Hi all,

My BIL is a big fan of koi fish and has a pond in his backyard that's the center of his landscaping. So I took that as inspiration to try a marquetry box with a fish for the first time. I had made two of boxes without the lids last fall, one of which became an anniversary gift for my wife

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Some build notes here: https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....210&highlight=

For this design, I made a collage of photos from the interwebs using a koi and a lotus flower that I traced using an ipad and planned on a radial pattern for the background of some sort of fiddle back or curly wood.

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The project would require more pieces than any other piece I've done to date, so spent a weekend wrangling my shop-sawn veneers into a much better storage system and cutting more veneers.

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I also decided to switch up my approach to the double-bevel marquetry given the detail involved. With DB marquetry, pieces can be cut that 'fall into' the background and the design proceeds from the outside-in or each new piece can be added by cutting with the background on top and adding pieces to the edge of a central design. Each method sounds more complicated than it is after a couple tries, but switching from one to other was a bit like my time in Australia this summer driving and walking on sidewalks---had to pay a lot of attention to make sure I was going the right way!

Here are the first few pieces of the head coming together
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More to come...