Tracii Guns liked the first guitar he got from us so much, he asked for a second.
This one was a simple snake engrave on a cream lacquered telecaster body. Don’t blame me for the pickguard. It’s awful next to the snake. But Tracii (and his girlfriend) picked it out, so that’s what went on there.
Masked the body first, then engraved. when we engrave on alder through the lacquer, the wood underneath doesn’t really darken, so it’s mostly tone on tone for a light colored guitar like this. so i left the masking on and my buddy Chris used a sponge and watered down black paint and daubed on the black to fill in the engrave before removing the masking. gave a really nice contrast.
Yeah, they don’t seem to go together. I think it’s the combination of the b&w open design of the snake juxtaposed against the much more complicated colored design of the pickguard. So much for your artistry.
yeah, sometimes there’s no accounting for taste. but hey, maybe he’ll change his mind once he has it in person. supposedly they’re considering roughing up the lacquer in the scales and painting it themselves, maybe that’ll look better? or maybe worse. regardless, he promotes the H E double toothpicks out of them for us (well, at least the green one so far) and has been sharing our social media posts. we’ve had a few nibbles and a bunch more followers since then.
plus i dropped two black CAM Custom Guitar shirts with the logo in glow-in-the-dark vinyl in the package, one for tracii, one for his guitar tech. so maybe they’ll wear them on stage if we’re lucky.
he’s been really nice to work with and seems like a really good dude.
I think it looks great. True that while it doesn’t match the pick guard, I agree with @deirdrebeth that the snake looks like it’s ready to attack it. That or it’s crawling out of colored basket. But your work is impeccable.
