Dimebag Darrell Tribute Video

Inks on Bristol / 2011

On today's date 7 years ago, Dimebag Darrell, guitarist for Pantera was shockingly murdered on stage in Columbus, OH while playing with one of his side projects, Damageplan.  The shooter, Nathan Gale killed three others and injured seven in his rampage.  Gale was shot dead by a shotgun blast to the face from a police officer in the ensuing mayhem.  I created a tribute portrait of Dimebag this week for Rock Star Martyr who will be covering the guitarist today on the anniversary of his passing.

Dimebag was recently voted one of the Top 100 Guitarists of All Time by Rolling Stone but by many accounts should have been closer to the top of the list.  He helped define a unique Southern Heavy Metal sound which drew Pantera legions of devoted fans and a posthumous cult following since his abrupt death.

Click HERE for the Rock Star Martyr Website to read more about Dimebag and other dearly departed Gods of Rock!

Click HERE for a stream of more of my Rock Star Martyr portraits for this ongoing series and collaboration!

Here's the time lapse video I created of the coloring process for my portrait! If it gets a little foggy on the footage when I'm coloring the sweet leaf, don't adjust your screens, it's all natural and part of my tribute, in memoriam for Dimebag...

Originally I had a Pantera track set to the time lapse video but low and behold, the record company doesn't allow it to be used (some do and some don't I'm finding.) Anyhow, I found a new band and their thrashing track to use!  This cover of "Cowboys from Hell" is by a group of students of Aaron O'keefe in Ohio!

Like a Rainbow in the Dark

Ronnie James Dio

July 10, 1942 –
May 16, 2010

One of the Gods of Heavy Metal passed from our company recently. I felt compelled to pay tribute.

In Portsmouth, NH, they had no idea back in the 50's that the innocent little Italian kid playing the trumpet and french horn would be an arena-destroying force of Metal 20-30 years later. Raised Roman Catholic, Dio made the 'devil horns' famous during his career shooting them on stage to his legions of loyal thrashing metal heads, which they picked up and ran with- creating the everlasting symbol of METAL! I took this along with elements from such songs as "Holy Diver" to create the tribute you see here.

Click HERE to Order an Artist's Print of this Illustration!