In this episode of the Ultimate Art Competition, I brought four artists into Studio SLEW to face off in three portrait-focused challenges designed to stress-test creativity, control, and composition under pressure. Before each main round, I throw in a quickfire mini game—fast, unpredictable, and intentionally chaotic—then I rank everyone first through fourth. Those mini game results decide who gets an advantage (first pick) and who gets stuck with the handicap. And at the end, you vote for the winner. We start with a 45-minute mirror self-portrait in vine charcoal, but the twist is mirror size—four options, and your mirror gets “drafted” based on a two-minute blind contour drawing of a cat. Then we go into a 45-minute non-dominant hand portrait (everyone’s using their left hand), with the medium determined by a memory-drawing mini game (yes, we drew a very dapper Roman Pepe). Finally, we finish with a 90-minute oil portrait of me from the same heroic reference photo, using a limited palette: black, white, and one extra color chosen through a color-mixing match. Big takeaway: limitations are a thing of beauty. Whether it’s vine charcoal smudging, left-hand chaos, or oil-paint time pressure, the goal is learning to control the chaos—general to specific, and staying calm when the rules get wacky.