Missouri & Fish Wall Art Project- Part 2

A couple of weeks ago I posted about some woodworking projects that I am working on.  If you want to read the post to get caught up, you can click here.  Some progress has been made and things are looking pretty good.  The state of Missouri got sanded down and got a coat of dark walnut stain.  The rainbow trout got torched last night as well.  I'm a little mixed on how the torching came out though.  I can't decide if the cracking and splintering give it a rustic, rugged look or if it makes the project look like an amateur hack job.  I've heard good things about it but I'm still on the fence.  The brown trout needs to have some filing done in hard to reach places and I probably need to touch up the rainbow a little as well.

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I have a few ideas of what I want to do next but I'm always looking for another point of view/perspective.