Experimenting with different finishes

10'' Chip carved basswood plate, finished with water based lacquer and oil based gel stain:

6'' Chip carved basswood candle holder, with similar pattern as the plate, finished the same way:

Chip carved practice board, I like the gel stain on this kind of carving (foliage) I am probably not going to use it anymore on the plates with more geometrical designs:

The difference between chip carved coasters with the same design of swirl rosette.

From left to right - oil based polyurethane finish, water based lacquer, water based lacquer with water based wiping stain:

The middle one looks the best for me but I am going to try to use some tinted lacuer, not to keep the too pale colour of basswood. I don't like how the wiping stain looks though it doesn't look too bad in the picture, the dark walnut colour of the stain is also unfortunate for this specific carving.