Glad you looked at it the way I planned it. The one side was supposed to look like the zebra's back with the darker mane-like band. The other side was supposed to look whiter, more like the belly. I've never been underneath a zebra, but from pictures it looks like some have white bellys and some just have thinner stripes. I went with the thinner stripes for the belly.
This left me with the tough choice of where to put the clip. I had originally figured it would go in line with the "back". But I really like the look of that part of the blank and didn't want to cover it up. So the clip is riding side saddle. I wasn't sure anybody would notice. Can't fool you eagle-eyes though.
The "how long" question is always a tough one to answer. I have multiple projects going all the time and I don't keep track of how my day is allocated between each one. Each project involves a lot of time waiting for things to cure / dry. I don't think curing / drying time should be counted when answering the "how long" question. But it seems I should somehow allocate some of the months / years I spent learning and developing the skills / techniques that made creating the project possible. What about all the time I spent working to earn the money to buy the equipment that I'm using? It would seem fair to include some of that time, but how to do so? I have found that people who ask "how long" generally fall into one of two groups.
The first group are curious and looking for a way to gauge the artistic content of the object. More time to create equates to more value. My answer to this group would be "a couple of days".
The second group are trying to figure out how long it would take them to duplicate the project. My answer to this group is "it took me 20 years to create this project, but you should be able to do it a lot faster".