I've been experimenting with a heat gun as well as using unconventional "fabric" - here are the results of 2 exciting experiments.
The orange one (result of heat) will possibly be added to an earlier 'cell' (see "Project:Cell" when you've clicked here) & the blue one (painted) will be continued with further enhancement(s). In both samples, it's the textures I primarily like as they are achieving the result I'm after.