Well, several long, hot days and roughly $130 later, this is DONE! For a non-functional guitar, it doesn't actually sound half-bad when I pluck the strings.

For those of you only now joining in, this is a replica of Ember's guitar from the cartoon series Danny Phantom. I will be cosplaying the character Ember at Anime Expo this coming weekend, and to my knowledge, nobody has yet attempted to build a good solid replica of the guitar. This project began as this guitar body that I got off of Ebay. I had to sand off all the cruddy white paint and decals and rip out the already trashed internal hardware. The neck and headstock, as well as the flamey extensions on the main body are all cut from poplar wood and bolted firmly to the body so as to best withstand the sort of abuse a prop is expected to take at a convention. I used what hardware remained from the guitar body, and purchased an actual set of tuning knobs (which gave me HELL installing, by the way.) The dials on the body were made from Sculpey and screwed on- all three can turn to some extent, especially the dial with all the little icons on it. I sprayed the blue paint on first, masked off the flames, then sprayed the purple over it. Then I masked off everything but the neck and parts of the body that needed to be silver and sprayed that. It's finished off with a coat of a clear slightly-reflective finish.

It's a far cry from perfect, but I am insanely pleased with the end result. Time permitting after AX, I would like to revise it to make the icons on the one dial light up, and add a sound system inside it so I can have the guitar blasting Ember's song.

And before anyone even THINKS of asking, no, I will NOT be selling this.