Concept Guitar Pictures

[TheBigLebowski]

When I am looking around forum I often see someone who has designed a picture of a concept guitar they are planning on building or have built. My question is: How are these pictures made? Software? Website? Some other method?

Thanks for your time and responses.

- The Dude

[aidlook]

3D pictures are usually done in some CAD-software i.e. Solidworks ProEngineer etc.

2D "drawings" are made in 2D-CAD software like Autocad.

You can get really nice 2D renderings using vector-based Graphic-software like Adobe illustrator.

And of course you can fiddle around in photoshop or paint for that matter.

there are some web-based guitar-design software. Works great for rendering "the usual" body styles...

[biliousfrog]

The software is pretty much irrelevent, you'll only get out what you put in. I use 3d & 2d paint/design software professionally so I'm very comfortable with working with them, many people who use CNC machines use CAD software so they'll be comfortable with that. They're just another way of doing something which can be done equally as well with pencil & paper...in fact it is recommended to draw full scale plans anyway to make sure that everything works before doing any woodwork. Any software takes time to learn (which could be used to make guitars) & no software will make you a better designer or artist.

There's a few free graphics/CAD apps available:

GIMP is very much like photoshop & gets regular updates

Photoshop elements is cheap & is bundled with a lot of cameras, hardware & PC's

Links for CAD software here

Blender is a brilliant 3d app that has just had a major update...but don't expect to pick it up very quickly

Alias Sketchbook is a great, cheap drawing application...but doesn't offer much more than traditional tools except an undo button.