Before...
After. These are some of 'in between' stages of painting this Ibanez. Okay, this is simply my own method of painting 'this particular guitar design' onto 'this particular guitar'. Different styles/designs would utilise different methods from the method I am using here, so this is in no way meant as any kind of tutorial on the general painting of guitars. The methods being used here are particular to this kind of design and almost certainly aren't the only (or even necessarily the best ways) to go about this kind of project. It's just how I went about it this time...............It's all about learning from you're own mistakes (Yep.....I should probably be an expert by now!)
After the design is masked out and the background base colour painted in, the masking is then removed. This leaves the design showing clearly against the basic background colour. This is then lacquered to seal in the design and rubbed down using 1000 and 1200 grade wet and dry paper, ready for the next stage.
Once again masking is applied to the design, this time though it is foreground details that will be worked on, so more of the background is masked.
'Luna's face, arm, leg and hands, all of which were left uncovered during masking are then roughly airbrushed in. Once this stage of the painting is complete, the masking film will be removed and the guitar body re-lacquered - but before that happens, the moon needs to be painted in.
The guitars outer edges want to act as a frame for the design, so the moon is painted as a half moon with the outer edges (shadowed side) darkened to match the rest of the guitar. This shadow may well be made darker still once all the design is fully painted in - to balance the whole image up - but for now this will do (easier to darken later than to re-paint the moon in to match).
A light Purple paint is airbrushed into the moon giving the feeling of a little more detail. With all the masking removed the effect of the paint can be seen more clearly.
A lacquer coat is applied at this stage to seal the new paint in.
After lacquering and rubbing down, work continues on Lunas face.
Sometimes difficult to judge the colours until the masking is removed as they can look quite different before and after removal of the masks.
'Luna's two middle fingers are also painted in at this stage. Still more work to be done on the hands but this will have to wait until after the next lacquer coat.
Masking film was also laid over the tail detail. This tail detail is then is cut out using a scalpel.
Silver leaf is then applied to the tail detail and carefully worked down onto the 'sized' (glued) areas of the masking with a cotton bud.
When all the masking film is removed the now silver leaf outline of the tail is left.
As work has been done on both hands, the face and the tail detail, applying more masking over these areas now would probably result in the paint already applied being lifted. So once again, Luna is ready for a coat of lacquer to seal everything in.
Once the earlier masking was removed it became obvious that the moon did need darkening down at the back (shadowed side) to get rid of the sharp 'cutoff' line at the edge of the guitar. So with the whole of the face of guitar masked off once again using masking film, the the moon is cut out of the mask. It is then a simple case of airbrushing in until the effect looks right (as above).
As many of 'Luna's skin tone parts as possible also need to be painted in in this session, which is pretty much done here. Again, hard masking was used for this process. The neck looks a mess here - but it is only overspray on the masking film - 'Luna's neck is in there....honest!
I got carried away airbrushing the Earth in (early stage here) and forgot to take any pictures of the planet as it developed after this. Much more work was needing to be done on this area before thoughts of re-lacquring. Normally masking over already painted areas (like the planet earth here) is a bad idea. But in this case it was possible by simply cutting a section of greaseproof paper the exact size of the planet image, then laying it over the planet and reapplying frisket film over the planet and it's halo area. The greaseproof paper keeps the tacky side of the frisket film off of the fresh paint and the frisket seals the outer edges down within the planet earths halo. This enables more work to be done on the head detail - like painting in the two outer halo rings around 'Luna's head'
Yep, looking a bit of a mess here.....................but still a couple of bits that can be added before this mask is done.
Little details like this star are cut out of the mask and then airbrushed in.
The problem with using a lot of hard masking (as in this design) is that once you have revealed and worked on one area - as here on 'Luna's upper arm - 1) You can't always see the underlying design below the 'overspray' on your masking film, making further accurate mask cutting in that area difficult and - 2) you cannot effectively paint in an area adjacent to the part you have already worked on, as any newly applied masking can easily remove the paint you have just applied. So once a design gets to this stage there tends to be little seperate bits being worked on all over the design.
Just about all the work that can be done to 'luna with this masking has now been done. The final stage before removing all the masking is to do a bit more gold and silver leaf work - now it's just a case of waiting for the 'size' (glue) to dry and remove the masking.
With the neck painted in 'Luna' starts to look a bit more complete. Only two of the four rings around 'Luna's head could be painted in with the last mask as the two inner rings are going to be gold. I couldn't paint them in as they cross behind the silver detail running down to 'Luna's forehead - so they will have to wait for the next masking. The rings looking a bit 'squashed' as they do above 'Luna's head in this picture, isn't totally my lack of draughting skills - there is a curve on the guitar body that can't be seen here helping to makes them look mis-shapen - Well............. thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
The star came out quite well. It still needs work but the little bit of silver leaf in it's centre shines out quite nicely.......... The shiny marks on 'luna's face are remnants of the glue from the masking film.
A light halo needs to be airbrushed in around the star at a later stage to finish it off.
Gold leaf has also been applied to various parts of the design..............
Representation of planet earth came out not too bad in the end, it will eventually have a gold leaf halo around it.
The next job is to paint in her necklace - this will be done with a paint brush as it really is very fine to mask and airbrush. Because of that I only plan to mask it just the once, that being when I am ready to paint in 'Luna's top. There is still a lot of masked airbrushing to do before this project gets to the 'less rigid' freehand airbrushing stage.
Some parts are built up in various stages. The gold and silver leaf give a real reflective glow.................perfect for this design.
The gold leaf detail around the head is applied in stages......
The final stage of gilding is applied before the next lacquer coat. Starting to really take shape now. Still a lot of tidying up to do during the next stage after re-lacquering, but she's getting there.
All the excess gilding removed, this is now ready for lacquering again.
'Luna' has now been re-lacquered and rubbed down. In order to tidy up some of the edges around the gilding, some areas are remasked just inside the edges of the gold and silver leaf, then tidied up by painting over the masked edges, giving a tidy clean edge to the design. First step is to paint in the background colour, building up the colour over the revealed rough edges around the masked silver leaf.
The same method was used around the head detail. This effectively covers up the rougher edges around the metal leaf work - 'rough' isn't really an accurate description, these edges would hardly show unless you were particularly looking for them - but trying to get the finish perfect is aim here.
The next stage is to paint around the edge of the (masked) moon with metallic silver paint - not the easiest of jobs with an airbrush as the metal flakes try and clog up the nozzle. This silver is effectively like a base coat here - over this will be painted an almost transparent coat of white paint, this will give a silver white halo around the moon.
Some of the spatter worked stars are toned down using the background colours. A metallic silver halo is lightly airbrushed in around the star in 'Luna's hand - this will show out really well when the finish lacquer coat's are applied.
This gives an idea of the finished effect of the silvering around the tail detail.. Once the silver leaf detail is revealed again and this is all lacquered in it should look quite effective.
A light hazing of metallic gold paint around 'Luna's head detail should set off the gold leaf underneath. The main stars here still need highlighting with a very fine paintbrush and white paint - but when thats done the sky will look pretty good.
Okay, here she is after all the masking is removed. The detail is looking sharper now. Some more detail work has been done on the scales and her necklace after the mask was removed.
Most of the head detail will be painted in during the next masking...............
But for now 'Luna is off for another lacquer coat to seal everything in.
Luna after two coats of lacquer to seal in the gold and silver leaf...............The guitar body now needs to be rubbed down again ready for the next stage.
A bit more work has been done on the head detail, the hands and Luna's foot, as well as work around the other gold detail and 'Luna's skirt.
'Luna' having been re-lacquered is then left to harden off overnight. Tomorrow she will be rubbed down again and the last sections of the skirt painted and the colours hazed together. Work can also be done on her top and the head detail taken one step further.
Luna has now been rubbed down, and masked out once more - this time concentrating on her skirt, her top and her head detail.
The area inside her tail can also be worked on during this stage. Here the masking film is removed inside the tail area (not already painted), being careful to keep away from the areas of 'Luna's skirt that have already been painted in during this stage.
The sky is built up by first of all painting in a lighter, bluer tone, this is then spattered with white paint to start giving the star effect. This is then toned down until it matches the rest of the sky tones. Finally the silver metallic hazing is painted in around the silver leaf edgeing detail and a quick blow over again with the blue paint gives that metallic blue halo effect around the silver edges.
'Luna's skirt is almost painted in, just a couple of sections to paint in before the skirt is ready for working on proper - unfortunately that will have to wait for the next masking. But the detail around 'luna's tail is coming together now, though there is still some final toning to do around the moon and some gold hazing around the Eye of Horus to go in.
'Luna's top is now painted in and is also starting to take shape. Her necklace looks good against the colour of her top and the first of the detail shadow work is starting to give it some depth. The detail around her head will be worked on some more before she gets re-lacquered, along with some other detail work.
Lots of detail to play about with now. Once the last sections of 'Luna's skirts are painted in after the next masking, the final toning and shadowing of the whole image will be possible and the finishing touches applied.
Started to apply some of the finer detailing. Most of the of the work done today is on smaller detail mostly applied with a paintbrush.
Had one or two minor problems due to the gold and silver leaf applied to this project during this stage which has slowed it down considerably, but it is finally nearing completion and after all - that's how you learn. Also painted in during this stage was another star with a halo to the right of 'Luna's head - unfortunately it wasn't until these photographs were taken that it showed out to be this horrendous - So it will be going. Confirming here the hard way that metallic silver paint does not like being sprayed through an airbrush, it just would not flow smoothly through my Simair - though I later tried it through an Aerograph and it worked just fine - maybe it's just me! Time for another lacquer coat and rubbing down........(for the guitar that is!)
Anyway, once again lacquered, 'Luna' has been fully masked off and the mask then carefully cut around the whole design with a scalpel. The the first job then was to airbrush in the last remaining sections of 'Luna's skirts....
Once this was done the masking covering the previously painted skirt sections was removed and the various sections smoothed together. You can also just about see here, that whilst the masking was still in place over the skirt, the background area inside the tail area was painted in.
Once the skirts are worked in, the masking covering 'Luna's leg can then be removed.
Other areas about the guitar were also worked on during this stage. The sky (where the dodgy halo once was) was repainted and the areas around the head detail were re-hazed using metalic gold paint (actually worked quite well through my Aerograph airbrush).
Work was also done on 'Luna's top, around the 'Eye of Horus' detail, around the tail area and also on the lower moon section.....
When the masking was removed she looked like this..........................
Then the final stage, some more gold and silver leaf detailing needed to be applied........
These little gold leaf details help to lift the design........
Still some silver leaf work to be applied here.................
And she is almost done................
Finally, just the most minor of tweaks to balance everything in and she is finished. Will leave her for a day or so now then come back and look at her again. When you have been working on something, anything, for a long time, sometimes you just can't see the obvious before your eyes - so I usually leave it for a day or so and then go back to it.
Okay.....quite a bit of work has been done balancing out the image. The skirts where overpowering the whole design, so they have been darkened right down and merged more into the background. More leaf detail has been applied in places and the starry background has been painted in more thoroughly.
The body is now ready for the final lacquer coats to be applied. The pick up carriers are also painted to match the design and when it's all laid together looks pretty good - even before lacquering. The lacquering will bring out the colours of the paint which all look a bit flat here, as well as lifting the metallic paint where applied, so the whole image should look quite striking after lacquering and finishing. All that's left to paint in now is the lettering on the headstock and then, bar lacquering, 'Luna' will be ready for rebuilding......complete with new custom made 'Bare Knuckle Pickups' and electrics........a totally unique guitar is almost born. Final Stages The final stages of work on the guitar mainly involved the finishing lacquer coats, though there were a couple of minor 'tweaks' applied to the work during that process. The pictures below show 'Luna' ready for rebuilding after finish lacquering. I haven't posted pictures of the final lacquering stages as there really isn't all that much to see. The guitar body actually needed five finish coats of lacquer to completely smooth and get it perfect. This was largely due to the gold and silver leaf that was applied at earlier stages, which whilst having been rubbed down between the 'painting stage' laquerings, was still vaguely evident in one or two places when rubbed down to a final finish. The neck was given five coats of finish lacquer in all, two coats had the neck to a really nice finish, the third was purely for getting a really smooth transuition between the neck and the fingerboard. During these lacquer coats the final alterations/'tweaks' were made to the design, mainly around the head detail, her hands, the foot and the white 'Ibanez' lettering on the headstock. After much rubbing down between finishing coats with 1000/1200 grade wet and dry - the final coat of lacquer was applied to the body. Once the lacquer had been baked on, the guitar body and neck were then treated to a session under ultra violet lamps (this seems to cure the lacquer far more quickly). Then it was lightly rubbed down, firstly with an old piece of 1200 wet and dry to remove any minor 'specs' in the lacquer, then with 2000 wet and dry to get it really smooth. Then it was cut back again with a very fine polishing compound and finally wax polished to seal the whole finish. The pictures below are not the greatest, but give some idea of the finish. There will be professionally taken pictures of the guitar posted on the site once it has been rebuilt - but for now..........my part in this project is done.
Well, errrr.............I couldn't resist! (Won't be seen when the guitar is rebuilt)
And the end result...............
Click on the image above to see more pictures of the finished guitar.
Preparation Stage - Transferring the Image - Hard and Soft Masking Airbrushing Stages - Painting the Neck
Custom built, custom finished quality guitars - for those that want something 'a bit special'. All artwork and images and text are Copyright © Jim Fogarty 2002-2008. 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. |
