Buckling Down to a Series

This is the first of a series of twelve belt buckles from Chaparral in Houston. They reminded me of home and I was homesick. I have four of them now and started this one, as it's the first in the series. I really loved the look of them. The stitch guides and the line drawings - I'm not a big fan. The guides are in a hard to read for long periods font, disorganized, and have very little in the way of guidance - not even a picture of the whole thing pointing to the parts they're talking about. I'll get the series done, but in a lot of ways, it'll be in spite of the stitch guide instead of because of it. As you can see, the canvas line drawings are just - pudgy. It looks like they outlined the various pieces and gave a very wiiiide margin for them. This is my first time doing a series like this, so I don't know if it's me or the guides. Maybe they'll get better as I progress. I hope so.