For the cover of the book I used actual leather since I already make all my book with it and I had a lot at hand… This is my half-a-cow-hide, it’s called “Sally”. And here is the book on top of the leather to calculate the size of the leather I needed to cut: The leather already cut: Then I just used some strong white glue (if you have wood glue use that) After pasting the leather I cut the remaning part out. Yes, i know this is very far from the correct way to cover a book with leather, but 1) its very very fast and easy, and 2) I kinda like it… so there… I’m lazy… By the way, for the back part i just covered the leather in this fantastic kind of duct tape that’s made out of fabric. It looks like this, really have no idea whats its official name… And yes.. I know that the journal from Gravity Falls is red all around and has no black parts.. but I usually just make some changes on the original designs if I like them so this is one of those changes. To be continued!
Gravity Fals Jounal 3 – Part 5: The 6-finger hand
To make the hand on the cover I first turned a screenshot of the book into the size of the paper I wanted to use (half-folio). Here is the printout on my pre-cut piece of trupan (already on the correct size of the final book) just for a final size check: Paper hand cut on top of a random crap of trupan: I sprayed the whole thing with whatever color I had near: And then I lifted the paper and had a perfect mark to cut out the trupan. Here is the trupan hand allready cut: And here is the sheet of copper that I used to make the metal cover of the trupan hand: Here is the coper hand ready to go on top of the trupan part: And finally, here is the trupan hand, covered with the copper sheet (u used ). To be continued!
Gravity Falls Journal 3 – Part 4: page-binding
For this part I just did a mix of Coptic stitch and other kinds into one that I find easy to do. (For info and tutorials about the actual stitching check this youtube channel, that should be all the styles and techniques you need ) First I joined the pages into 4 sheet signatures: Then I used my punching cradle to make holes for the thread. Here are the signatures with the holes ready: The comes a couple pieces of fabric to hold the thread: (For info and tutorials about the actual stitching check this youtube channel, that should be all the styles and techinques you need ) And finally, I put some hard begin and end to the text block (which I of course forgot at the beginning) The i used a bit of standard common gauze medical for the upper part: Text block ready! To be continued!
Gravity Falls Journal 3 – Part 3: aging the paper
As I did before I used warm water with coffee to make the paper look old. This time I added a bit of brown dye so I don’t need to add so much coffee. Put the pages and wrinkle them once inside the coffee, which will not only change the color of the paper but actually make it look like those ancient pirate maps.. If you the paper looks too old and wrinkly just do the wrinkling before submerging in the coffee. I used a large plastic sheet to let the pages dry… And here are all the pages drying: And here is the final result: To be continued!
Gravity Falls Journal 3 – Part 2: Printing Booklets
So, since I wanted to bind this using 4-page signatures (like in this tutorial), I needed to print the page spreads in a very special page order … which I (of course) didn’t know how to do, thus, my first idea was to make mini signatures to know what was the page order supposed to be… So later I could arage my pages on inDesign in the same order: And then came knowledge and the horrid shadow of ignorance left and I learned that inDesign has a magical tool to make this whole thing automatically! So here is how my document looks liks in inDesign, just pages in regular order, nothing fancy: This awesome tool is over here: And here are the settings I used to print my document as 4-page-spread signatures: This is magical. To be continued!
Gravity Falls Journal 3 – Part 1: redrawing the pages
The first part was to re-draw the inner pages. I mainly used the archive of pages at the Gravity Falls Wiki as reference. I decided to make my journal with all the pages available from Journal 1, 2 and 3 put together since that makes for a way larger tome. I took each screenshot, warped it in photoshop to make a flat page. Here are a couple examples. —— The Security Room Page —— Original screenshot: Warped and reshaped: Redrawn in hi res: —— The Percecepshroom Page —— Original screenshot: Warped and reshaped: And then re-drawn in hi-res, in cases like this, I had to invent a lot of the pages since there is a lot that’s never shown. Also, since I wasn’t going to make the whole invisible ink stuff I did a mix of the original text and the invisible ink text. —— The Summoning Page —— Original screenshot: Warped, reshaped and completed: And then re-drawn in hi-res: I’ll post links to all the pages I redrew on the download section.
Gravity Falls Journal 3 – Intro
Gravity Falls is one of the best shows ever made, probably my favorite; the story and art are absolutely fantastic and it’s full of mysterious artifacts and weird props of all kinds. Sadly, yet understandably, this masterpiece is coming to its end soon, so I decided to pay tribute and build a replica of the mysterious Journal 3 that is a central part of the show. I was thinking of making just the covers but then I started searching for the inner pages and found plenty of documentation, info and screenshots of the show and the journal over at the Gravity Falls Wiki so in the end I decided to make the complete thing, with all the inner pages. It the next posts I’ll be showing the process of the build.
The Enchiridion from Adventure Time – Finished!
And thus, the Enchiridion is finally complete!, It took way more time that expected by I think it looks pretty decent. This prop will go to my friend for his birthday (wihch was like 7 months ago..) and I might do another copy for me… but that will have to wait, I’m tired and sleepy age so I shall go into a deathless sleep until next week… see you soon!
The Enchiridion from Adventure Time – part 8
Assembly time! First, the standar wood and leather for the covers. I should have used MDF alone since there wont be any visible part of the cover… A couple of actual copper details for the central piece: And then, a little bit of coffe to give it some color: In this case I used screws on top of the contact cement to attack the front part to the book: The screws came out on the other side so i just cut the tip with a dremel: Finally a bit of coffe to give the pages an old look from the outside:
The Enchiridion from Adventure Time – part 7
Lets paint some resin! Here are the resin pieces just taken out from the silicone molds. As you can see, they are quite transparent. All of them: I applied a base coat of very dark mate gray and a coat of acrylic paint (metallic copper): Here is the process including the copper rust effect: Base coat of dark gray or black + copper A coat of green/blue acrylic paint mix Then remove the green/blue paint with a wet rag before it dries Finally, apply judea bitumen and then take if off with mineral spirits To be continued!