Introducing the Empress - or - Going for Baroque

Not long ago I acquired a guitar to to use for festivals and other live concerts (read the saga here).

For me the downside of the guitar was its looks - but that's the last thing I care about if other factors like tone, responsiveness, playability and price are all there... as was definitely the case with this one.

The quilted maple top seemed just a bit ostentatious to me. It reminded me of some Baroque furniture I've seen in The Hermitage. Consequently, I whimsically named it "The Empress Katherine II" after she whose winter palace The Hermitage was.

Then I decided, what the heck, if the thing's gonna look gaudy, why not just "go for baroque" and add some decoration. I knew about inlaystickers.com and went their site to see what I could find. I found some faux-abalone inlay stickers with a dolphin motif that I thought I could work with, even though they were for ukulele. I mucked about in Photoshop and came up with a design that I think is just fine for Empress Kate. Hey, sea shanties are a sort of show-biz, right?

Here are the before and after pics.

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