Axe design exercise

What I did here is this exercise: take a shape of something (in this case a seahorse) and use it as a base to design something totally different (an axe)
I've seen someone other did something similar, I thought it worth to try as well :)

Then I tried different "themes" just to showcase a bit of iterations

Other thing I wanted to share it's my process:
for the first two I've started with greyscales then colored with gradients, its a cool technique as it make you focus only on values and then you can add colors that match with the values, but there is always a paintover on top.
last one I paint directly with colors as I feel the previous technique could make me spoiled if overused, sometimes its always good paint the standard way!
Last touch its a color dodge layer where I paint all the highlights, its simple but its always give a cool look!

Sorry for the long post, but I hope it can help someone :)