So a while back (about a year ago) i was approached by Nate, a guy ive done quite a bit of work for in the past. He had this idea for a new jewelry piece that he wanted made. He wanted the classic hip hop staple, the Jesus piece, but with his own twist on it. He wanted HIS jesus to be portrayed as a black man, not the typical white version. So i said "no problem" and got started sketching.

This was the first rough sketch, to show Nate what i was thinking. It ended up being pretty damn close to what he wanted. So we proceeded to finish up a tight, final, digital mockup.


This was the final artwork, that we sent to Ben Baller over at If&Co, in LA.

(IMAGE HAS BEEN REMOVED)

They got to work on the wax mold, and after a whole bunch of slight, subtle revisions, this was the final mold.




From there they go ahead and cast it in 14k white gold. This is the rough stage, directly after the casting.


From there, they polish it up, and start setting the stones. After 900 or so diamonds are set, this is what you end up with.

These are the final pics.


(The yellow jesus in this pic is the one made famous by Jacob the Jeweler. Its the most coveted and famous piece for hip hop heads that want a jesus piece. As you can see, ours is quite a bit bigger and much more detailed)








These are the final specs of the piece, taken from Bens Blog, where its also posted.

jewelry specs:
TOTAL WEIGHT IN GOLD: 200 GRAMS 14K
TOTAL DIAMOND WEIGHT: 20.9 CARATS OF ALL VS1 DIAMONDS (APPROX 900+ DIAMONDS)
HEIGHT OF PIECE: 4.5"

Also, this past weekend i was in Southern California for business, but decided to stay a couple of extra days to hang out with a couple of buddies (ill post about that later). So we went down to the Slauson, checked out the If&Co store and spoke with Steve a little bit. He pulled the piece out of the safe in the back, so i could see it in person.

So this is a candid pic my man Yong snapped when we were checking it out.


Yeah, so anyway, thats about it i think. This project started a long while ago, and its nice to see it through to completion. I mentioned how i was working on a big project way back then, but im sure most of you probably thought i was talking out my ass. Regardless, this was it. Now its done.

On to the next piece.