Yesterday I sent off a money order for this guitar, a Gibson Melody Maker. I got a pretty good deal on it (if you’re looking for one, I might know how you can still get one) and it is the first time I have bought a new guitar in five years. I’d be much more excited about it if my plan weren’t to strip the finish off entirely and recover it with some custom graphics. These guitars come with what Gibson calls a worn finish. Basically it feels like they apply the paint to the guitar without grain filler and don’t clear coat it. This makes it more economical and gives it a faux vintage look. I’ve always wanted to custom paint a guitar and this is going to be my guinea pig. I won’t know exactly what I’m going to do to it until I evaluate the figure of the wood beneath. It’s solid mahagony, so unless the current finish has left the wood horribly stained somehow, I think I’m going with a transparent cherry finish and the graphics will be screenprinted or hand painted on. If the grain looks really excellent, I’ll try to come up with a design that doesn’t cover it too much.
Any ideas for a subject matter? Abscract seems too easy. Guitar playing robots seems too redundant. Maybe some flying saucers in a War of the Worlds kind of motif. If I really bond with this guitar I may sell my current Strat, but if I don’t click with it I’ll sell it as a piece of functional art. I rather like the idea of someone having a totally original guitar that I made, but I also like the idea of that someone being me, so I’m not sure what to root for here. I’ll post progress as I can, but I won’t even have it until next week. In the meantime I’ll be working on my new web site. Got some ideas on paper during lunch today. Look for a whole new site Sunday!
I really need to update this with a real web site and not just this silly blog. By Sunday. If you don’t hear more about this by Saturday, bug me about it and tell me I’m liar if you don’t see a new site uploaded by Sunday night.
But I don’t care, because, “Hey, free t-shirt!” Fender fans, point your web browser to http://www.musiciansfriend.com/soul-of-tone and watch a two minute video to get a code for a free Fender Soul of Tone t-shirt. I’m not exclusivley a Fender guy, but have owned a good amount of Fender gear over the years. As one member of Harmony Central put it, you can always wear it to clean your toilets. Or you can get one for me for my birthday. I can always use another XL black t-shirt. So far as I can tell this offer is open to anyone in the US, but I imagine it’s a one per household kind of thing.
Warning: Applying for free t-shirt may get you added to the Musician’s Friend and Fender mailing lists.
This weekend I spent some time going through Total Training’s Illustrator CS3 insructional DVD. Why did I put off learning Illustrator for so long? It is amazing the things you can accomplish with so much more quickly than Photoshop. I’ll toy around with Illustrator during the coming week, but I’m already looking forward to getting the advanced training DVD.
I’ve also recently discovered Tutorial Blog. The site itself doesn’t seem to have any tutorials, rather it tracks down tutorials, resources, and inspiring links related to art, business, graphic design, social media, and more.
Unfortunately, I’ve also found my computer to be working at a slower pace as I continue to do more graphics intensive work. I’d really like to delay buying a new one as long as possible, but it’s going to be difficult to hold off until after Christmas. Maybe I just shouldn’t try to run SETI@Home while I surf the web.
Yesterday I sent off a money order for this guitar, a Gibson Melody Maker. I got a pretty good deal on it (if you’re looking for one, I might know how you can still get one) and it is the first time I have bought a new guitar in five years. I’d be much more excited about it if my plan weren’t to strip the finish off entirely and recover it with some custom graphics. These guitars come with what Gibson calls a worn finish. Basically it feels like they apply the paint to the guitar without grain filler and don’t clear coat it. This makes it more economical and gives it a faux vintage look. I’ve always wanted to custom paint a guitar and this is going to be my guinea pig. I won’t know exactly what I’m going to do to it until I evaluate the figure of the wood beneath. It’s solid mahagony, so unless the current finish has left the wood horribly stained somehow, I think I’m going with a transparent cherry finish and the graphics will be screenprinted or hand painted on. If the grain looks really excellent, I’ll try to come up with a design that doesn’t cover it too much.