The front of the cow doesn't have any visible wood grain either. I used one of the wood grain silo facade textures for the brush strokes on the front of the buffalo.
The cow does have a fair amount of wood grain on the back but it wasn't set up nicely for me to steal it so I used a wood beam texture instead.
The cow does have some paint on the edges of the cutout, as if it was sloppily painted after being cut out. I'm going to do that too.
The bulletcorps cutouts followed a different design direction, they look like an artist made them as something people would buy, whereas the cow looks like something quickly thrown together by Mann Co, and that is where I am trying to go with my buffalo.
Nightwatch, I don't like your lights. In my mind that type of light goes on the floor (can be walked on), maybe on the ceiling, but never on the wall.