Sushi monster
寿司モンスター

※ “Sushi Monster” is currently on display at TC楽器 as part of the 6th Modified Guitar Contest and will not be available for delivery until after December 30, 2026. Orders can still be placed.

 

Sushi Monster was a side project during my first year at ESP GCA. A friend of mine, guitarist Tim, sent me a PM with a video of an artist who made a resin guitar with LEGO. I was instantly hooked, but thought that “the insides” had to be way cooler than little plastic building blocks...

I showed the video to my teacher. I had only been at school for about two and a half months, and he said: “muzukashii desu yo” — pretty much “forget about that, way too difficult.”

…Well, he didn’t know my Ishiatama yet. Hehehe.

Living in Japan, I was always fascinated by the craft of making hyper-realistic fake food samples, so I went shopping at Kappabashi in Tokyo. Next step: creating a silicone mold. I had never worked with that material before and bought “Mr. Silicone,” a large high-edged plastic tray, as well as a Telecaster kit, since I needed a body to make the mold.

It didn’t fit the plastic tray, so I had no choice but to sand it down until it did. In the end, that was a good move for another reason — resin is heavy. I had read about it, but when I took the body out of the mold, I was shocked at HOW HEAVY it was. 6 kg, ladies and gentlemen! Wham!

So what to do? At school we had one big sanding machine. Everybody wanted to use it — we were about 20 students. I asked my teacher if I could use it during our one-hour lunch break, so that became sanding time for several weeks. I took off a lot of material to slim the body down. It worked well. It is very round and has a lovely feel to it.

Since this is resin, I definitely wanted to use pickups fat enough to give it a proper sound. Seymour Duncan Hot Rails it was! Why the Strat neck? Well, why not? When going crazy, you might as well fully lose it! XD

I have several other resin bodies in the making — I just haven’t had time to finish them yet, but I will. Stay tuned!

This is a proper instrument, but at over 5 kg it is a tad bit heavy. I consider it art, and I would love to see it in the office of one of the big sushi chains here in Japan, or maybe at the Sushi Museum.