Norway-based artist Peter-John de Villiers (@theshallowtree) has played guitar for almost 30 years, but he had never built one, and had never carved wood or worked with gold leaf. For his first build he took a blank kit, treated the body as a canvas, and hand-carved an Ancient Egyptian relief into the wood before finishing it in gold leaf.
He sketched the composition first, then figured out the rest at the bench. On the carving: “I watched 1 minute of a YouTube video and just decided to get into it.” Because the kit came prewired, the electronics went together quickly, so most of the work went into the artwork. He would recommend this kit to first-time builders.
The full interview, with his sketches, the carving, the staining, and the finished guitar:
What would you carve or paint into a blank body? If you have turned a kit into something personal, show us what you made.