I am proud to announce that my latest portrait work, that of Jake Pitts, lead guitarist of the Black Veil Brides has been completed and delivered to Mark Pitts - Jake's father! (Pictured below)
The image, entirely hand illustrated and rendered, further enhanced by graphic text and embellishments is one in an entire series dedicated to each of the band's members as well as their families. Inspired by my wife and our mutual admiration for the band, I set upon the task of creating individual portraits after completing a personal gift for her - a 24 x 36 poster sized portrait of Ashley Purdy, the notorious bassist of BVB.
Afterward, I thought why not continue, planning a portrait for each band member with personal embellishments and differing design motifs and color arrangements. I had the good fortune to briefly request Jake's acceptance of one for himself over Twitter, to which he kindly accepted.
What an honor it was to know that I would be creating something that would go directly into the hands of this incredible guitarist as well as one of my personal heroes! The honor became even greater, when Jake's dad Mark saw the finished work and requested one for his home in Hawaii.
The piece took well over thirty some hours if done consecutively, Pouring over photos for reference, I decided upon Jake's photograph that he uses for social media as the main portrait. The true challenge would be recreating this image of him in a very large format, as anything openly available on the web was very small and somewhat blurred. More difficult however was the foreground image that would compliment the piece. I decided upon a photo I would later embellish and make changes to reflecting Jake in a more contemporary light.
While a great deal of very talented artists, as well as we fans of the Black Veil Brides create incredible portrait work of the guys, I really wanted to do something unique and not stereotypical. In Jake's case, I chose to create the piece with the artist in mind and not the persona, free of the "character" or theatrical image indicative of BVB over past albums.
While the main portrait is (as faithful as I could come) to his photo, I embellished by adding more recent tattoo work. In fact, the foreground photo, taken in 2013, did not feature Jake's finished chest piece (dedicated to his late mother). I had to use other reference photos to recreate the amazing tribute to her, as well as request more current photos from Jake on his right arm sleeve.
That wasn't all however. I decided to replace the guitar in photo with his signature series edition from Schecter. I further personalized the piece by adding a flourish framework, mirroring the flourish work done on his mother's tribute piece.
While doing the work was incredibly enjoyable, I knew I had to do something in order to really display the amount of detail and rich color work. I chose to print a 24 x 36 inch canvas from the digital printer at Ampro Sports, the company I have worked as an art director for nearly ten years. Not only did the image replicate perfectly, the canvas was durable, lightfast and not susceptible to wrinkling or warping.
While I'm still yet to send one to Jake Pitts himself, his father Mark was so gracious to me and thankful beyond expectation when he received his own. It is a such a true honor to know that my work has touched someone emotionally regardless of their stature or notoriety. Mark intends on framing the piece and hanging it in his home in Hawaii.
At current, I am further embellishing the piece I will be sending to Jake. Current updates to tattoo work as well as a supernatural "element" to mirror my pieces of Andy Biersack and Ashley Purdy will further help to make the series synonymous. I may arrange another action shot as well however I have not concluded upon that decision just yet. Hopefully upon Jake's reception of the canvas he will find it a lasting tribute to his dedication to us, the fans of the Black Veil Brides and a big thank you from this artist and guitarist as well!
Below are several progress images of Jake Pitt's tribute piece. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more Black Veil Brides pieces in the near future!
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