What does everyone use for drawing up plans and/or mock-ups?

[Thep]

PENCIL AND POASTERBOARD HOME SLICE!!!

actually in all honestly I start by shaping it in microsoft paint then transfer that to cardstock or cardboard of some kind and use a combination of pens, pencils, straight edges, rulers, analog dial calipers, protractors and various other things to finalize the design. Cant go wrong with a full size mock up to check your work against.

This is pretty terrible advice in my opinion

 

[SirMyghin]

Big autocad fan here, but I only use it professionally, I don't really do guitar stuff. I did use it to model pedal board dimensions though lol

I can't stand sketchup, tried it for when I am not at work (and therefore do not had CAD access). I think being proficient in CAD probably made me hate sketchup instantly.

 

[DistinguishedPapyrus]

This is pretty terrible advice in my opinion

lol, I just like doing things old school. that and I like working on the design full size as if the guitar were already physically laying on the desk in front of me. just dont get the same feel out of a program

 

[Atomshipped]

Anything from Autodesk works incredibly well, in my opinion.

 

[silent_k]

Don't totally dismiss paper and pencil. I can't really draw for shit, either, but I've actually found making full-scale drawings with a pencil, straight edge, and a ruler (and eraser, of course) to be much more accessible than I'd anticipated. You might be surprised that it's easier to get good results than you'd think. I even made a makeshift light table for tracing my drawings to make templates (I've made a bunch of templates by tracing, then cutting out the traced drawing and gluing it to a piece of MDF with some Mod Podge glue and a roller). I started using Inkscape last summer for doing things like pickup and electronics cavity routing templates, neck templates, and will probably try bodies and headstocks with it at some point. But I'll still rely on pencil and paper drawings to give me a good sense of how an instrument is going to look. Drawing things out with paper and pencil 1:1 has the advantage of letting you see the whole shape, full size, without having to spend a lot of money to have it printed. The necessary supplies are low cost so it might be worth a try as you're exploring your other options.