Our builds come in as baby ideas. We work hours to get a good idea of what our client wants. Sometimes that’s an easy task and sometimes it’s pretty grueling for the both of us. There are some preliminary questions we like to ask “What are you in to? Not related to guns necessarily just in general.” This helps us get a look into our clients family life, values and beliefs. That being said sometimes our client’s, like in this months gun of the month’s case We already know the client well.
This labor of love was a gift for a 21st birthday for Brianna Harness, her father Struggle Jennings has been a friend for a couple years now. We contacted him and said what is her style. We’d like to get her a gift. He said ” She loves your filigree, skulls and roses.” Knowing the background of this father daughter duo, I wanted it super fucking special. I got song lyrics of a song they recently recorded together and involved that into the piece. The skull in the design has headphones on To help resemble the music connection they have with each other. So with this ground work we started building!
I always get asked how long do drawings take? Well this one took about 100 hrs of draw time. First gathering images and starting a page to save it all. Not all images make the cut! This is just like a ruff draft or brainstorm session with myself. I next get the outline of the piece the art is going on drawn out and measured. This is sometimes already done because I save all my outlines (obviously). Sometimes though, as I develop as an artist I will redo outlines to have tighter lines or to add a trick I may have learned since I last used it. After I think I have everything I want for the design I start to lay it out. Each portion of a design can have anywhere from 60,000 draw points to over 250,000 draw point. The more intricate the design the more draw points. Sometimes the vectors fight you and some just run smooth as creamy peanut butter. This particular design was intricate but it worked out well as i places my pieces. That ended shortly after a week and a half of drawing, placing and cutting the designs to fit………. when I went to get on my computer to convert it to cut…….. and it was fucking gone! Not just gone of the page not even a blank file to stare at and cry to. So…….. now I have to start over and I have a week till her birthday. Hahahahaha If you ask my wife and daughter they will tell you I am a gift procrastinator buuuuttttt I try not to be, that should count!
Long story kinda short, I finally finish it again and get it cut (another 45-60 hrs) and get it out to paint. I get it sent to paint with a couple days left in the deadline. If you ask JD at Koted Arms I’m sure he had nothing else going on and was just waiting for this to fall in his lap. Right? hahaha Needless to say he killed it. He paints in such a way to enhance the engravings and highlight the important or meaningful parts, sometimes without me even pointing it out. In true Dark Alliance fashion we did a hell and back with black and teal and polished the lyrics, skills and part of the flowers to make it pop even more. . I get it back and get it over to Steven at Lv Stipple to finish off the stipple around the laser stipple. He is a master at stippling and I couldn’t imagine having anyone else finish it off as well as he does. Steven does his magic and I get it back, put it all together and bam……. SHIP IT FAST AS FUCK!!!!
Here are finished pictures of the firearm. She loved it and I love that I had a part in something so special. That’s what its all about. At the end of the day their smiles and tears make our frown and tears worth it.
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