Hi Dave, looks like you have a good start on your 'Buck' relief carving. I always start my relief carvings from the background and work forward. The background will be your deepest, then as you come forward would be the mid-ground and then the foreground. I notice what appears to be tree limbs, which would be your next depth and then your buck.
I think you could probably go a little deeper with your back ground, then work on carving out the limbs. I always save my subject for the last until I get the feeling of depth I'm looking for. This is an example of what I'm talking about--the board itself is a little less than 1" and the background was taken down to 1/4". I used a pattern by Susan Irish
www.carvingpatterns.com--she also contributes to this site. Hope this helps, always happy to answer questions too. Here is a link to my WIP on my Antelope
Antelope Relief WIP
Kathy
