Ink Master is back to close out 2024 with its long-awaited Season 16.
The Paramount+ reality series collects a group of contestants who put their tattooing skills to the test in hopes of winning $250,000 and opening up their own tattoo shop.
Season 16 twists the now-classic formula, splitting competitors into two teams: The OGs (a group of season veterans who have been tattooing for more than a decade) and The Young Guns (tattoo artists with less than 10 years of experience).
Everyone in the Ink Master 2024 Cast
Host:
Joel Madden
Instagram: @joelmadden
Singer Joel Madden returns in Ink Master Season 16 as the show's primary host. Madden started in Season 14, picking up the hosting torch left behind by Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro.
Like Navarro before him, fans may recognize Madden from his musical works. Madden is the lead singer of the fan-favorite pop-punk band Good Charlotte.
Judges:
DJ Tambe
Instagram: @djtambe
DJ Tambe, an award-winning tattoo artist who has worked in the industry for over 20 years, is sitting at the judges' table and deciding who will advance from round to round.
Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, tattooing has taken Tambe worldwide. He has also competed three times in Ink Master himself, winning on all three occasions. Now, he has retired from competing, hopping into the judges' chair instead.
Ryan Ashley
Instagram: @ryanashleymalarkey
Joining DJ Tambe and Nikko Hurtado at the Ink Master judges' table is Ryan Ashely. Ashley is a tattoo artist herself, specializing in black and grey inkwork and distinct detailed beads, string, and lace.
Ashley competed on Season 8 of Ink Master, becoming the first woman to win the hit reality series in 2016.
Nikko Hurtado
Instagram: @nikkohurtado
The third judge evaluating the Ink Master Season 16 talent is tattoo artist Nikko Hurtado. Hurtado is a big-name artist working in the American tattooing industry. He has even tattooed major celebrities like Drake, Wale, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
Hurtado has appeared in the last three seasons of Ink Master as a judge but has significantly impacted tattoo-related television over the years, appearing in the hit series LA Ink and various guest parts on Ink Master.
Contestants:
Alena Wedderburn
Instagram: @alenatattoos
Alena Wedderburn joins Ink Master Season 16 as one of the series' central Young Guns. Wedderburn is based in New York City and works as a resident artist at the renowned Inked Tattoo Shop in Manhattan.
Wedderburn is best known for her hyper-realistic portrait work, tattooing everyone from James Bond to The Joker onto her clients.
Andy Pho
Instagram: @andypho
Andy Pho is one of Ink Master's OGs. This longtime tattoo artist based in Hutto, Texas not only tattoos clients but offers classes for tattooing, mentoring students out of his studio at Upside Tattoo.
Pho specializes in ornate shading work, crafting beautiful black-and-white scenes on client's bodies.
Anthony Tex
Instagram: @anthony_tex
Anthony Tex, a member of Season 16's Team OGs, is the younger half of Ink Master's first father-son duo competing in the same season of the series. James and his dad, James, work out of Deadly Tattoos in Calgary, Alberta.
Tex works best with color, using highly saturated ink tints to create eye-popping pieces of body art that blend the traditional with the contemporary.
Cat Castro
Instagram: @catcastrotattoos
Cat Castro is a member of Team Young Guns, making up one-half of the Ink Master cast. As revealed in the show's trailer, Castro's appearance on the hit reality series marks her first time tattooing since returning from maternity, adding even more pressure to the young tattoo artist.
Castro works out of the Las Vegas-based Sink Design Tattoos but has shown off her skills all over Nevada and Southern California. Her art is easily recognizable for its shading and texture work, which at times gives it an almost three-dimensional feel.
Jade Olivia
Instagram: @itsjadeink
Jade Olivia hails from Timeless Ink in Everett, Massachusetts. She joins the series as a member of the Young Guns team and brings with her a talent for hyper-detailed tattooing work.
What makes Olivia's character and portrait art unique is its distinct use of color to make particular parts of a piece pop. While others specialize in shading in black and white, Olivia will pick one or two feature points of a largely uncolored piece of art and give it a touch of color.
James Tex
Instagram: @jamestex
Another artist taking up arms in Ink Master's Team OG is Canadian James Tex. Tex calls Calgary, Alberta home where he tattoos out of Deadly Tattoos Inc. What makes Tex unique on this season of the the hit streaming series is that both he and his son, Anthony, are competing.
Tex's work is unique from his son's, specializing in absurdist comic-book-style illustrations that pop with color.
Jenna Coffin
Instagram: @jennacoffintattoo
Another ink-covered Young Gun in Ink Master Season 16 is Jenna Coffin from Edmonton, Alberta. A self-proclaimed pop culture nerd, Coffin is passionate about tattooing some of film and TV's most zany characters onto her clients.
She is known for combining her neo-realism style with these pop culture characters, creating ultra-colorful but hyper-detailed pieces.
Johnny Angel
Instagram: @angel22_tattoo
Johnny Angel is the true definition of a Young Gun on Ink Master. Angel's tattooing work takes classical styles and storied traditions and throws them straight in the bin. Working out of Realm Tattoo in Sacramento, California, Angel's style is heavily influenced by modern-day street art as well as pop culture icons.
Using neon-esque colors, these unique pieces take inspiration from everything from Andy Warhol to Japanese anime.
Jorell Elie
Instagram: @thejorell
Jorell Elie has been tattooing people for years, putting him firmly into Ink Master's OGs camp. While some OG tattoo artists find themself working in more classical forms of tattooing, Elie's work is a bit more unorthodox than that.
This Atlanta, Georgia artist uses stunning line work and splashes of color to give off a 'pencil lines over a watercolor' look that is distinctly him.
Joseph Serrano
Instagram: @josephserranoo
Joseph Serrano is a resident artist at Salgado Art Company in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Joining the series as a member of The Young Guns, Serrano's tattoos are anything but traditional.
Serrano's art is a mishmash of cartoon inspirations, hyper-realism, and the ever-online experience of meme culture.
Love Duncan
Instagram: @artizmylov
Love Duncan is one of Ink Master's Young Guns working in Alexandria, Virginia. Duncan mixes detailed shading with conservative color use that highlights the tone of a client's skin as a stunning backdrop rather than covering it up completely.
Duncan comes into the series trying to make a splash as an impassioned advocate for making the world of tattooing an open and accepting industry, no matter one's skin color, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Lucy Hu
Instagram: @lucymytattoo
Lucy Hu is a California-based tattoo artist who joins Ink Master's Team OG in Season 16. Working out of Alhambra's Jess Yen location, Hu focuses almost exclusively on traditional Japanese Irezumi tattooing.
She will not be put in a box, though. She also works on various portrait styles if the client is looking for them.
Manny Fernandez
Instagram: @mannysrevolution
Manny Fernandez also specializes in traditional Japanese tattoo styles, sometimes working on elaborate pieces that cover a person's entire body from head to toe.
Fernandez is one of Ink Master's OGs, packing up and bringing his tattoo gun from his day job as a tattoo artist in Las Vegas, Nevada. While based in the Nevada desert, Fernandez has also tattooed all over the world, appearing at conventions from Rome to Guatemala.
Pony Lawson
Instagram: @ponylawson
There are hyper-realistic tattoos, and then there are hyper-realistic Pony Lawson tattoos. A member of Ink Master's Team OGs, Lawson works in the space super-realism with his pieces, tattooing three-dimensional objects with texture and reflections that will have onlookers asking, "How is that a tattoo?"
Before arriving on the hit reality series, Lawson worked as a roaming tattoo artist, podcaster, and YouTube creator.
Stephanie Heffron
Instagram: @stephanieheffrontattoos
According to her Instagram bio, Stephanie Heffron defines her personal tattoo styler as color illustrative realism and neotraditional. Based in Arizona, Heffron is yet another member of Team OGs, being one of two female competitors on that side of this season's dividing line.
Using a broad palette of colors, Heffron has tattooed everything from cerebral acid-trip-like night skies to uber-realistic bunches of blueberries.
Trevor Burtz
Instagram: @t_burtz
The last member of Team Young Guns on Ink Master Season 16 is Trevor Burtz. Burtz hails from San Clemente, California, working out of the distinguished Missing Link tattoo shop.
Burtz is not shy about using color in his tattoos. He mixes classic American tattooing pastiches with unique elements of more modern neo-traditional shading and coloring techniques.
Ink Master Season 16 continues on Paramount+, and new episodes are released every Wednesday.
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