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Been a fan of George Lynch and his Kamikazes for years. I’ve been wanting to try out an ESP Kami but just hasn’t been one of my top priorities. When I saw George playing a star version of Kami I, I thought the graphic would also look cool on a Kelly. So I ended up finding a used KE3 for $250 that was in great shape, came loaded with Seymour Duncans and had black hardware. Best part was the seller was in LA and he dropped the Kelly off at GMW for me.
My preference is single hum guitars. So I had Lee fill the route for the neck pickup and selector switch and retop the guitar to turn it into a single hum KE3. I found a seller on Ebay from Japan that was selling reproduction stickers of the kamikaze pilot. So I ordered 2 and sent them to GMW. Lee used one as a test and applied it to a board and top coated it with urethane to make sure the ink wouldn’t run or react with the top coat. Once we knew the sticker was usable, I then I worked out a color scheme with Lee using a pearl white base coat with pearl black, silver and tan camo marks. I sketched out the graphic for the front and headstock following the original graphic layout on Lynch’s ESP. The graphic artist that Lee used followed by sketch pretty closely. I gave him free reign to extend the graphic over the sides and onto the back. I always thought the ESP version should have the graphic wrap the whole body rather than just the face and sides so I did the full body graphic.
The Kelly has a urethane top coat to keep the white as bright as possible. So the paint work got finished up before New Years but the urethan top coat has been curing since. It just got buffed and assembled this week and is headed my way. Looking forward to seeing this one in person! The pics look great but I imagine it’s even better in person with the sparkles in the pearl white and pearl black.
Here’s a few progress pics along with my sketches of the graphic and the ESP version so you can see how they match up. Enjoy!
Here's what I started with and how it looked after GMW modified the body to remove the neck pickup route and spray the pearl white base coat.
Here's my sketch for the headstock and how it turned out.
Here's my sketch of the body and how it turned out.
My preference is single hum guitars. So I had Lee fill the route for the neck pickup and selector switch and retop the guitar to turn it into a single hum KE3. I found a seller on Ebay from Japan that was selling reproduction stickers of the kamikaze pilot. So I ordered 2 and sent them to GMW. Lee used one as a test and applied it to a board and top coated it with urethane to make sure the ink wouldn’t run or react with the top coat. Once we knew the sticker was usable, I then I worked out a color scheme with Lee using a pearl white base coat with pearl black, silver and tan camo marks. I sketched out the graphic for the front and headstock following the original graphic layout on Lynch’s ESP. The graphic artist that Lee used followed by sketch pretty closely. I gave him free reign to extend the graphic over the sides and onto the back. I always thought the ESP version should have the graphic wrap the whole body rather than just the face and sides so I did the full body graphic.
The Kelly has a urethane top coat to keep the white as bright as possible. So the paint work got finished up before New Years but the urethan top coat has been curing since. It just got buffed and assembled this week and is headed my way. Looking forward to seeing this one in person! The pics look great but I imagine it’s even better in person with the sparkles in the pearl white and pearl black.
Here’s a few progress pics along with my sketches of the graphic and the ESP version so you can see how they match up. Enjoy!
Here's what I started with and how it looked after GMW modified the body to remove the neck pickup route and spray the pearl white base coat.
Here's my sketch for the headstock and how it turned out.
Here's my sketch of the body and how it turned out.
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