Yes, this different type of decrease is exactly what I'm experimenting with on my next experiment. From the terminology I've heard the first type is "single crochet two together" since you're doing a single crochet stitch to join two stitches together, and the second type is the "invisible decrease" stitch. I know I've used invisible decreases sometimes in the past but I forget why I gravitated back to using single-crochet-two-together (in the past I've let long stretches of time pass where I wasn't actively engaged in the craft so I end up forgetting some things), it might just have been because the invisible decrease is a trickier stitch to do since you need to get single loops.

I like the solid colour

I've mostly been doing that to just keep things simple while I'm experimenting with the structure, but I agree it does give the completed figure an interesting look.