Sesshomaru Enamel Pendant

I was able to get my hands on some Thompson Lead-Free Jewelry Enamels over the past few weeks and I've been trying my hand at a few different techniques with cloisonné and champlevé. This is my third project and I chose to go with the Sesshomaru sakura pattern from Inuyasha. Fairly simple and straightforward- only one color. I will be using some eutectic solder that I made to eliminate the use of zinc and raise the melting point to ~1550*. Of course, there was much more to learn in the simplicity of this piece. I really pushed this piece, following the process to the best of my knowledge, while steeped in experimentation. Everything here is new to me, so this was the perfect time to find the best mixture of klyr-fire and water, the most precise tools, a preferred work surface, flame level for melting enamel, and of course I managed to mess it up along the way. I read relevant parts of The Art of Fine Enameling by Karen L. Cohen to try and recover my mistakes, but ended up getting distracted and heating the piece too much. It was really interesting to see the metal separate and float within the vitreous enamel, itself in a molten state (See final picture for results). The enamel didn't really break down, but instead was wrapped around and taken into the metal. With my mistakes and all of my learning through the process, I decided to give it another shot, and everything went much more smoothly.