You don't need fancy machines or printing presses to create your own stickers and skins. All you need are some simple supplies that you probably have around the house or that can be found at any local store, like Target, Wal-Mart, or Meijer.

• Contact paper (clear and colored)
• Scissors
• Exacto hobby knife
• Pencil or pen
• Sharpie markers (all colors)
• Light source for tracing (like a window)
• Goo-Gone or rubbing alcohol (for cleaning off sticker goo)

You'll also need some good source material or art. Of course, the best source material is your imagination, but if you're looking for more "professional" looking stickers, then you'll want some art or design to trace. Some ideas...

• Logos (bands, products, games...)
• Clip art
• Comic books
• Wallpaper patterns
• T-Shirts
• Posters

Examples of this method

What you're doing...

How to do it...

1. Find a pattern you want as a sticker, say a skull and crossbones
   
2. Print the pattern IN REVERSE onto normal printer paper
3. Take your colored contact paper, in this case white, and place it FACE DOWN on to the pattern you printed out.
4. Using a pencil, trace the pattern onto the back of the contact paper.
5. Use your scissors and Exacto knife and cut along the outline on the Contact paper.
6. That's it! Peel off the backing and stick it on your guitar.

In some cases, like our example, you'll actually be cutting out two stickers - here, one for the skull and one for the crossbones. You'll have to apply each one to your guitar separately, so be careful when lining up your stickers. However, Contact paper is pretty forgiving, so you can easily peel off the sticker to relaign it if necessary.

Cut-outs work best with larger designs that are relatively simple. You can create complex cut-outs, but they take a lot of time and are hard to apply without getting folds and bends. Give it a shot if you want a bad ass sticker, but have patience.

Tracers are a much simpler means of creating stickers. Tracers are best for more complex designs or even freehand drawings. This method works best for white controllers, like the Les Paul or Xplorer.

Examples of this method

What you're doing...

How to do it...

1. Find a pattern you like (if you're not going to freehand it), we'll use Fleur-de-Lei
   
2. Print out the pattern on normal printer paper. (You can print in light grey to save on ink)
3. Take a piece of clear Contact paper and put it FACE UP on top of the print out
4. Trace the pattern with Sharpie markers (any color you want). Don't just outline, color in all the solid areas too.
5. Take ANOTHER piece of clear Contact paper, peel off the back, and COVER your drawing completely. Press down so there are no air bubbles. This layer acts as protection so your drawing doesn't smear.
6. Use your scissors and Exacto knife to cut out around THE EDGES of the drawing (maybe leave a little edge). You don't need to cut in and around any tiny holes or curves.
7. That's it! Peel off the back of the bottom layer and stick it on your guitar. Because you used clear Contact paper the guitar will show through the holes and tiny areas you didn't cut out.

This method is great for when you want complex drawings or more than one color on your sticker. Just use different colored Sharpies to trace of different parts of the pattern.

Examples of this method

What you're doing...

Using a combination of cut-out and tracing techniques to make really big stickers.

How to do it...

Full skins are big and are meant to cover your entire guitar or sections like the pick guard. To make a full skin sticker you need to combine both cut-out and tracing techniques described above. You're just making a really big sticker.

To help make these full-sized stickers, it helps to have templates so you know how to design and cut out your stickers. Use the links below to download the template for the controller you have.

• Pick guard template for SG model (PDF) - (Guitar Hero 1 and 2)
• Les Paul faceplate template (Wii) (PNG)
• Template for Fender Kramer model (JPG) - (Courtesy Genko-shashin)

If you have a Les Paul model controller you have a removable faceplate which helps you a lot. The simplest method is to remove your faceplate and cover the whole thing with a giant sheet of clear Contact paper. Then draw your design on the top. Place another sheet of clear on top and then cut out and fold around the holes.

Links

Design Supplies and Resources

• Contact paper - Available in many colors and sizes
• Sharpie markers - Available in many colors and sizes
• Vector Magic - Turn photos and images into easily tracable pictures
• Urban Fonts - Download fonts for tracing. Check out wingding fonts.
• 70s Wallpaper - Great designs for tracing and patterns
• Wallpaper designs - Same resource used to create the Flurry cut-out examples above
• Wallpaper patterns - More wallpaper patterns good for cut-outs

Band logos and more

• Wikipedia band logos - Extensive list of logos, both popular and indie bands
• Brand Upon the Brain - Blog with logo images and insight
• List of band logos - Decent list of logo type

Friends and gamers

• Morning Toast - Official sponsor and home of Angry Edison
• Official Guitar Hero site - Track your scores, tournaments, and forum
• Angry Edison GH profile
• Morning Toast Tour Group

• Fake Plastic Rock - Blog dedicated to all things Guitar Hero & Rock Band
• Unofficial GH3 fan site
• GH Jammers - Player community
• Non/Wii - Wii fan site (French)
• GHSkinz - Pro-made skins and themes

Resources

Click on the images below to download the full size version that you can then print out and trace using the above methods to create your own stickers. Many of these are ones I just think would look cool on a guitar and might give you some ideas. You can also download a zip of all the images, or the raw Photoshop file with layers for tinkering.

These images have been sized for 6" x 4" so they are plenty big when printed and ideal for tracing. If you need smaller sizes you'll have to resize them using a Photoshop-like editor or even some free on-line image resizers.