Butterfly wing earrings-- evolving

I have dreamed since ordering my Glowforge in 2015 of making earrings of images of butterfly wings. I have thousands of photos I’ve taken of butterflies, from ones in nature, to butterfly houses, to Lepidoptera collections at museums (those are so much easier because they are still… but so often under reflective glass…). Using my new iPad Pro and Apple Pencil has allowed me to illustrate over top of the images to create my vectors to cut. I had been doing conversions in Photoshop then bringing into Illustrator to Live Trace, but I’m finding this illustrating via iPad process much more fun and creative, and a lot less tiresome (even though it still takes a while) than adjusting an image for a long time just with the clickety clickety of my mouse. I’ve been iterating through versions of the designs, and through materials-- all shown here are proof grade (hardwood maple, cherry, and walnut). I’m learning how thin is too thin (notice where things have broken), how close to the edge is too close, etc. I haven’t adjusted from the proof grade settings at all but am considering doing so just slightly-- still getting some burning on back of some and the thinnest spots are still charring. You can see where that’s happened on some of these test runs. Will also try newspaper below to reduce that kickback. While there’s some artistic license no doubt in my illustration from color to single tone vector, these are representative of specific species. Many may be able to spot the monarch and swallowtail in particular. While butterfly wing images are usually represented as just the upper wing, I did a few of the lower wings as well. I’m looking forward to cashing in on my Inventables gift certificate to get some 1/16th hardwood; this is all the 1/8' proof grade.