Dutch Admiral Ruyter Painted-Part 2

I knew this piece called for something other than a static figure pose. I originally was going to place this painting, of his flagship the Zevin Provincien (seven Provinces), in a gilt frame, but thought that a gilt frame may be too much of a distraction. I'm sure there are some that say the painting alone is too much already...I don't, to me the subject calls for it. So, I decided on a textured base. I stippled modeling paste to the plastic card and lightly sanded when dried. Toned the white down with grey acrylic and went to transfering the image using simple tranfer paper (I also used this technique with my JFK portrait some projects ago). I wasn't sure how the textured background would look with color, but the more detail I put into it the texture seemed to fade more and more. When finished, a couple coats of satin varnish.