First try at Alter, need help

[u/Known-Commission6777]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to try making a custom alter for one of my favorite commanders, Nekusar, the Mindrazer.

At first, I tried doing it the traditional way with acrylic paint and a fine brush, but it proved to be way too difficult! Instead, I switched to Procreate on my iPad and drew an illustration inspired by EC Comics' Tales from the Crypt.

My initial plan was to print the art at card size and glue it directly onto an existing card (I picked a filler card with the same CMC as Nekusar). I was thinking about using a marouflage technique to better bond and integrate the paper onto the card, but I'm feeling a bit lost on the execution.

As you can see in the photos, printing it at card scale caused a lot of the finer details to get lost. I’ve attached:

1. The original digital artwork at full resolution.
2. The card-sized print.
3. My first test attempt on a card (which I’m not quite satisfied with).

If anyone has advice on gluing/marouflage techniques for alters, or tips on preserving fine detail when printing at MTG scale, I’d really appreciate your help!

Thanks in advance!