Meet Gilroy's Own 'Ink Master'

GILROY, CA — The baby-faced darling of Season 10 of the Spike TV’S “Ink Master” is none other than Gilroy’s own Daniel Silva.

Silva, 24, is the youngest competitor in the new season, which pits teams of champion tattoo artists from previous seasons against each other in a series of challenges. The last man standing wins the $100,000 grand prize. Cleancut compared to his heavily tattooed competitors, Silva’s journey to the top of his field was an unlikely one.

The Gilroy High School graduate broke into the business after serving a year in jail at age 20 for selling cocaine and marijuana, according to the Gilroy Dispatch.

By the time he got out, he knew what he wanted to do. Working in retail while couchsurfing, he saved up enough money for a tattoo machine and got hired at Gilroy’s Rock Zone despite never having apprenticed in the industry, the Dispatch reported.

“The trade is super hard to get into,” he told the newspaper. “You can’t learn it in school. It’s one of those trades where you have to know someone to learn it. For me it wasn’t not a normal thing. I just taught myself studying YouTube videos. Every tattoo I did, I tried to better myself.”

In the last season of "Ink Master," Silva stunned judges, beating "Ink Master" champion Ryan Ashley in a timed competition amid a huge crowd of tattoo enthusiasts. “I’ve never tattooed in front of a live crowd before, and I called out Ink Master Ryan Ashley,” he said during the episode. “If I don’t beat here, I’m going to look like a total idiot.”

But Silva won handily.

Judges marveled at the detail of Silva’s tattoo, an intricately drawn wolf on a woman’s bicep.

“Daniel is really killing it,” the show’s host announced. “He has detailed the hell out of that thing.”

Detail is quickly becoming Silva’s claim to fame, which has earned him so many clients, his appointments are booked a year in advance.

“My specialty is definitely realism, geometric work, and blending the two together and making something that is really unique and dynamic,” he said in the Season 10 teaser. Season, “Ink Master: Return of the Masters” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Silva’s portfolio can be seen here.

Image: Youtube screengrab