Desgining A Finish?

[Thelowendfunk]

Hi guys,

Posted the other day about doing a custom paint job and I have begun my project. At the moment it has been sanded down rather well I may add and ready to be primed tommorow Right now, I don't know how I want to finish and I wish I could experiment with visual ideas but I'm no artist. My ideas right now are:

1) 2 tone metallic sunburst? (Maybe blue & red or red & silver)

2) Metallic red base coat with some sort of pattern in another metallic colour (Blue, Silver, Gold?)

3) Metallic red white and blue stripe? (Think of the bass body divided into three, left side is red, middle is silver and right side is blue)

As you can see, I really want that sparkle look using either metallics or metal flake. Trouble is, I have no real way of experimenting so how do others go about drawing out designs or using computers to get a rough idea of the outcome they want?

Any adivce would be great!
Thanks.

 

[Smilodon]

On my last project I made a drawing in photoshop and used masks do make different designs on individual layers. Works good for trying things out.

There is nothing wrong with some paper, pens and some imagination.

edit:

I tried asking about paint designs a while back as well. I never really got many replies. I think custom paint is too personal to get or give much useable advice.

All of your ideas sounds good, but are very vague.

1: Could work, but I doubt that a red and blue sunburst will work very well. Red and silver could be cool, though. Both are very unusual.

2: Could also work, but the description is a bit vague. Are you thinking abstract designs? Are the design sharp or with faded edges?

3: Sounds slightly tacky to me, but who knows, it may looks good.


Also, what bass are painting?

 

[Thelowendfunk]

Photoshop sounds like a good idea! I never thought of that! Although, I've never used it. Were you fairly familiar with it anyway or did you learn? Any tutorials for those sorts of things?

Also, thanks for the feedback on the ideas! I know what you mean about the sunburst red and blue. For the 2nd idea design, I'm gessing it would just be an abstract desin of sorts with sharp edges. I don't exactly know what I'd do, probably something with lines just because I'm not keen on solid colours. Maybe silver streaks of some sort? Not sure...

 

[Smilodon]

I did know some stuff in photoshop before I did any guitar drawings, but I did figure out how vector masks works for this project. As soon as you have vector masks sorted out the rest is pretty easy.

For solid designs with sharp edges you could do a google image search for tattoo designs. Lots of inspiration there. You'll probably have to adapt the designs a bit, but tattoo designs are good starting points.


When choosing colors I usually prefer to use one neutral color (black, white or silver) and one color for design. For example yellow on black looks great, but yellow on red will look a bit... "Fisher Price".

edit:

Look at this: http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f57/how-i-make-my-renderings-532162/

It's even a sticky.