Thanks for your replies, everyone!
AIGuy, your dithering example is really helpful...I didn't end up dithering after all
but I will probably try it in my next piece. My current ugly dithering is way too rectangular to be used on a sphere, so I must improve.
I stayed with the non-dithered partly out of laziness but also because I find the straight lines beautiful
(still I find the crits very valid and will see what I can do next time)
It's probably finished now just because it's almost Christmas, but I would still do backflips for comments
Specifically, if someone gave you a Christmas card and this was on the front (2x) would you be like "ew"? Or would your reaction at least be neutral? (Positive is too much to hope for).
Thanks!