Main part of Dragon done, filled in last part and outlined. Had issue posca pen exploding on me just as I was about to finish. Can’t put too much pressure when using. Going to try and cut the pickguard today with v cutter and also maybe add the rays today or tomorrow.
Painting started. Printed outlines from illustrator and transferred over using graphite pencil and tracing with stylus, then redrew with pencil and started painting with posca paint markers. So far so good. Got to be careful not to apply to much paint. The pink turned out more rose redish color, which looks fine to me, they don’t make a metallic pink. So far no mistakes, found a groove, didn’t want to push my luck and smear the paint, will paint the reset tomorrow and outline in black. Super fun.
Added 3 more coats today. Coming out really well. I think it needs a 3 more coats for fuller coverage over the dark stain. Will do a few coats tomorrow morning and then let her dry all day and start dragon painting on Monday or Tuesday. Overall going really smoothly now. The color matches more of the first picture on top left. Stupid pixel phone doesn’t capture raw color.
Finished adding about 6 light coats of sanding sealer, had issue with having fill grain on parts I over sanded. Had to use grain filler on those parts and reseal. Sanding to 320 grit. 2 coats of light blue paint applied with foam brush. Trying to keep coats light to maintain smoothness. Perfect day for painting may add 3-4 more coats. Let dry on Sunday and start painting dragon on Monday.
Prepping the Epiphone SG Jr. for dragon painting. Dismantled, pulled posts using Brad Angove’s method using a small screw and then using post screw to pull post insert up. Sanded to 220 using mirka pads and horns sanded manually. Really surprised to find nice looking wood underneath. Epiphone could’ve stained this and would’ve looked nice. Added 1 coat of sanding sealer, 3 or 4 more today. Hour dry time in between coats and level sand tomorrow maybe, depending on how flat it is. WIll recreate the pickguard with 1/8″ teal transparent acrylic sheet from delvies. The amazon paints should come in soon I ordered some more metallic green posca markers from home depot, they were only $3.99. I also have the metallic purple and metallic pink, ordered teal normal posca marker also and ivory for the claws.
Painting Preview, Convert to comic style with dark outlines in illustrator. Also have to check my paint inventory tomorrow. Did everything in Rhino 3d. Customer chose the blue, pink ones looks cool but dragon colors might’ve needed to changed to match better.
Ordered a bunch of paints should come by Sunday, maybe earlier. Will start sanding process.
Blue Version maybe for SG, Black or matte dark grey purple. might work as background. Dragon rays in magenta. Still need to seperate, gums and teeth and tongue color to something else, maybe different shade of magenta, also must see what transparent acrylic material I have on hand.
Perfect weather for painting, can paint all day. Applied 2 coats of Matte finish, 2 hours between coats. I did get a minor run on left side, but not worried. So far no major runs at the top. Cautiously spraying a bit too far.
Imported the Dragon .max file into rhino3d. Had to convert it to a .stl format file first using anyconv.com
www.cadnav.com/3d-models/model-42789.html
Once imorted I had to mirror and then I organized it into layers and added display colors. Removed the wireframe from the shaded rendered preview. Going to spend some time cleaning her up a bit, maybe remodel from scratch. A lot of clipping going on and some parts not separated, and a lot jagged spots. Should be fun. Get to use more of the modelling tools.
So Reverb handpicked my Dragon guitar in the “Outrageous Guitar Finishes” collection, I didn’t even know about it. Not listed anymore probably because it sold. Dayum, happy I got some recognition for it. Even better that I’m getting requests for it. Really encouraging that people are interested in my custom work!
A customer was bugged because he didn’t purchase it and asked about future plans. I told him I am painting my used guitars to sell and bankroll into parts for my new builds. So I gave him some options of guitars he can pick out. He picked the SG Jr which would look great with artwork because of the extra room without the neck pickup and bridge tailpiece. The other Epiphone SG will be converted to the Greco SG Kurt had. The inlays don’t match but the color and the Univox Phase 3 pickups I’m reverse engineering will. Hopefully I can sell both for ~$350-400. Would definitely help me upgrade some of the hardware I was planning on buying.
In our apartment that morning, Kurt asked me if he could have the smashed Gibson SG I had hanging on my wall. I asked him, “Why?” and he replied that it didn’t look broken too bad, and he could fix it up and smash it later.
https://innocentwords.com/feature-kurt-cobain-still-taking-care-of-his-friends/
So I said, “Sure, but now I won’t have one for my wall.” Kurt replied, “I’ll be right back.” He went out to their van and presented me a 1973 Fender Mustang that he deemed beyond repair.
Nirvana came to see Hullabaloo play CBGB’s Record Canteen later that day. Kurt repaired the SG I had given him and painted it light blue, with black tape on it. He was photographed by Charles Peterson playing it at the East Ballroom, Husky Union Building, University of Washington, Seattle, WA on January 6, 1990.
He was later videotaped smashing it February 17, 1990 at Iguana’s in Tijuana, Mexico. Earnie Bailey, his guitar tech for the last years of his life, told me that my SG was the only Gibson SG Kurt ever played.
So Excited about this project. Return of the Dragon! It should be fun because I will have more control of the 3d rendered Dragon. I will import it into Rhino3d fix it up using quad remash and then can reposition/recolor the dragon to fit the new SG Jr body. Power I didn’t have working in Illustrator only. Really excited about the possibilities. I was think maybe a dark pink or the user wanted a blue. Should be easy to design different colors. Don’t think I will do the blacklight paint though, the colors are very limiting unfortunately and don’t think many people have blacklights. Maybe if posca adds more backlight colors.