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!
My epic fails – mold release
Today… yet another tale of epic failure… So… I´ve always heard that “silicone only sticks to silicone”, which I guess might be true with hi quality smoth-on or similar products but I don’t have access to all those futuristic materials so I´m left with a piece of crap silicone that sticks to absolutely any and all materials, maybe someone could use it to find dark matter since I bet it will stick to it.. I usually use talcum as mold release, it both makes it super easy to separate the recin piece from the silicone mold and also gives the pieces a fantastic rough finish which is abolutely wonderfull to paint… Today, I idiotically decided to try making one piece without any release and test the whole silicone sticks-to-silicone-thing, it all went to hell pretty fast… Look at that shit! Now learn from my sadness! To be continued… = (
The Enchiridion from Adventure Time – part 5
The Enchiridion from Adventure Time – part 5 Today I just added the title to the cover. I was a slow day… I copied the title in photoshop and printed it backwards so I could press it from the back and pass some of the ink to the wood. Then I just filled in the letters with a pirograph. I was also trying diferent things to put instead ofthe gems on the circle… maybe copper nails? who knows…