This cute little creature is a common house gecko. They live in great abundance down here on the Gulf Coast. They are tiny and delicate- a jumbo size male is only about 4 1/2 inches long. They can walk on vertical glass, and they can literally run across your ceiling! They are the Spider-men of the lizard world; except they don't shoot webs. They are shy and elusive, hardly ever seen in the daytime, because they are nocturnal by nature.
Every night in the summer, about six or eight of these little critters congregate on my kitchen window, having a bacchanalian feast on the multitudes of small flies and moths that are drawn to the light from the window. Maybe I'm a bit daft, but it gives me a quiet joy to see these diminutive little lizards, having such a great celebration, right in front of me while I'm making dinner. I've always had a soft spot for these creatures, the birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other wild things, who live simple, honest lives and bring their own unique beauty into the world.
We've had a massive amount of rain this summer, and the local amphibian community is living in 7th Heaven. The dozen or so species of frogs and toads in my backyard sing epic operas every night, with the bullfrogs in the neighbor's pool holding down the low end. Emerald green tree frogs hang out with the Geckos on my kitchen window. What could be better than that!
So, early this year, I had sequestered away a few months of time, during which I could build whatever guitars I wanted to, with the aim of taking them to Tom and Kathy's house in New Braunfels in September. I just had to decide which particular rabbit holes I was going to explore; and it occurred to me to make a Gecko themed guitar, as an homage to my little buddies on the kitchen window.
If you've already seen the first part of this thread, you've already seen the Gecko guitar. But it's all done and strung now, and it might just be my favorite of all the 155 guitars I've made so far.
My inlaid Geckos are not anatomically correct; I took some liberties with their color and pattern, But they are unmistakably Geckos. Here are some close-ups of them.
The Gecko guitar is another EPC-F Performance Florentine, same model as the Ziricote/T-14 guitar. The back and sides are beautiful, dark, old-growth Brazilian Rosewood, and the top is Mastergrade Adirondack Spruce. That is, the top was sold to me as Adi; however I'm pretty certain that it's actually Red Spruce from the Appalachian or Smoky Mountains. The southern variant tends to have narrower grain spacing than the Adirondack stuff. Whatever it is, it's superb tonewood in every aspect. In other words, a perfect top to pair with this Brazilian Rosewood. This guitar also has an antique Black Walnut neck, same provenance as the Falcon guitar featured earlier. The bindings and body trim are beautifully flamed SE Asian Pyinma wood, which has a deep, 3-D chatoyant shimmer that is rarely equaled in any wood. The pictures don't really do it justice- you have to see it when it's reflecting light back at you.
Here are some photos of the rest of the Gecko Performance guitar...
More pics to follow... Thanks for looking!