Big tip o' the hat to y'all!
Yeah, Paul is my closet mentor, I zoom in on his creations all the time. I'm now 100% into trying out the sand shading, get rid of these sudden transitions between shapes and add shadows. The wife says I should use other materials for inlay, hence my Qs about abalone shell and such.
Great to have a few masters here to aspire too!
I still have a variety of cloth dyes and will get to some more dying ala Paul's method.
Would be nice to rig up the laser with a few more degrees of freedom (pitch and yaw) to get tapered cuts for press fits.
If course that comes for "free" with a good scroll saw setup, but not yet ready to take the plunge since that is needed in the bathroom for those times....