BREAKING NEWS: Man Paints Guitar!
(Sepctember 18, 2024)
Isn't my guitar so kewl
Heyo! So I decided to take a short break from building this website over the past two days (stealing other peoples code is real hard!) and I have been working on a couple other things instead; in hopes that tommorow I can return to this project with a new set of eyes. "So what were you doing instead?!?" I'm so glad you totally just asked me that for real! Well since you are so curious, I'll share a little bit! I was painting a frickin guitar man.
Anyways, this project has been on my mind for a while (ever since I got this guitar actually!) and I would have looooved to be playing a hand painted guitar all this time. However, I knew that I wanted the artwork to not only look special, but feel special while I was making it. This isn't my first time putting things on a guitar that you shouldn't. I started out by putting an insane ammount of stickers on my cheap squier strat (my first guitar) which as you can see in the pictures HERE was more of a learning experience than a success... Well, after a few months with the stickers on there I decided to go back to the basic finish. This was a mistake. The stickers which I had applied previously left a bunch of residue on my pickguard which from what I remember was quite annoying to remove. But this residue wasnt the biggest problem... Oh no, the stickers were also protecting the platic pickguard from getting faded out by the sun or by any damage from playing. This left my guitar with PERMANENT T A N L I N E S. I had no clue what to do when this first happened, but then, the look grew on me! Ya seeee, the tan lines created by the stickers often times had left behind a shape or logo that actually still looked good on the guitar! With this concept in mind I eventually went to paint over some of the guitar in a similar style to George Harrisons "Rocky" strat. (that guitar is so fucking cool)
I think theres definitely room for improvements and some additions but I am still very happy with the outcome. I think its obvious where certain elements were inspired or even outright copied from the "Rocky" strat.
That's more than enough backstory on my guitar painting experience (or lack of) so let's talk about the new stuff! The initial design for the paint-job was going to just be a fake tie dye pattern, but after I finished said pattern I felt like the guitar just wasnt completed yet and needed more detail. To get this completely | absolutely | CRITICAL & NECESSARY | most important | and most REVEREND | detail I decided to throw on a random pattern lol! I guess its not too random though because the color scheme came from some parts of my first painted guitar. Obviously since the body of the guitar is glossy, I started with a light sand paper around the edge. SIKE! I DIDN'T PREP THE SURFACE AT ALL! Yeah it's holding up okay so far so it shouldn't be a problem I hope. So after putting about 4 layers(?) of paint I waited for it to dry so I could add some little details like the sun and the moon!
By this point the unpainted black headstock was becoming a bigger and bigger elephant in the room and I finally had the guts to do something about it. When I started to put my first layer of paint down I could barely keep a straight hand because of how nervous I was with how it would turn out. I didn't even take the strings off because it meant that there was less area for me to have to paint and less chances that I would mess up something. I eventually calmed down (maybe because of the paint fumes!) and by this time the headstock had already gotten its first couple layers of paint and was quickly becoming my favorite part of the whole project. Like I said, I didnt take off the strings when I first went to paint, this left a set of a few unpainted vertical lines that would follow the string from the nut to the tuners. I thought this look was amazing and the accidental nature of it just made me fall in love! Something about the sets of lines calls to mind to me: random art deco design & those random spotlights meant to dramatize the size of skyscrapers.(this is what i mean) Well since I knew I would keep these happy accidental lines as a pattern I just matched the rest of the color scheme and finished painting!
The final touches; the logo! Obviously with all this paint on the headstock the original cursive Mitchell (ewwwww) logo is completely covered up (yayyyy) so I decided I need to put a new one on there! I remember in the past finding a font that looks like the "Fender" guitars logo and using it on my username initials to some decent effect so I took another shot at this and sure enough it turned out alright I think!
Woah, you read all of that??? Thanks a bunch! Seriously, thats means a lot! Maybe you want to read more? Keep scrolling then :)
