Thoughts on 1980s Hair Metal Body Graphic Art?

[JohnnyHardtail]

Just my opinion, but I think it’s cringe worthy already. Adding Japanese characters makes it pretend to be something it is not. You could do that if you want it to be more offensive.

 

[Rick]

This is a george lynch case ...

 

[Rick]

mmmmh .... if I can invert this flag somehow, I think I might use this on one my cases, maybe call it the sunrise farmer band or something. Probably have a guy holding a pitch fork like in that Grant Wood painting, in front of the sun in silhouette. He'd be in red, sun would be in deep orange and the rays that are white would be deep orange, and the red rayes would be white.

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

Although it may be cliche, you could add some Japanese expression, such as:

空港の情報

Loosely translated it means "bravery from the spirit of god". Hopefully nobody takes this too seriously!

 

[somebodyelseuk]

I'm very much in the 'whatever floats your boat' camp.
It's not really my 'thing', but then I've been playing a bright yellow (and I mean YELLOW!!!) Strat-a-like for the past thirty-ish years.

As long as you are happy with the result, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks or says... in fact, when it comes to purely aesthetic decisions, I'd encourage you to ignore ALL opinions.

 

[electric__steve]

In 2024, this is pretty cringeworthy. If you want to make a statement, replace the rising sun with the US flag.

I'm dead serious. It would look great with the blue and stars in the upper left, and the red and white bars everywhere else. You eliminate the overt racist angle of the original. And I think it would be nicely critical of US foreign policy over the last 80 years. Or even the last 400 years.

 

[aarontunes]

I feel like people should be allowed to like what they like. I certainly appreciate the iconography of WWII in some contexts. Same goes for Native American, Japanese, Aztec, Egyptian, and the images and icons from myriad other cultures, movements, and eras.

There are also all kinds of things other people enjoy that hold no appeal for me at all, but that's OK. I don't need understand it.

I'm not going to yuck someone's yum.

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

I wouldn't apply much social or historical context to something like that. It's basically a work of fiction, so lets not confuse it with a real global conflict that destroyed millions of lives.

 

[mayfly]

I've had interesting artwork painted on guitars (and drumheads, and backdrops, and guitar pedals too for that matter) for years. If you're going to go down that route, do yourself a favour and pay an actual artist to do it. It will look a LOT better than what you've shown. Remember - this is something that will cost serious money to put on your instrument and will be there for the life of the instrument. Do you really want to use a sub-standard computer generated image? Or would you rather something that was created by a person with some real talent?

Oh and the taste of actual artwork? Not my cup o tea, mate. But whatever floats your boat.

 

[Rick]

Unless it's for a commercial purpose I say do it himself. It's our Limitations that give us our style.

 

[NedRyerson]

Clearly, I'm in the minority in my thoughts, reactions, and the visceral responses to such imagery ("minority" in more ways than one). At the risk of getting political or getting a talking-to, I'll leave this topic with this last notion before I step out (of the topic, not the forum, because it's clear I'm not changing anyone's minds and it also feels like I'm being low-grade gaslighted here).

I am envious of those who are not as affected by not just the images such as this when presented, in my opinion, flippantly but also by the side-effects of them. I feel that "like what you like" is fine up to a point (because I could easily take that example to far more extreme versions that would DEFINITELY get me either banned or an even more stern talking-to). When "what you like" turns out to affect another negatively, perhaps instead of telling that person to "get over it," it may behoove one to stop and wonder, "why? Could I stop for a moment and take the time to understand?"

The '70s and '80s were not kind to people like me, and stuff like this was a contribution to that. I see this now and it's just another reminder that people like me are "others" instead (still holds true today, really). It's deep enough to where 40-almost-50 years after the fact, it's not as simple as "oh, just get over it, grow some thicker skin." I wish that was the case and I wish it was that easy.

"Walk a mile in my shoes," as it were.

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

I made a similar point to the above, but my post was edited (moderated). My point was that WWII was really ‘Yuck’, so it is something that should NOT be glorified and ideally avoid the connection to those events where it serves no useful purpose.

 

[Strat Avenger]

Personally, I hate that stuff.

 

[alexreinhold]

There's no cooler design than the Kamikaze. Generally speaking, I always loved the George Lynch stuff.