How not to dovetail

Among my lesser goals in life is to be able to create a proper dovetail joint. I only say that because my first attempt (today) has not been particularly successful:

This is what is known as the "pin board" of a dovetail joint. It's the easier, less technically challenging part of creating the joint. As you can see, it's pretty straightforward: mark out the pins, cut out everything that isn't a pin, and Bob's your uncle.

Please don't ask where that expression came from . . . I don't even have a male relative of the previous generation called "Robert", so why I'm using it is already too weird to explore.

Anyway, the idea is that you create the pins first, then use the pins to mark out the dovetails on the matching piece of wood. Here is the completed pin board:

Looks okay at this resolution, right?

The astute among the readership will notice that I'm not providing a close-up view of this first part of the joint. The matching "tail" portion of the joint shows that I'm still not really clear on the concept of mating parts:

Still, the strength of the (ancient) joint is apparent when I finally manage to chisel away the excess and put the two pieces together at a 90 degree angle:

Even with the ugly gaps as highlighted in the photo above, it's still a really strong joint. I'm working with somewhat thicker stock than you'd normally use for a dovetail joint (3/4" rather than 3/8" to 1/2"), but it's already clear to me why this joint has become one of the standard joints for woodworking: even with my sloppy measurement, the joint is tight and effective:

It's a pain in the butt to create, but the resulting joint is very strong indeed. I may not use hand tools to do this in future, but I'm definitely sold on the dovetail as a solution to the problem of joining wood panels at a 90 degree angle.