Mark Maneja
6 min read
Most builders finish a flame maple top with stain or nitro. Peter-John de Villiers drew on his instead, in colored pencil, straight onto the bare veneer of our semi-hollow double-cutaway kit.
Visual artist Peter-John de Villiers, better known as THESHALLOWTREE, is no stranger to our kits. You may remember the Ancient Egypt themed guitar he hand-carved from our Mahogany TR-style kit. That build removed wood. This one adds color, and nothing else.
His starting point is the Semi-Hollow Double-Cutaway Electric Guitar Kit, Flame Maple Veneer: maple plywood body, flamed maple top veneer, mahogany center block, set-in mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard with block inlays, two humbuckers, and a tune-o-matic bridge with a trapeze tailpiece.
Most builders reach for stain or nitro. Peter reached for a pencil case. The top now carries large lilies in sepia and ochre, scrollwork running out toward the horns, spread wings at the center by the tailpiece, and a single open human eye sitting between the two humbuckers. The flame in the veneer still reads through the color, so the wood is part of the drawing rather than a surface under it.
A drawn top cannot be repeated. Stain and lacquer can be matched batch to batch, but a line laid into bare wood by hand happens once, at the moment it is drawn, and every mark on this guitar is a decision that only exists here. The kit underneath it is one we stock. The instrument on top of it is the only one there will ever be.
Mark's note: We asked Peter to talk us through his materials and his process, and we will add his answers here when they arrive. Everything below is what can be seen in the photographs and what is true of the kit itself.
The composition works outward from the tailpiece end. Large lilies fill the lower bout, drawn in warm sepia and ochre, with scrollwork trailing between them. A winged form with both wings spread sits at the center. Above it, between the two humbucker routes, is a single open human eye, placed where a player looking down at the instrument meets it directly.
The color sits inside the grain rather than covering it, so the flame of the veneer runs through the petals and the wings. That is the argument for drawing on a figured top instead of painting one: paint would have hidden the veneer the kit was chosen for.
The top substantially colored in, with the flame of the maple still reading through the pencil. Courtesy of Peter-John de Villiers.
Peter posts the work as it happens, and the detail reads better in his own photographs than in anything we could re-shoot. These are his posts, embedded straight from Instagram.
The finished instrument, assembled: the moth at the center, lilies through both bouts, and the inlaid fretboard. Posted by @theshallowtree.
The eye up close, beside a routed pickup cavity with our stamp still visible in the bare wood. Swipe the post for the full set. Posted by @theshallowtree.
A short video of the top, with one of his drawings on paper alongside it. Posted by @theshallowtree.
The kit is a semi-hollow double-cutaway build. Maple plywood body with a flamed maple top veneer. A mahogany center block, which is the part that keeps a semi-hollow from feeding back and gives it more sustain than a fully hollow body. Set-in mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard with block inlays, two humbuckers, tune-o-matic bridge, trapeze tailpiece.
Everything Peter drew on is the top veneer. None of the drawing changes how the guitar is assembled or wired, which is what makes this approach available to a builder who has never decorated an instrument before.
If you want to try this, the decisions come before the first line, not after it. Three of them matter most.
If you are still choosing a kit to decorate, our build difficulty score rates every kit from one to ten, and how to design your own guitar covers the decisions further upstream.
Two of his builds have run on this blog now, and neither used the same technique. The first was carved: he cut an Ancient Egypt scene into the face of a mahogany kit. This one is the opposite, drawn onto the surface in pencil with nothing removed at all.
That is the reason to follow him rather than just admire one guitar. He treats a kit top as a surface to solve, and he solves it differently each time, which is a more useful thing to watch than any single finished instrument.
Instagram: @theshallowtree, where his artwork lives
His earlier build here: Carving Ancient Egypt into a guitar
Our thanks to Peter-John de Villiers for sharing the build and the photographs.
Semi-Hollow Double-Cutaway Electric Guitar Kit, Flame Maple Veneer
Any of these will arrive looking like every other one we ship. What happens next is the part nobody can copy. This technique needs a top you would not want to cover up, so these three are in stock and all give you a figured or solid surface to work on.
Whether you're planning your first build, experimenting with a custom finish, or creating a guitar that reflects your own artistic vision, we'd love to see what you're working on.
Join the Guitar Kit World community to share your build, connect with fellow makers, ask questions, exchange ideas, and discover inspiring projects from builders around the world. Your next idea could come from another member, and your finished guitar could inspire someone else's journey.
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