Summary

I was inspired to make Mr. Turkey after seeing a similar item at Home Depot for  $55.  I wasn't sure he was going to stand but at the last minute made his feet out of 1/4" wood instead of 1/8" and I think that did the trick.
Tip:  Do you hate painting?  I know I do, its such a mess.  Did you know you can use Alcohol Markers or even permanent sharpie markers to color light wood?  The nose, woddle, legs, feet and feathers were all colored using Copic Markers.  The eyes were engraved and then colored in with a black sharpie. Depending on the color, the marker will act more like a stain.  With the red marker, you can not see any wood grain, so that looks just like paint.  The other colors look more like wood stain.  Takes half the time and way less mess.
After assembling the turkey, the walnut body was too much of a contrast for the basswood, but all the stain I had was too dark.  Brown watered down paint to the rescue.  I used a baby wipe and dipped it in the paint and gave it a wash and immediately took a dry rag and rubbed it off.  The result was the light browning wash you see.
Finally, I used the default settings for walnut to engrave the words Gobble Gobble on his chest.  Again I wasn't happy with how they blended in with the wood, and the inspiration piece did have the words in white so I attempted to fill them in with paint.  Did I mention how much I hate paint :)  Anyway, had I known I was going to paint them, I would have masked, painted then removed mask, or sealed the wood, then engraved, painted and wiped excess off with a baby wipe.  Since it was too late for either of those things, I sealed the project with two coats of satin spray sealer, carefully painted on the white paint into the engraved area.  I let dry and lightly sanded the top to remove any white paint that had gone outside the engraving.
Another tip:  When sanding plywood, especially darker wood like walnut, use a light hand.  I tried sanding a spare piece of walnut plywood with an orbital sander and immediately got down to the different colored underlayment.  I knew when I sanded above I would have to use my block sander and a light hand to just remove the paint and not the walnut finish.