Those new pics are awesome! Love the way the Raku came out on the dome!
Yeah man Raku is one of those Trial and error things and no two pieces will be the exact same but each piece will be awesome. that bio look awesome man! Try throwing in some Horse Hair in with one of them. The hair makes a awesome effect on the Raku Glaze. What type of bed are you setting them in after you pull them out? Sawdust?
The way we did it was after the ceramic reached the right temp, we pulled them out of the kiln glowing red hot. then quickly set the piece in a bed of sawdust and covered it with a metal bucket with newspaper, hair, etc..in it(different things react different with the Raku Glazes) we would push the buckets into the saw dust to seal it. If the bucket had a hole in it, we would put a water soaked towel over the bucket to seal the small holes(if any) where the smoke was coming out.
When you pulled the glowing bio out, did you get that "I think my eyeballs are going to melt" feeling? I pulled about 50 pieces of all sizes from the kiln with a 3 foot set of tongs and the heat from all of the glowing red pieces started making my eyes and sinuses water uncontrollably. God I loved it!!
Susan Budge taught me everything I know about Ceramics/building with Clay. Hell of a Ceramics teacher and working artist.
Here's a link to her site. If you're interested in checking out some of her work. It's pretty cool/odd. I believe she has a couple pieces on display in a couple of Museums.
http://www.susanbudge.com/