I spent the day removing the background, a fairly tedious operation, but so worth it. This really makes the whole piece come alive.
I generally use an NSK micromotor grinder (35,000 rpm) and tiny carbide burrs to remove the metal from between the engraved elements, to a depth of about 1/2 millimeter.
Here, I’ve removed the background. Pretty tedious removing the background around all those tiny little plankton critters.
And, finally, everything re-inked. This side is finished; now I have to make the design for the other side.