Carving the spruce top.

I never ended up getting spruce billet for the top. Instead, I decided to just go with some lumber and re-saw it so it was quartersawn*. I had to laminate a lot of strips together to get the width (narrow boards), but I read somewhere that this may not affect the tone as much as some might believe - I guess we won't know 'til it's done. I'm not interested in getting the perfectly clear look with no "imperfections" that many luthiers favour. I much prefer the "real wood" look that comes from grain streaks and knot shadows.
At any rate, the top picture is carving in progress. Notice the cool little brass plane. This has a rounded bottom to allow for scooping out contours like those around the edges, and inside.
Further along, you can see in the second picture how I've refined the curves and made it a more gradual incline toward the centre.
The inside is currently being refined to match the outer contours I have settled on.
*For those who are wondering what "quartersawn" is - this effectively refers to the direction the grain is going. In a softwood guitar top, you want the grain to be oriented up and down (as you look at the end of the wood), rather than side to side. This makes for a stronger and more stable top than if cut the other way. This is why you almost always see a tight, narrow grain running end to end on a guitar top. Almost all lumber is cut flatsawn, which is simply cutting the log into slabs. The slabs from near the centre may be effectively quartersawn on the outer extremes because of how the grain is running, but most of it runs laterally, or close to it.