Official Daemoness Guitars Thread

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KnightBrolaire

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My point is that if I started making guitars tomorrow with norse knot work on them you'd be well within your rights to say "you're copying Hutchinson", especially if the entire rest of my business was making copies of guitars popularized by other builders.
and my point was that the usage of an similar artistic theme alone does not equate copying, since said dance of death and norse knotwork are extremely common in their respective time periods. It'd be one thing if Perry was trying to ape dylan's personal style, but he's not, he's scanning famous woodcut pieces by Holbein to be burned in by a laser.
 

SDMFVan

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You're right, every luthier and their brother is putting medieval artwork on their guitars...

I can't wait to hear your defense when Perry starts printing old horror movie posters onto Hypemachines.
 

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Samark

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narad

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You're right, every luthier and their brother is putting medieval artwork on their guitars...

I can't wait to hear your defense when Perry starts printing old horror movie posters onto Hypemachines.

The fact that I know exactly what guitars you're referring to here shows just how synonymous certain art styles / techniques on guitars can be with the builder/player who makes them.
 

SDMFVan

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The fact that I know exactly what guitars you're referring to here shows just how synonymous certain art styles / techniques on guitars can be with the builder/player who makes them.

I'm glad somebody gets it. Dylan didn't invent medieval woodcut artwork just like Kirk Hammett didn't invent vintage horror movie posters. They did however popularize and become somewhat synonymous with putting those pre-existing artworks onto electric guitars. Are people really that dense that they don't get the difference?

Just FYI geniuses: Slash didn't invent the top hat, but you're going to look like an idiot if you wear one at your next gig.
 

Sermo Lupi

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It's a matter of intent, isn't it?

The artwork on Perry's guitars is clearly lower quality, and, as others have pointed out, probably intended to cash in on Dylan's demographic. That's what really matters here, not the idea that Dylan's style is so distinctive it can't be replicated without copying.

Dylan is an artist in the fullest sense of the word, and I doubt he'd ever want to discourage another artist from pursuing a style analogous to his own. The whole medieval/occult/fantasy angle is actually very common in other art circles, including the sort of 'printmaking renaissance' that's been going on for a decade or more now. Admittedly, it is rarer to happen in luthiery, because obviously it is not common for an excellent painter/fine artist to become a luthier, but the point stands that Dylan's themes aren't the sole criterion in what makes his guitars novel.

I think it is also a little vague to refer to Dylan's stuff as 'medieval imagery on guitars'. Woodcuts are predominantly early modern, not medieval, and before you call me a pedant for pointing that out, consider that Dylan has done everything from viking-inspired guitars, to historical themes, classical monsters, horror iconography, post-apocalyptic hellscapes, and on and on. There's nothing strictly medieval about what he does, and he's far less predictable in terms of his inspirations.

Honestly that makes him a better artist that he is able to get such consistently great results out of whatever concepts his clients throw at him.

That said, his branding does cater toward sort of a 'ye olde' aesthetic, and he uses sealing wax, vellum, and sometimes a brief bit of Latin in the control cavities of the guitars. But I'd like to insist again that this is as much a product of post-medieval English culture as anything that came before.

Anyway, that's more of a philosophical point. With the reputation Ormsby has on this forum, what with his handling of the Blackmachine hype and everything else, I think it is okay to call a spade a spade.
 

KnightBrolaire

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It's a matter of intent, isn't it?

The artwork on Perry's guitars is clearly lower quality, and, as others have pointed out, probably intended to cash in on Dylan's demographic. That's what really matters here, not the idea that Dylan's style is so distinctive it can't be replicated without copying.

Dylan is an artist in the fullest sense of the word, and I doubt he'd ever want to discourage another artist from pursuing a style analogous to his own. The whole medieval/occult/fantasy angle is actually very common in other art circles, including the sort of 'printmaking renaissance' that's been going on for a decade or more now. Admittedly, it is rarer to happen in luthiery, because obviously it is not common for an excellent painter/fine artist to become a luthier, but the point stands that Dylan's themes aren't the sole criterion in what makes his guitars novel.

I think it is also a little vague to refer to Dylan's stuff as 'medieval imagery on guitars'. Woodcuts are predominantly early modern, not medieval, and before you call me a pedant for pointing that out, consider that Dylan has done everything from viking-inspired guitars, to historical themes, classical monsters, horror iconography, post-apocalyptic hellscapes, and on and on. There's nothing strictly medieval about what he does, and he's far less predictable in terms of his inspirations.

Honestly that makes him a better artist that he is able to get such consistently great results out of whatever concepts his clients throw at him.

That said, his branding does cater toward sort of a 'ye olde' aesthetic, and he uses sealing wax, vellum, and sometimes a brief bit of Latin in the control cavities of the guitars. But I'd like to insist again that this is as much a product of post-medieval English culture as anything that came before.

Anyway, that's more of a philosophical point. With the reputation Ormsby has on this forum, what with his handling of the Blackmachine hype and everything else, I think it is okay to call a spade a spade.
woodcuts are modern? uhh if you want to be pedantic then technically they came into fashion in the west around the 12-1300s, though the most famous woodcuts tend to come from the renaissance (1300-1600s) with artists like hans holbein and albrecht durer being the most well known. the core concept of carving an image into wood and using it to make copies has been around far longer, the chinese were doing it for over a 1000 years before europeans learned how to do it.
I get that everyone wants to play this as cynically as possible having a knee jerk reaction towards ormsby "copying" some of the themes used by dylan, but look at other mediums like print, tattoo, etc and these themes aren't unique in any way. Hell just go on deviantart and look for mythology based art and see how much is out there.
Dylan's technical ability and eye for detail/great compositions are what sets his takes on general themes apart. I haven't seen any other draftsman in the luthier field even close to his caliber.
Perry is doing something completely different in his approach, where he takes famous artworks and has them cut onto a body. Dylan references famous work or styles and also utilizes modern tools, but at the end of the day, the core composition and overall design is all his.
That's largely why I don't support the idea that Perry is "copying" Dylan, they occupy completely different philosophies in building guitars.
 

Sermo Lupi

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woodcuts are modern? uhh if you want to be pedantic then technically they came into fashion in the west around the 12-1300s, though the most famous woodcuts tend to come from the renaissance (1300-1600s) with artists like hans holbein and albrecht durer being the most well known. the core concept of carving an image into wood and using it to make copies has been around far longer, the chinese were doing it for over a 1000 years before europeans learned how to do it.
I get that everyone wants to play this as cynically as possible having a knee jerk reaction towards ormsby "copying" some of the themes used by dylan, but look at other mediums like print, tattoo, etc and these themes aren't unique in any way. Hell just go on deviantart and look for mythology based art and see how much is out there.
Dylan's technical ability and eye for detail/great compositions are what sets his takes on general themes apart. I haven't seen any other draftsman in the luthier field even close to his caliber.
Perry is doing something completely different in his approach, where he takes famous artworks and has them cut onto a body. Dylan references famous work or styles and also utilizes modern tools, but at the end of the day, the core composition and overall design is all his.
That's largely why I don't support the idea that Perry is "copying" Dylan, they occupy completely different philosophies in building guitars.

I said 'early modern', which is a period that is safely dated 1500 or 1550 on the early side. And as a printing technique in Western Europe, it is not well-attested before 1400 and was popularised from 1475 onward. Moreover, because of the emerging popularity of the printing press at roughly the same time, the vast majority of examples postdate 1500, and it was a popular artform for several centuries after the medieval period.

We can debate this further via PM if you want, I'm more than happy to share what I know; I'm just a little wary of sidetracking the thread. Insofar as Dylan's woodcut guitars are concerned, however, they depict popular early modern scenes of witch trials, demonic possession and so on. It's staunchly early modern imagery, not medieval (and 'medieval' covers as much as 1000 years of history in any case, which is very non-specific).

As for the rest, we're agreeing on that, aren't we? Haha. Dylan's art is fantastic, but there's all kinds of this stuff out there and there has been for decades.

To be clear, I don't want to call Perry an outright plagiarist. I don't think that's fair. But as much as he's entitled to put whatever he wants on his guitars, I think he was certainly influenced by Dylan's success in much the same way he was influenced by Doug's.

That's not grounds for criticism necessarily, but just because so-called 'medieval imagery' is popular doesn't mean Perry came up with the concept in a vacuum.
 

narad

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Perry might get the benefit of the doubt if his business wasn't built on the ideas of other people.

And literally Daemoness #1 was this woodcut artwork. It is right there with the very origin of the company. When he was defining the brand, that was the guitar featured. There's an entire video of him describing it.
 

sezna

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I very much want to get on the waiting list but....30 months :( :(

There's one on reverb right now with a sick inlay but the body finish is not to my taste.
 

Albake21

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I very much want to get on the waiting list but....30 months :( :(

There's one on reverb right now with a sick inlay but the body finish is not to my taste.
I think I could get past that finish with just how amazing that inlay is. Sadly it's a 25.5" 7 string, needs to be 26.5 or 27 for me.
 
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