Let me try and answer some questions here.
Books:There are multiple books on relief carving...but they don't really relate to actual luthier work. Good General carving info. Good to learn the basics, but... Very,very few woodcarvers who carve instruments write to tell you about it. There are tons of "Carving in Relief" books and I don't like most of them. Books on carving gunstocks would be a good place to get info. closely related to luthier carving. I can't recommend any of those either. Sorry! I don't really look for info. on how to carve anymore. If H. Krieghoff (gunmaker) has a website (West Germany) they have master carvers/engravers examples on their gunstocks that are next to none. I have one of their old catalogs as a reminder of quality workmanship. The have very traditional scroll, oak leaf designs and wildlife (of course) but a good way to see the really good and compare to the really bad.
Tools:
I have about 40 chisels but do my all my luthier carving with a 1/8 V, 1/4 V, 1/8 flat, 1/4 flat, 1/8 U and 1/4 U Gouge. All palm tools. You can do any relief with just a V, U and flat or skew chisel.
I once had to used y foredom and carbide bits to carve an extremely hard rosewood peghead once..but never again.
Playability:
I have 2 banjos that are radically carved on the pegheads. One with a Gargoyle head carved in and the other with a Rams head. They don't bother my playing....I'm not very good at banjo either. I do play the classical guitar fairly well. As an experiment, I attached, with double sided tape to the heel of my personal guitar, pieces of 60 grit sandpaper face up where a proposed design would be carved and concluded that my playing was not hindered by a relief carving in that specific area. I find that it is reasonably safe to carve the area on each side where the heel begins to flare. Like I posted earlier, I do require a section between the carvings of 3/8 to 1/2 in. wide along the ridge of the neck with no carving for my thumb to slide freely. Keep in mind, it is possible that a persons individual technique may be hindered by any kind of heel carving. So, there are no hard fast rules here. I stress the importance of very shallow relief carving on the heel to minimize any problems and keep the carving restricted to the basic heel area and less of the neck.
Kent Bailey
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Have you ever tried a partial stipple, the kind of C-shaped ones with this nail-set trick? If so, how did that work? How about all the various leather tooling sets for background, some of those are very fine edge?