My design entry for the kitar design contest

This is my entry to the design contest of @dinglehopper . The challenge is to create a design for that thin metal plate on a musical instrument that looks like a guitar. Just that piece alone as the musical instrument is already made and final. This is quite an easy design to make so I tried to doodle my idea and luckily I was able to make this on the image

Before I talk about my process let me show the inspiration behind my design here is a character I call Embershell my original design from the character design challenge I joined last year the character to create is called Gloamhusk and I made Embershell

Embershell followed the look of my forest folks characters which were created because of another contest I joined called The Forest Folks which is a series of design contest hosted by @cabalen. I am thankful I joined those contest because now I have a lovely group of characters.

When I was thinking about my entry I consider who will be using the musical instrument maybe my berry cap characters like Embershell would use it so instead of designing just the metal plate I designed the whole instrument using the details already provided like the antler handle and the pear shape body

I formed the antler such that it becomes the hook so you can easily hold and hang it. Here you can see I started shaping the metal plate. The design is supposed to be natural not forced my character Embershell has this crack like design on her chest from which light and embers glow. I took that same shape and used it as my design for the sound slit or holes of my instrument

This is to show Embershell and that little crack on her chest directly copied on the musical instrument metal plate. I love how it is coherent with the instrument too.

The requirement is the plate must look forged let's take a closer look on my design. I used this bluish gray color to look like ore or star iron as was mentioned in the lore. The most challenging part