Found a book on Needle Painting Embroidery and ordered it. From what I can tell, the author and I have VERY different ways of handling our needles! Seems Trish Burr maps her image out much like a paint-by-number, where I worked my beagle portrait in layers, like the way I paint... working each color up with the details.
Glad I ordered the book. It will be fun seeing how different our technique is from each other.