“(1986) Comedy/Western” Guitar Pick Set

The second edition of owl guitar picks is here! A lot of work went into these & I'm really pleased with the results. Here's what it is.

Set of 3 owl-face guitar picks. Here's everything that's in it…

Lucky: Full-color 351-style celluloid pick. Heavy gauge (.96 mm) with color overlay on white pearloid finish

Ned: Gold ink stamped on medium gauge (.46 mm) tortoiseshell celluloid 346-style pick, often used for bass guitars.

Dusty: Medium gauge 351-style pick. Metallic silver hot foil stamp on black pearloid. Foil never gets the same level of detail as regular ink & it does wear much quicker, but the upside is that the graphics pop much more than any other medium.

Each pick comes in its own stamped 2”x 2” white envelope, each design stamped with a different color of brown ink. The full set of 3 come in a hand-stamped* 6.5” x 4.75 cream envelope that has been lightly to heavily stained with some combination of coffee, tea or spray dyes for a thoroughly antiqued/distressed finish 4 different ink colors were used for the hand-stamped* graphics. They are burnt sienna, aged mahogany, ground espresso & walnut stain. All envelope variants are randomized & evenly distributed throughout the entire edition. Envelopes are signed & #’ed in an edition of 250.

(* Hand-stamped really means hand-stamped & they look it. I mean, it should be pretty obviously by the photos. If you’re the type that likes things to be perfect & homogeneous, then the envelopes will drive you bananas. Then again, the sets are 6 bucks, so maybe these are pretty low stakes as an investment gamble.)

This set is not-so-subtly referencing the 1986 John Landis film, "Three Amigos!", a movie that's very well known & yet nobody seems to like very much. While I was designing the set, the overwhelming reaction to the theme was, "I dunno, I didn't really get into that movie, but that's maybe just me" with a hint of trying to spare my feelings in case I thought it was the bee's knees. I mean, why would someone have an entire art project revolve around it if they weren't gangbusters about "Three Amigos!"?

Guess what? I didn't really care for it either. It had a couple of good jokes, but not enough to sit through what otherwise is 104 smile-free minutes. So why center the pick series on it. This is why...

There are 3 picks.

There were 3 amigos.

I had to use a calculator to verify it, but my math added up. Both were 3. Plus I got to use some rando slightly obscure reference by simply naming the project after the IMDb year & categories for the film & reworking the title & credit fonts for the envelope graphics. And now you have a little insight on how far I'll go to pursue something, even if it's a 35-year-old movie with a lousy 45% on Rotten Tomatoes.