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Is there any info on this node setup?

Zbrush is pretty good. You can set it up to use gimp as the z app link software. There's several ways to bring raster images in to make height. That's what I like to do.

Well I've found that marking the center on both sides and then jogging to those marks to start the carve is the best way to center the two sided carve. Just measuring and marking with a pencil is...

If you could make a jig to put a punch mark on both sides of the board in the center then jogging to those positions as jog to center. That would be the best bet for getting both sides lined up....

Hair as a texture will carve but if you sand it down it doesn't turn out so good. Hair should be thick. The hair you have on the lion pattern is pretty thick.

It takes longer to carve hair, but...

Sculpting hair as a texture on a surface works pretty good for carving.
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81184

I've done stuff like that in blender. Where you use the sculpting tools to bump up separate objects. It works pretty good while constraining the scupting to just the z axis.