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That's a relief! Thanks, candledave.

Agree with the foregoing - the synonyms are highlighted which, after the final stages are completed, makes the resulting image resemble the thematic Meisterwerk.

.. yes, agreed, I did mean erase all but the 42 cells with the 5 (actually 6) synonyms entered in them ..

Perhaps there's some confusion of 'cells' and 'letters'. The characters take 42 cells, but only a few letters. If the synonyms (including the letters of the characters) are also 42 letters, that may be the cause of my misunderstanding (If that's what it was). But if there are 42 letters I don't see how the solution will look like the group's first product.

Murky, the synonyms take 42 cells/letters, but the number of larger than life characters is far fewer. Is that what you mean?

With the help of this forum I'm a long way down the road, but I am still struggling to make sense of the rubric as far as the additional letters are concerned. After 214 posts I assume that I can discuss an actual answer, so let's look at the Bugloss clue as a case in point. Definition = bugloss, wordplay = bled (exuded sap) + ewe, answer = blueweed. Now, in what way does this conform to either "letters are ignored in their clues' wordplay" or "the wordplay gives an extra letter that is not entered"? I assume the latter is the relevant case, but it seems to me that - far from the wordplay giving an extra letter that is then omitted from the grid - the wordplay needs an extra letter to be added before entry in the grid.
I expect this is me, but I'd be very grateful if someone could explain to me how this clue works in the light of the rubric.

Somebody's probably already posted about this, so apologies. For the last character I only seem to be able to make two words (3 and 5) that don't go together to make a whole sensible word - is that correct?

midgers, it’s BLED (exuded sap) containing “UP EWE” with the P being extra ..

planks, that’s what I have, which I think is logical because they need to start in two separate places in the 5th character ..

Thanks lordbadger, I have finally finished! What a slog.

Midgers. I had the same issue for a long time, mixing omitted and additional letters from the wordplay, including your 'Bugloss' example. There are one or two other tricky examples, inc. the 'The Listener...' clue, which is a straight clue.
I got the final instruction from guessing the last 12-letter word based on 6 or 7 of the additional letters.