Guitar Plans

[sexybeast]

If you guys want, I'll post a more in depth tutorial, but I want to post this while it's fresh. This assumes you know how to use Adobe Illustrator and have access to it.

1. Choose a guitar body style you want to make/copy and find/take a good quality digital picture picture of it.

2. Open a new Illustrator document and set the measurement units to inches. I use 40 tall by 20 wide. This assumes that you have a vertical photo of your guitar, otherwise choose appropriate dimenstions.

3. Go to ..File-->Place and place your guitar photo. Label it Guitar Photo in the layer manager.

4. Create a new layer and label it something like "Neck Scale" or Scale Length".

5. Use the line tool and draw a line the length of your chosen scale. The nice thing about this method is that you can scale your drawing to suit your needs. If you click, it gives you a length and direction option. VERY handy.

6. Use the line tool again and draw another line half the length of the first, to represent the distance from the nut to the 12th fret. Make these lines bold and use bright colors if needed to make them easily visible.

7. Use the align tool and align the tops of the lines as if they were at the nut.

8. Now, scale your drawing up or down to fit the scale lines on the layer above.

9. From then on out it's just a matter of tracing the shape and creating layers as you see fit.

I usually draw the bold, rough curves first and zoom in later, add the tight curves and apply the join command.

Please let me know if you'd like a more in depth tutorial. I can make Illustrator a bit easier to tackle and walk through an entire guitar plan. This should help a lot of us that are searching for plans everywhere, with no way to get them.

Edited June 21, 2005 by sexybeast

[GregP]

Might be time to think about using my educational discount to pick up Illustrator! Er... after my bills are paid, tools and finish are purchased for my current project, my car gets a tune-up...

Drat, on second thought maybe not! Great mini-tutorial, though. Being familiar with other graphics programs, I can easily imagine how this would work, even without an in-depth tutorial. Cheers for the contribution!

Greg

[AlGeeEater]

Might be time to think about using my educational discount to pick up Illustrator!  Er... after my bills are paid, tools and finish are purchased for my current project, my car gets a tune-up...

Drat, on second thought maybe not!    Great mini-tutorial, though.  Being familiar with other graphics programs, I can easily imagine how this would work, even without an in-depth tutorial.  Cheers for the contribution!

Greg

←

You can always get it illegally :D

Edited June 21, 2005 by AlGeeEater

[sexybeast]

This really works out great. It's pretty easy and any inconsistencies are easily worked out in the template and by doing the real-world measuring.

[toddler68]

That's almost exactly how I would do it. Although, I'd probably use 1 continuous curve using the pen tool. If you drag each point, it gives you these little handles to adjust the curvature of your line. You can move the points around and change the shape until it fits around your pic. Under the flyout of the pen tool, there is an add point tool (looks like a pen with a + sign) to put additional points on your curve if you need to.

Another tip that works for me is to use Object>Path>Simplify and drag the curve precision slider around to 'smooth out' shapes. It's also nice to experiment with to get weird free-form body outlines.

[toddler68]

Hey sexybeast, I couldn't interest you in taking this on could I?

Moderne drawing

[wisdom727]

What a coincidence! I have been trying to use Illustrator to design a new variant of my Moderne for the past 5 days. Now I find this thread.

I've traced my Moderne's shape on paper already. Give me some time, and I can give you a drawing and dimensions - limited by my newbie Illustrator skills, of course.

[Pete]

Sexybeast, an in depth tutorial would be great! (If you have the time)

Toddler, your link is broken already

Pete

[toddler68]

Toddler, your link is broken already

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Really? Hmm. I'm linking just fine. Is anyone else having a problem? I'm an ignoramus when it comes to this here 'inner net' thingy.

[Pete]

I got this message:

The error returned was:

Sorry, the link that brought you to this page seems to be out of date or broken.

Toddler, maybe you can link to it because the page is still in your browsers cache.

Pete

[toddler68]

I got this message:

The error returned was:

Sorry, the link that brought you to this page seems to be out of date or broken.

Toddler, maybe you can link to it because the page is still in your browsers cache.

Pete

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That must be it. I told you, I'm not very bright.

It's just a link to another thread on this forum. Don't I just copy from the address bar of the page I want to link to, hit the 'http://' button up there and paste the link?

Here it is again: Moderne thread again

[jer7440]

Link doesnt seem to be working on the board. Not sure why.

[sexybeast]

Sorry it took me so long to reply but I'm in the long process of moving. I started anin depth tutorial today with lots of Illustrator screenshots to walk you through the steps. I hate tutorials that don't baby me because I get easily aggravated when I can't get a step,so this one should cover all the bases for you guys. It may take a while so be patient.

[Pr3Va1L]

Is the illustrator pen tool the same as the photoshop one? Cause I use that A LOT.

[toddler68]

Is the illustrator pen tool the same as the photoshop one? Cause I use that A LOT.

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Being that they are both Adobe products, I would assume they are the same tool. I don't use PhotoShop much for this kind of work though. I prefer vector based programs like Illustrator. Just prints out nicer and cleaner, especially in large scale.

[javacody]

The link doesn't work because you either have never been a GOTM winner (like Toddler has) or haven't donated (like I have).

I created this from a TIFF off the government patent site.

moderne.pdf

On a somewhat related topic, what size (length x width) piece of wood would you need for the top side?

[toddler68]

On a somewhat related topic, what size (length x width) piece of wood would you need for the top side?

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Using the scaled up drawing, I'm showing that you would need a piece 9.5 inches wide by 22 inches long... man that seems huge! Could that be right?

[westhemann]

On a somewhat related topic, what size (length x width) piece of wood would you need for the top side?

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Using the scaled up drawing, I'm showing that you would need a piece 9.5 inches wide by 22 inches long... man that seems huge! Could that be right?

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that is about the size of my newest vee

[javacody]

Whew. That's a relief. My piece of Limba is 12" x 60". I should have plenty.

The other side looks to be about 20" x 5.5".

Cool, I just figured I have enough limba left for another regular guitar, maybe a strat or LP Jr?

Here's what I'm thinking for my moderne project (sorry for the poor quality, I did this in photoshop in 5 minutes just to get an idea for the look):

Black Limba body with semi-carved walnut top, indian rosewood neck with cocobolo fretboard.

I already have the Limba and the rosewood.

[fryovanni]

I have never really tried doing this with Illustrator. A similar method works great in Auto Cad.

1- Insert your image into your Model space.

2.Draw a single line from the nut to the 12th fret (usually more accurate than the bridge)

3. Invoke the scale command, select the image and line, select reference, select the end points of your line, input half your scale length (full length if you had drawn the line from the bridge to the nut).

4.draw a spline around the body (hit as many points as needed to get an accurate tracing).

Very fast and easy. This is good for a body, but I still use lines to create the remainder of the guitar.

Peace,Rich

[tetiaroa]

Is the illustrator pen tool the same as the photoshop one? Cause I use that A LOT.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Being that they are both Adobe products, I would assume they are the same tool. I don't use PhotoShop much for this kind of work though. I prefer vector based programs like Illustrator. Just prints out nicer and cleaner, especially in large scale.

Illustrator is a vectorial design aplication, is used to draw lines, shapes in vector mode, is one of the best drawing software on the market, ideal to plan any thing with wright measures. Photoshop is a raster design application I use it to, after designing for example a guitar model on the Illustrator, applying textures and other modelling options. They work great together.