Help me with a challenging bass project.

So I'm thinking about making a franken-stingray. I want a stingray body with a custom swirl paint job I will do myself, with no pickguard or control plate and a stingray neck. The tricky part is that the stingray bass bodies all require the control plate. A simple answer would be just use a Sterling Series body, because the knobs are direct through the body. This then requires that I'd use a sterling neck because the neck joints are different. Id rather use the higher quality stingray neck and I like the idea of using a larger stingray body, but I don't want the control plate. Anybody have any ideas?

Edit: I was also thinking about just getting the 20th anniversary stingray they released in 1996. It has a pickguard but I think it is the best looking stingray I have ever seen.