This is very cool and I can understand your pain and pleasure in creating this piece!
I used to do a lot of these when I was younger, but now I cannot use my hands that well.
This is why I love to use JWildfire and Mandelbulber3D for creating art like this, I still spend as much time doing it, but the heavy lifting is done by the machine.
Still, art is art, the machine is only doing your bidding.
I think it's the journey and process that is important, as long as you enjoy and have fun creating it, it doesn't matter if you used a machine or your hands- you have a vision and you had and idea and you could bring it to life :)
Exactly my thoughts! You nailed it 😋!