S.P.X. Rocks! Now with more Owly! :)
Hey Everybody. My wonderful SPX friends asked me to paint a guitar to help them raise money for the CBLDF, and so I did! Here it is. :) It has affectionately been named the Owly-Caster™ and it will be auctioned at SPX with all funds going to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. You can read more on Karon's post.
It was fun to paint, but rest-assured this is a one-of-a-kind item. It took me almost 2 weeks to paint it (off and on because it took so long to dry) using acrylic glazes to give it it's unique appearance. The guitar itself is meant to be an art piece and it could just hang on the wall and look pretty, but it's also a fully functioning electric guitar, lovingly assembled by Mr. Greg Bennett of Big Planet Comics in Bethesda, MD, one of THE best comic stores in the country.
Everything always starts with a sketch and here was mine for the guitar. I originally planned on only painting the bottom section and fading it out everywhere else.
I've never painted a guitar before and was unsure what to use to paint it with. I didn't want it to look like a big painting. I was going for something more delicate. At first I tried regular ink but it was no use. The entire guitar was actuyally coated with polyurethane so it was almost like painting on glass.... which made it very diffcult. I sketched the design on the guitar and then used liquid acrylics (Thanks Jeremy). Liquid Acrylics were too runny to get the coverage I wanted for Owly's eyes so I used regular acrylics.
Soon I had the entire image painted out. Because the whole thing would have translucent glazes there was no room for mess-ups or mistakes with the black lines. The design looked a little bottom-heavy so I added a few birdies going up the side.
Then I started to glaze the guitar. I started using watercolors but the pigment would just wipe away. I had to slowly build the colors with watered down layers of liquid acrylics. I added highlights to all of the animals to make them pop.
I also painted the back and sides at this point. I went with the translucent glaze approach I used before and blended everything together. This part was extremely difficult. The three-dimensionality of this process added a certain complexity that I should have been prepared for, but I hadn't seen since I used to paint models as a product designer in my previous life.... and I left that job for a reason. ;)
I also added a bit more complexity to Owly's color at this point because he was looking a little drab. He almost glows, now. :) It's now on a towel to protect the newly painted back... and a couple of coats of polyurethane finished it off (to make it last). :)
And here is the final product. I'm incredibly happy with the way it turned out! :D Hope you like it too!
