Reference or plagiarism?: My Answer to Gentle Jay's Whinning

About last night’s Ink Master debate… That was ridiculous!

 

After turning in their finished pieces Gentle Jay decides he has seen Scott’s tattoo before and immediately hits the internet looking for an image.  What he brings to the table is a picture of a sculpture of a Samurai riding a horse that does bare some similarity to Scott’s Samurai.  Guess what?! That’s not plagiarism… At least not how I or any of the judges saw it.

 

What Scott had done is use the statue as reference.  Everyone uses a reference idea when they create these pieces.  Do you honestly believe that any illustration of a Samurai is going to be 100% original? No because it is an iconic image with a wealth and history behind it.  You’re going to look up several renditions of the Samurai to compile an idea of what you want it to look like.  That is exactly what Scott did.  Is it clear where he got his idea? Yes… Is that an accurate depiction of the spirit of this competition? Maybe not, but it is not cheating.

 

What would classify as cheating to me in the realm of tracing?  If he were to take another person’s tattoo and re-tattoo it line by line… This is obviously not the case with the tattoo Scott did.  There were even changes in the design.  The rider was more smashed down and had his arm raised unlike the original piece, there were strong elements that were similar but not enough to be exact.

 

Even if it had been a trace, let me point out that other people in the competition have traced existing designs before (like Josh from last season) without being called into question.  How about the monument challenge or the portrait challenges… are you going to tell me you will do those without getting an exact of the image?  Maybe it’s the mom in me, but the only thing I could say was maybe it was time that Jay worry about Jay and not about Scott.

 

And all of this, by the way is on the coattails of Jay’s horrible tattoo.  Perhaps that’s a better use of his time and energy instead of trying to treat a client like dirt for his substandard work.  I honestly think it’s time that Jay packs his machines and heads home… to the rock he crawled out from under.