Chris Compston

Here are some great soundbytes about Chris Compston’s work taken from Eric Kirkland’s Lightning Guider website:

“If you have ever seen a guitar with a painted image that seemed almost too obsessively detailed to be a painting and too like-life to be a photograph, you’ve probably witnessed the incomparable art of Chris Compston. A handful of other artists paint graphics on [instruments], but none that exude Chris’ raw talent and singular gift for creating and transferring liknesses onto a canvas that has so many contours, challenges and irregularities.

Chris doesn’t just spray paint on the [instrument]; many of his clients believe that his inspired visions alchemically infuse the instrument with a haunting soul. Chris’ client list reads like a who’s who of rock and metal legends and his classic monster series, which includes a reproduction of Kirk Hammett’s Boris Karloff guitar, are some of the most magnificent and appropriate renderings ever suffused on a guitar.”

In our quest to provide our customers with insanely awesome finishes that will knock your proverbial socks off, we have recruited the talents of Chris Compston, a phenomenal artist in California who can do pretty much any cool design you can think of – from his own creations to designs you find on electric guitars to drawings you create yourself!

Check out the Gallery tab and you’ll find some photos of some instruments Chris painted for some VERY HAPPY customers of ours. Below is a sampling of some of Chris’ original artwork for guitars.

EMAIL or CALL FOR PRICES (which vary according to the design) – 1-516-767-6677

A sampling of some of Chris’ AMAZING guitar art…

“Spring Daisies” Viper

Take a look at Chris’s process for creating the “Spring Daisies” finish! Originally posted on the Guitar Art & More by Chris Facebook page
This is the actual size jpeg I received. Thankfully Google image search now lets you input a photo & it will find all other photos that match- even ones with a higher resolution… if you’re lucky 🙂	I decided this would look nice ( and prove easier) with the illustration done on top of a custom “sky blue” basecoat, courtesy of my buddy Pat Wilkins. Also, I might add that I had to rearrange the original composition & add a few other daisies to make this work on a “V” shape.	I envision all my works in “layers”. If you can see in your mind’s eye how everything will look with all the other stuff layered over it, then you can get away with quite a lot in the beginning stages.
This “style” of using color washes over colored pencil is a technique I really like; the main advantage being that it is very fast. This is the same technique I used on the Sgt.Pepper Bass I did.	There is hardly anything left to do now, except to “blend” and soften things up a bit.	I added another layer of Liquitex Matte Medium at this stage, to keep the additional colors from mixing with the white gouache.
These instruments are always a little tricky to work with; they are all angles :/