Father/son Unicorn from Bottlebrush Tree

My son wanted to make a gift for a friend.  She said she likes unicorns, so he asked if we could carve one.   I've never carved before... so this was going to be an interesting experiment.  We went through what wood we had on hand.   He chose some Bottlebrush that I had milled up in 2021 from a neighbor's tree they had me take down.  I've never worked with it before.  Bottlebrush it turns out is beautiful.  And nearly as hard as maple (I can't find its janka hardness rating anywhere).  I was a bit disappointed that it lost all of the brilliant red that it had when I first cut the tree, but the brownish red that replaced it is pretty awesome.  It takes a smooth finish right off the plane or gouge.  The downside is, it is way too hard for a first carving project.  We pressed on.   The horn was hand forged to a taper then twisted while red hot.    My son did most of the work on this one which was pretty cool.    He used a mini torch to burn the inside of the ear and the nose for accurate coloration.  Then we used Dark Tung oil as a finish.  He delivered it at the birthday party yesterday and got a bunch of oohs and ahhs.

The full source of this story written by my son is here: Bottlebrush Unicorn