1
Desperate times call for desperate measures, being in a financial crunch, I've decided to sell my five-string bass. As someone who enjoys woodworking, painting a guitar is almost sacreligious, but painting the case is a different story...deciding to go with the morbid, I turn a note into a skull.
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2
Here it is minus the masking.It undoubtedly will take some abuse, getting lugged to gigs and being thrown in car trunks, so I use Auto Air to paint it. The case is made of plastic, and using my Exacto knife to cut the tape, left some permanent marks in it. I'll have to get creative to do the next portion...
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3
I've added a saying, to let everyone know it's not a guitar inside the case!In the camera veiwfinder, the slogan wasn't cut-off. It sez, "Death At 40 Hertz" a frequency at the lower end of the sound spectrum.
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4
Going with a 1950's theme, I want to do a girly cheesecake design. The martini glass is a cliche that will work. I've taped the outline of the glass, which is pretty basic then shaded some white and grey to give it dimension.
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5
Now I make a "sticker" by putting wax paper on the back of some wide masking tape. A cheap trick I used when airbrushing vans in the 1970s. I draw the outline of the girl on the tape, cut the shape, peel off the wax paper backing and apply it to the plastic.
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6
I'm using Auto Air, which has great colors, but I've had tons of problems getting the right consistency to do detail work, so the masks are necessary. I start shading the body parts with brown.
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7
A little darker shading and she becomes a bit more human. The plastic is textured, which makes the high spots more likely to get scraped off, so I use many thin coats.
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8
Now I use shading grey to strengthen the dark areas. I decide to switch gears and make it more like a Hot Rod girl, and not try to get too detailed. Because the image is small, this will give me more freedom. I give her cookie-cutter hair, with hard lines instead of building layers.
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9
I make the yellow brighter.
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10
Now some black "slut" stockings. I used shading grey to get the transparent effect.
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11
I tried to freehand in the fingers and ended up with hands that look like baseball mitts. Trying to hide that will be a real task.
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12
I remove the tape masking, to see how it looks. Now I've uncovered another headache, she's too high in the glass...Time to get the brainwaves flowing!
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13
Ah! An easy solution, what's a martini glass without an olive? This I can freehand in. While checking my paint supply for the right green, I run across some Doc Martins MetalCraft paint, this flows much better than the Auto Air.
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14
I add a pimento,then start to outline another section for a slogan. I use some fine line tape to lay it out, not wanting to be too precise with the crest.
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15
Since this is a fairly large area, I want to make sure I don't get a ton of overspray on the rest of the case, so masking is critical.
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16
I used adhesion promoter before the spraying, but in some places the paint lifted, so I tape a piece of paper over the already painted areas, to avoid this happening again.
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17
In a rush to get this done, I neglect to mask off any more. I think if I work close, I should be okay. Some red, with purple shading helps give this depth.
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18
Bass is often referred to as the "bottom end" so "Bottom's Up!" will be the other slogan.
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19
Now I peel off the tape to discover that I should have gone the extra mile and masked off more. You can see the overspray on the upper left side.
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20
I add some more highlights with shading grey.
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21
This is the final product. Sure, I made some blunders, but who doesn't? I'll stabilize it with some Createx Top-Coat. A couple coats of rattle-can clear and it's off to the market for Mr. Five-string.
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22
The Big Picture. I don't know why it's so dark.
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