Transferring the Design

 

The mahogany guitar body of 'Eric' made by Dick Levens, primed and ready for paint.

The first stage of transferring the image of 'Eric' actually on to the guitar body is to trace the whole design onto tracing paper.

Once the whole design is traced out the tracing paper is lifted and the next stage is to cover the back of the tracing with graphite - this is then taped into position on the guitar body and the whole design gone over again (hopefully) transferring the design down onto the guitar body. The gridlines marked on the design here were for reference - as after the first attempt at transferring this image using tracedown paper was unsuccessful - I was then originally going to redraw the whole design on the guitar body from scratch. This method however should hopefully speed that process up.

Okay having traced the whole design the tracing paper is then removed and the reverse side covered with graphite (scribbled in with a soft pencil).

Then the tracing paper is turned 'tracing side' up and taped into position on the guitar body. This done, the whole design is once more gone over transferring the graphite on the rear of the tracing paper down onto the guitar (hopefully!).

The tracing paper is then removed and as can be seen here, a vague transfer of the design is visible on the surface of the guitar body. This is then gone over once more with a fine line pen to clearly fix the design on the body.

This is also the time to correct any little drawing errors in the design and make the design fit properly on the guitar body.

Finally 'Eric' is in place on the guitar body. Now for the first masking............

The body of the guitar is covered with masking film.........

Then the design is cut around with a scalpel - being careful not to cut into the primer below the masking film.........

When the whole design is 'cut around', the masking covering the background of the design is removed leaving only the foreground detail masked out.

'Eric' is now ready for the background colours to be airbrushed in.

 

Planning Stages... Transferring the image... Painting the Back

Painting the Front... Painting the Neck

 

Custom built, custom finished quality guitars - for those that want something 'a bit special'.

 

 

All artwork, images and text are Copyright © Jim Fogarty 2002-2007. All rights reserved. All artwork shown on this website is protected by international copyright law. No image on this website may be used for any commercial or non-commercial purposes without prior written permission from the artist.