Finally done with the project. It was a ton of fun to design but not as much to make but still a bit of fun. The project is in black walnut. The legs were glued up boards to make a 3"x3" posts that I used the band saw to cut the profile. And a lot of chisel, wood files, and sand paper to shape them.
I highly recommend a project like this. The legs were intimidating to me at first but what I learned is they are actually fairly simple to make. They are extremely forgiving to mess ups. You just need more sand paper.
On the down side they are very labor intensive in shaping and cleaning the tool marks. Took me about 4 hours per leg to shape and to carve out the claws. You can see where I missed a few of the tool marks but overall I am completely happy with this piece. Not perfect by any stretch but for my first one I am pleased. Learned a lot for something I will probably not do again but that is okay.