How To Design a Custom Guitar Without Photoshop

Got the artistic talent of a toddler? Never mind Photoshop, you’ve never even fired up Microsoft Paint? Not to worry – a virtual guitar builder can help design your dream custom guitar in just a few simple clicks!

Using a guitar customizer to test out different color, material, and hardware configurations before parting with cash is a surefire way to ensure that you end up with something aesthetically pleasing.

Having a design or two to send over will also help to ensure that there is no confusion between you and the custom guitar builder. This was exactly what I did with my own custom guitar as English was not the luthier’s first language.

And it’s incredibly simple to design your own guitar, thanks to the various virtual guitar builders that you can find scattered around the interwebs.

In around 20 minutes I managed to put together the 5 crazy designs below. How awesome is the pink binding on that 2nd one, right?!

Custom Left Handed Guitar Designs

You’ll find these tools on various websites, for example, Fender and Ruokangas both have custom guitar builders that let you design a guitar and then buy your creation.

However, the Fender website is restricted to only a few models and limited configurations. The Ruokangas tool is only useful if you want to, you know, buy a Ruokangas.

What if you want more guitar styles, more color options, and more hardware choices?

Guitar Customizer

Out of all of the virtual guitar builders, perhaps the most in-depth is the app from Kisekae – this is what I used to design the examples above.

Check out the end of this article for links to some alternative guitar customizer apps if you would prefer.

Kisekae VIM Virtual Guitar Builder

The Kisekae guitar customizer will allow you to choose from a good number of popular guitar models, and then let your imagination run rampant. You’ll find well-known instruments such as Strats, Teles, Les Pauls, 335s, RGs, JEMs, and many, many more.

Design a guitar in almost any color under the sun, choose the tonewoods, hardware color, pickup types, binding color, and inlay material. If you can think it up, the custom guitar builder from Kiesekae can manifest it for you.

Below is a screenshot showing the options for the body finish. As you can see, there are six sliders for colors alone within this online guitar builder.

Virtual Guitar Builder
Online Guitar Designer Example

To design a guitar is super simple. Just hit the “Switch Part” button and select the area you want to configure. Almost all parts of the guitar can be customized. Guitar design made easy!

Once you’re done, simply hit the “generate image” button and the guitar designer will render out a picture that you can save to your computer or mobile device.

Thought you’d need to spend hours in Photoshop to design your own guitar? Not at all!

Try The Guitar Customizer
Kisekae Virtual Guitar Designer

More Online Guitar Designer Apps

Still hungry for more guitar design options? These custom guitar maker apps will let you try some additional styles.

If I’ve missed any excellent online guitar builder sites, please drop me an email. You’ll find a link to the contact form in the footer below.

Neal Author Bio
Author
Neal
Neal has been playing guitar (left-handed!) for over 20 years, and has also worked in various roles within the guitar retail industry since 2012. In his spare time he loves to travel, ride bikes, and suck at videogames. More Info