New/old work in progress (and the problems. OH, THE PROBLEMS!)

I was rummaging through old sketchbooks when I came across an old outline (with some  india ink) of zebras playing chess. I remembered that I really was excited about this piece, but lost initiative quickly after having started it.

This happened often.

I ripped it out of the sketchbook and set to coloring it.

Then, I remembered why I stopped. The stripes that I used india ink on, had caused the highly thin/porous sketchbook page to wrinkle with fierce amazing. That’s the problem I’m still battling. Scanning it with random objects piled on top of the picture, on the scanner glass, did very little, aside from making me look very unprofessional (as if my unprofessional-ness didn’t do a good job conveying that message, already).

I also do not own an iron.

Since my Prismacolors are wax-based, I am not sure how well they would hold up against a heat source.

Maybe gamma/brightness/contrast-adjusting the hell out of this with Photoshop will magically eliminate said wrinkles.

Ergh.

If anyone has any tips or tricks that doesn’t involve purchasing an iron, let me know!

I have decided that adding that background (digitally) wasn’t the best of ideas. However, I uploaded it with the background so you wouldn’t see how sloppy I am in the negative space.  I’ll probably be playing around with different backgrounds while determining whether or not this piece will be officially “finished”.

I was thinking zebra-family portraits on the wall, at the very least.

Maybe a human-skin rug?