Rat Rod Pin-Up (Custom Gift)

A few months ago I created a custom pin-up portrait featuring a so-called rat rod. The pin-up was made for a woman named Leann from the USA. Wikipedia defines the rat rod car as

“a style of hot rod or custom car that, in most cases, imitates the early hot rods of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Most rat rods appear "unfinished" with just the bare essentials to be driven.”

When I read the Wikipedia article about rat rots, a thought crossed my mind that a rat rod car can be a perfect symbol of my custom pin-up art representing the very essence of my drawings of this type.

Just as rat rods, my custom pin-up artworks are mostly imitations of old pin-up drawings by well-known pin-up artists. I do believe that even the most perfect imitations and even copies of classic art always lack the spirit of aging and the original authors’ charisma. Just as new wine is never as good as the aged beverage of the same brand, imitations of any classic artworks may look cool but are never as appreciated as the original art of old and popular masters.

Rat rod cars are often assembled from old car parts and frames. They are usually customized in accordance with owner’s desires. The purpose of building a rat rod is creating a low budget alternative of retro hot rods which has the main function of a hot rod car (the ability to race) while retaining a touch of the exciting vintage cars appearance. The same can be said about my custom pin-ups. I take the parts from classic drawings of pin-up girls (postures, clothes, accessories) for my personalized pin-up artworks then I customize images by imitating old pin-ups drawing with my clients’ portraits instead of the original girls’ faces and by adding and/or changing any other desired elements like clothing, hairstyles, props, objects etc. My customized pin-ups serve the same purpose as classic pin-up drawings published in vintage magazines, which is to represent a woman in an appealing and seductive way creating an artwork worth being “pinned up” on a wall to delight the eye of any viewer. My pin-up drawings, although being customized, still have that peculiar look and feel of good old classic pin-ups.

This particular drawing is especially interesting because along with the pin-up girl it features a full-size car. I used color pencils and brush pens from Pentel to make the drawing. For those who love watching an artist at work I recommend watching the drawing progress video below. The video can also be interesting for those who love rock'n'roll and rockabilly music as I have added some cool old tunes which are very likely to warm your heart and make you wanna dance.