artists to conceptualize, and the positions uncomfortable for the models to endure. Furthermore, the artists could not turn the lights off during the design process, so they didn't know whether their piece was successful until the judges were critiquing it.
5 Ice Sculptor/Metalworking Challenge - Season 9: Episode 1
A two-part challenge that had the artists working in radically different mediums from each other as well as tattooing. The challenge set the intensity of the competition and the high expectations of the judges, articulated by judge Chris Nunez: "if you're a true artist, you can make art out of anything."
For a group of professionals who never worked in these mediums before, most teams did exceedingly well, creating stark recognizable images that live up to the ambitious maxim Nunez stated.
4 Domino Challenge - Season 11: Episode 3
As if creating an image using only dominos wasn't a big enough request, the judges' assessment was twofold; they judged the image first while the dominos were still standing up, and then again after the teams set their dominos in motion.
This flash challenge has the rare distinction of one team, spearheaded by Cleen Rock One, who is historically an over-achiever on the show, having their piece catastrophically fall apart. One's heart goes out to them, but, as cold-blooded audience members, it's difficult to suppress the laughter when the team dynamics unravel as they did here.
3 Melted Wax Challenge - Season 10: Episode 12
Simply for the number of steps this challenge required, it was hard for the artists to envision their designs and for us as audience members to understand what they had to do. Working in the volatile medium of melted wax, the artists had to stencil designs using tape, melt colored beads of wax in-between the stencil, then finally remove the stencil to expose the negative space and reveal a coherent image.
Besides the technical obstacle of having to deal with the volatility of blowtorching wax, the artists were also only given primary colors, so they had to do their own color mixing. Each team had its understandable setbacks, and the designs don't rank among the best of the flash challenges, but, because of the difficulty, they deserve respect.
2 Toothpick Challenge - Season 12: Episode 9
At the revelation of the torture about to be inflicted upon the contestants, guest coach and Ink Master alumni James Vaughn called out with all his southern charm "Lord have mercy!" With approximately a half-million toothpicks at their disposal, the teams had to tediously glue the sticks together to create a three-dimensional sculpture.
As the judges were explaining the challenge, a look of exasperation was already beginning to show on the contestants' faces. The teams were divided by gender—season 12 was subtitled "Battle of the Sexes"—and, while the men's team created a thematically relevant Sisyphus sculpture, the women's team made a genuinely beautiful piece of art with their nature scene.
1 Electricity Challenge - Season 8: Episode 5
In this challenge, artists had to use live wires charged by a twelve-volt battery to burn an underwater-themed design onto their canvases. Several F-bombs were dropped in surprise, while others looked like they were being electrocuted themselves from the shock of the task before them.
Of all the flash challenges, this is the one that caused the most physical discomfort. On several occasions, the artists dropped their wires, yelling expletives in pain. Needless to say, it was rough going for all involved.
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