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vanessagillings · 9 months

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I love your art so much!!! I've also been starting to paint with gouache, and I'd love to know a little more about your process! What kind of paints do you use, do you sketch first or start with paint, do you paint in layers over several day or all at once?

Hi and thank you! I hope you don't mind me answering this publicly and apologies for length, but:

MY ART PROCESS!

Supplies: I use winsor and newton gouache and arches cold press paper blocks, usually 140 lbs (the lime green ones) and sometimes 300 lbs (the teal green ones). Even though this paper comes pre-stretched in blocks, I actually take the sheets off and stretch them myself because I've found arches' glue isn't as strong as it used to be. This is how you get watercolor paper to lay flat! I recommend youtubing some videos on how to do it -- there's a lot of great tutorials out there. Also, I use princeton brushes, and kraft paper tape and these boards to stretch my paper. (these aren't affiliate links, I just shop at blick)

A word about art supplies: these are the exact tools I use but everyone uses supplies differently and two people with the exact same supplies might get different results! A lot of it is about what works for you and what you like, so I always suggest that gouache/watercolor beginners just buy a few tubes from a couple of different paint companies and some small pieces of paper from different manufacturers to see what you like. Just changing one ingredient in the above has created massively different results for me, but maybe that'll end up being something you'd like! The first step in learning a new medium imo is to play. Just have fun!

ALSO: gouache isn't super light permanent, check your tubes for which ones hold up to sunlight. Here is winsor and newton's color chart explaining which ones will fade when exposed to sunlight -- all manufacturers will give you this. I only use the colors rated A and AA, and I still frame my pieces with UV glass just to be safe. Not all gouache is re-wettable, but winsor and newton is. I just put it in my palettes and refill my palettes if it runs low. AND SOME PAINT IS TOXIC. A lot of paints have cadmium and cobalt in them. I don't use any of the toxic colors, but if you do, make sure you don't eat while working and wash your hands thoroughly afterwards. This information is also usually available on manufacturer's websites. As more people are rejecting cadmium paint, you'll see more tubes labeled things like cadmium-free yellow. This is why. More artists should be aware that their tools can be dangerous. You don't need that many tubes of paint to begin, just a warm and cool red, warm and cool yellow, warm and cool blue, white and black. I have around 50 colors and use 20 regularly. I always mix all my colors myself, and never use straight tube paint. Most of my colors have about 5-6 different tube colors mixed together. If you use re-wettable paint a tube of paint will last you years; even as a professional I only buy new paints every 5 years or so.

Process: I ALWAYS start with a sketch first. Not everyone has to, but because I do illustration work -- where sometimes a client gets input on a drawing -- I always do a lot of preliminary work before I even begin to paint. At this point, even my personal work usually involves the exact same process:

I start with a 3" or so thumbnail that I scan (left; I traced it quickly digtally for clarity to myself here) and then either clean up digitally or print out and clean up traditionally with tracing paper (right):

Then I scan the cleaned sketch in and color rough it digitally (left, this was for a gallery show, so no one had to approve my color roughs, so it's messy!) then I transfer my sketch to my paper (with either carbon transfer paper or a light table), stretch my paper, and paint (right):

I obviously changed my mind about the color of the ribbon in the trees, ha, and made everything a lot more vibrant. The benefit again of gallery work is no pre-approval!

You are correct, I paint in a series of washes, going from lightest to darkest, where I apply the same color beneath all shapes that are the same warmth (cools under all upcoming cools, warms under all upcoming warms). I paint a piece usually in one or two days, depending on complexity. I didn't take pictures of the above painting, but here's a different painting to show you a little bit what I mean:

I painted the peach color under everything (and twice for skin tones), and the gray color of the sky under everything that would be grayish (the rocks, trees, her pants, her skirt, and coat). I do this to stop me from getting darker lines where two different colors butt up against each other, and also for color harmony. I have step by step photos of this in my process stories highlight on my instagram; also check my FAQ and tip highlights for more info on all this stuff. Most pieces take around 25-30 washes before I start adding in the details (sometimes I add in face details early though because if I mess those up it's not worth finishing the rest of the painting! 😅)

All this might seem like a lot of work (...it is) but I do it so that I can show clients previews of the final piece and so I don't have to repaint the finals. I also used to pre-test all of my washes on scrap paper like this:

I still recommend doing this if you're just beginning! But at this point I only do it when testing techniques because I know my paints really well. (the above was my test for the pine boughs in this piece)

Painting by far is the longest part of the process, so I do more work up front to not have to do it twice. Every piece takes about 6-24 hrs of actual work time to produce. Stretching watercolor paper takes about 24 hrs to dry, and because I sell most of my originals in galleries, they need to be flawless, so planning ahead is useful and in the end saves me time.

And to conclude this novel of an explanation, don't be overwhelmed by all the information I've given you! I put it here so that people at various stages of their artistic journey can maybe find something useful in it. But seriously, the first step to learning how to paint whether it's traditionally or digitally is just to have fun. Try it out, see what's working and what isn't, and then try to solve specific issues that you're struggling with. I've been doing this for a loooooong time at this point, but here's my first watercolor piece from when I was re-teaching myself how to paint traditionally nine years ago:

Obviously, I was destined for greatness. Ha, yeah, no. If you scroll back through my tumblr archive, you can see me learning how to use these paints in real time. And keep in mind that I'd been working digitally for years before then, and years before that where I didn't post my work online at all.

So for anyone who needs to hear it: there's no such thing as talent, just hard work, patience, and trying again and again and again...and sometimes again. What I do is a skill and anyone can learn it. Sometimes, progress is slow. I'm 38. I only really feel like my art was half-way decent starting a few years ago, but I've been making art my entire life, and I went to art school at 18. 20 years later I'm kind of figuring it out.

The best advice I can give, whether it's about art or not, is find the thing you love so much that you'll keep at it even when you suck at it, because most skills you'll suck at to begin with -- and perhaps for a long time. I sucked at art for yeeeaaaaarrrrs. On top of the usual learning curve, I struggled with fine motor control and dexterity. But I loved it so much I kept trying every time I failed. If I can do it, so can all of you, no matter what stage of art you're at now, and no matter how old you are.

Anyway, thank you to those still reading this deep in. I wish you all the best on your artistic journey. Art can kick your butt sometimes, but it's also pretty dang rewarding 💛

#art tips #process #art tutorial #asks

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sha-biest · 11 months

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So you said you draw in a sketchbook before transferring it to digital. HOW ARE YOUR PICTURES SO CLEAN AND BRIGHT AND NO SMUDGES?

We need your secrets!

Yes, I do! Here are two pages from Chosen Family:

I do my traditional sketches with a blue mechanical pencil (rougher sketch) and then go over it with a normal pencil.

Other example:

OR I do rougher sketches with a pencil and then make sketches with more "sense/detail" with a fineliner. Example:

(accidental comic WIP drop huehue)

And obviously I dont always go for the cleanest sketches. I like to grab a grey fineliner and just go ham once in a while:

I usually make sure to not press down too hard with my pencils so I can erase the lines easily until I'm sure that the line is good and I can go over that line by pressing down harder. Having thicker paper is also helpful because if you do erase something you are less likely to crumble it and it just makes it look cleaner too. ..as you see, I love talking about art and I could honestly blabber about it all day long if I had the time 😂

#biestart #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #goldenfutureau #chosenfamilyau

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aveloka-draws · 17 days

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Hello! I think there have already been quite a lot of such messages, but I'll still say: I really love your art very very much. But since I’ve always been interested, I’d like to ask you something else about your drawing process. I noticed that you make first sketches on paper. Is this always like this? What then? Are you somehow transferring this to digital format?

Thank you! n.n so happy you like it! Not always, depends on what i got at hand, sometimes i'll sketch with a drawing tablet

I just take pictures of sketches w my phone and trace over them digitally

#ask a bird

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oakskull · 5 months

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I did an art trade with the amazing @happyrome0 ! We each sent each other sketches thats the other rendered. I made this page of sketches

And these are the drawings i rendered! ^^

For the first render I did, I wanted to do a watercolor peice because thats my main style at the moment, so I printed out the sketch page Rome0 sent me and transfered it onto watercolor paper

My second render was done via mouse, because I forgot my tablet pen during a 3 hour studio class... yknow how it is.

The third render was actually the reason I approached Rome0 for an art trade. I was rendering Tango in this style and I was like. Man. This would look really good in the solidaritydaily style. And I went wait thats my mutual I can just ask. So BOOM art trade >:0

my last render was hust wanting to do something quick for the last sketch. i used my favorite digital brush. its called crab :)

Anyways!! this was so much fun! Go check out their side of the collab >w< I really love the drawings they made <3

#oakskull art #jimmy solidarity #joel #joel smallishbeans #mcyt #art trade! :D

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idolatrybarbie · 6 months

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for my fifty follower celebration! @bastardmandennis asked: dieter bravo and prompt no. 5— "ghosts aren't real, except when they are." it's scary story experiment...i haven't written horror in probably two years. enjoy the pretty graphic if nothing else.

rating & word count: mature | 2.8k

warnings: referenced substance abuse, mentions of alcohol, dieter is sober, one song-based joke (please get it plsplspls), reader is gender neutral, a good ol' haunting tale.

It’s late. How late? Excellent question.

You’re technically on vacation—one week out of fifty-six, when your boss takes his annual trip to Seoul to “unwind.” You’ve never asked him what that means, exactly. Better not to know what Dieter Bravo gets up to in the name of relaxation.

For the past thirty-four months, you’ve been working with the Hollywood troglodyte, following him around the world and across productions to take notes and document the goings on of his life. All of this in the hopes of ghostwriting his tell-all book. Technically, you were supposed to start outlining a manuscript this spring. The publisher doesn’t think you have enough material yet to make the memoir appetizing. What they don’t realize is that Bravo is not a very appetizing man.

He’s…odd. From the moment you first shook hands with him, you’ve felt an off presence surrounding him that you still can’t quite place, even almost three years later. He treats you more like an assistant than anything, asking you to fetch him coffee or an eight-ball; the request varies based on his mood. His actual assistant, Carla, is a bit of a shadow. Still, she’s there to share anxious backseat smiles with you on the way to Dieter’s red carpet appearances, a silent shoulder to lean on.

Sitting on the broken couch of your one bedroom apartment, you’ve lost focus of the Word document on the screen of your laptop. You’ve been transferring the last two months of paper notes to digital copies for the last three hours, resenting the task the longer it takes. Dieter wanted to experience the Swiss Alps before the first day of autumn, dragging you to the mountains for a six week stay. Apparently, they don’t have mobile connection at four thousand feet.

The thought crosses your mind to call it a night, leave the rest ‘til morning. This is your only real time to rest, after all. Before you can act upon it, though, your phone buzzes beside you. “Entry Of The Gladiators” blares from the pinhole of a speaker. The song has a Pavlovian effect on you, meeting the song with a sigh and the tick of your jaw.

“Dieter,” you answer, holding the phone to your ear.

“You picked up,” he says.

“Why are you calling?” You can’t hide the irritation in your voice. Shifting your laptop off of your thighs, you stand and stretch, wedging your cell between your cheek and shoulder.

“I just—I thought—”

“Aren’t you in South Korea?” you ask. Aren’t you supposed to be bothering someone else?

“Came back early. Got a bad vibe,” he says.

“A bad vibe?” you ask. “Come on, Dieter. That trip was important.” Important for you to have a social life for a sweet seven days, but also for him, too. If you remembered correctly, he was supposed to have a business meeting with Genesis Motor about starring in their new campaign of overseas commercials.

“I rescheduled with Genesis, everything’s fine. Don’t bitch at me,” Dieter says.

“I’m not—” you stop yourself, pausing mid-pace on the worn shag of your living room. Thirty-four months, and this is how he’s treating you? “You know what, fuck you. Fuck you, Dieter. My one week off from your crazy goddamn antics, and you’re fucking it all up. I’m done. Done.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” he urges.

“Calling the publisher in the morning, so you can find yourself a new ghostwriter.” Satisfaction rolls through you as you hang up on him, the tiny button on your screen giving you power. Yeah, fuck that guy. You plop back down on the on the couch, pulling your laptop back to you. Going through your hard drive, you start to load every file from the past three years with details on Dieter into the recycling bin.

Cold air rolls in from the window, cracked ajar to keep patchouli incense smoke away from the dingy plastic alarm on your ceiling. The rattling outside barely catches your attention, another noise lost to the wind. You blink. Blink again.

You know that feeling, like someone’s watching you? It’s a sense you’ve become mighty acquainted with in the last handful of years. Following a megastar around like a toddling penguin in his entourage tended to pull some attention back on you. When you look up your name, there are a handful of Variety articles, a PopCrave tweet or two that show up. A snapshot of your professional life, all in relation to Dieter. Over time, it’s gotten less uncomfortable. People love celebrities, and they just want to see them. Harmless.

But this feeling…you don’t want to look up from your screen. Continuing the task of putting every last document on Dieter in the desktop’s recycling bin, you switch over to a new tab when you’re done; search for something unimportant, waiting for this to pass. Your breath catches in your throat, heart skipping a beat. Finally, when you can’t fight the urge anymore, you turn and look.

Nothing. The smog-ridden navy sky of Los Angeles meets you with the pathetic twinkle of a far off star. You breathe in through your nose, then out again in a deep sigh. Nothing. Nothing’s there.

Exhaustion claims you when you aren’t paying attention. Your sleep is dreamless, for the most part. You hear a subtle dripping the whole night, searching for the source in the dark. With your eyes closed, the task is impossible. You let the noise come closer, long and loud enough now that you learn to tune it out. Nightmares of a leaky faucet; how odd.

You wake up in the bathtub, laptop beside you, pressed between your clothed thigh and the fiberglass. The faucet leaks steadily above your head, water dripping down onto your skin. It’s gotten all over your face, at the edges of your hairline, in your eyes. Spluttering, you sit up. Your scalp is damp. Water has seeped into the collar of your shirt. Certainly you didn’t settle on the idea of a bath in the middle of the night.

Before you can question it more, your cellphone rings from another room. Scrambling out of the tub, you almost slip and fall against the wall tiles. Getting a grip on the edge of the tub, you step a foot at a time onto the bathroom floor and pad to the living room. Your phone is wedged between the cushions of the couch. Wrenching it from the fabric, you answer on the last ring.

“Hello?”

“I need to see you.” Dieter. Again.

“Dieter, my mind hasn’t changed since last night.” Looking at the clock on the wall, it hasn’t even been twelve hours.

“This isn’t about that,” he says. “Can you just come over?” It almost sounds like he’s begging…almost.

“Look, I’m busy today.”

“Tonight then.” His voice cracks, and you can only imagine the wiry, wide-eyed man on the other end of the line. “Please,” he whispers.

In all of your time spent with Dieter Bravo, you have never heard him use his manners—much less ask for something with such desperate politeness tacked onto the request.

“Okay. Okay, fine. Tonight. Just…don’t do anything stupid, alright?” you ask.

“Yeah. Okay,” Dieter agrees. Then the phone call dies.

You really don’t have anything to do today, the Friday of your week away from Bravoland. Sitting on the couch, you look around your apartment, taking stock of the life you’ve cobbled together here. Instead of pride or nostalgia, it fills you with dread. The glassy frames holding photos of family and old friends make your skin crawl, their resin paper eyes boring holes into you as they stare. A chill crosses over your body, prickling at your arms. You go to close the living room window to find it already shut.

You stay out of the living room, hiding away from a sense of unease in your bedroom. Still, it lingers in your doorway. That watchful sense returns. Your eyes stay open, glued to the ceiling as you lay down. You can’t leave, but you can’t sleep. Keeping your eyes open seems to be all you have—like letting them flutter closed would be an invitation for the unease of the apartment to waltz in and consume you.

Time slows to a drag, the sun absent from the sky as the day passes you by. The grey light from the window bathes everything in an uncanny dullness. Your laptop still sits in the bathtub. When night finally falls, you exit the apartment without looking back. The door closes behind you with a slam. You don’t even touch the handle.

The drive into the Hollywood Hills is the only moment of peace you’ve had since you woke up in that bathroom. You refuse to acknowledge whatever is going on at your place. You’re overreacting. All the work has set you on edge, and now your mind is playing tricks on you.

Yeah, that’s what it is—the work. Fatigue. All those late nights transferring and taking notes, or following Dieter to club after club, waiting for him to finish snorting a full 8-ball outside bathroom doors. Most nights blur together these days, the only thing that differentiates them being the photographs you take and the date you write at the top of your notepad. Your calendar is dependent on what colour tie Dieter wears on The Tonight Show or Kimmel every handful of months.

The Bravo mansion is modest in comparison to some of the architectural monstrosities out this way. Still, it manages to intimidate you every time you see it. Slowly, you pull up to Dieter’s place and park in the cobblestone drive. If you squint, you can see the Hollywood sign through a thick pack of warbling trees.

The sun is not shining down on the house today as it usually is. Even here, on land deemed the pinnacle of both the American and Hollywood dream, the sky is painted an ugly pewter. The building looks shadowy in its height, the twin pair of art deco doors no longer a quirky, eccentric detail of the house but a gaping maw. The small windows that frame them, a result of Dieter’s obsession with triangles, look like raw and jagged teeth. You don’t bother to lock your car when you approach the front steps, using the metal knocker at the door.

It only takes a few moments for Dieter to appear, opening one door and giving you a once-over. He’s still in his pajamas, missing his usual lounging robe. The lack of sunglasses present on his face indicates to you that he’s not hungover (yet).

“You look like shit,” is the first thing he says to you.

“I can still go home, you know.” Taking a step back, you raise a brow at him and angle your body back towards your car. The threat is empty, of course. Nothing could send you back to that place; might as well sell it now.

“Shit—sorry. I’m sorry, come in,” Dieter corrects himself.

The door opens wider with the length of his arm, and you duck in past him. The air inside the house is permeated with must, a mix of mildew and unsettled dust. Usually, the sight of Dieter’s mansion reminds you of general unwash, not a horrible monster house. Today is special.

“So?” you ask, faux-irritation lacing your tone. “You wanted me over here. You know it’s my week off, right?”

“There’s something wrong,” Dieter says immediately. He peers around the edge of the front door before it shuts. He locks the door, then reaches up to fasten the deadbolt.

Immediately, that tells you that this is serious. Forgetting the unease at your own apartment, you ask, “Is your stalker back? She’s out there, isn’t she?”

“What?” Dieter asks. “No, it’s not that. Nothing outside.”

He walks past you and deeper into the house, leaving you no choice but to follow.

“What do you mean, outside?”

“There’s something wrong in the house,” he explains.

“Like…”

Dieter looks around, giving each shoulder a hyperbolic check. Then he walks closer, so close that you can smell his breath—bubblegum toothpaste and cigarettes. Your heart speeds up a little, the proximity eliciting a light jog in your chest. It’s not like man has never been this close, but the last time…

“A haunting,” he whispers.

You can’t help the laugh that escapes you, an airy chuckle that pushes Dieter back a few feet.

“Come on, Dieter,” you say.

His face pulls tighter, look severe. “I’m serious.”

“Are you high?” you ask. “I don’t smell any alcohol on you. Did you take something? Because I can call your sponsor if—”

“Will you listen to me?!” he roars over you. In the three years you’ve known him, Dieter has never yelled. He gets a little wild, antics more than slightly crazy, but he doesn’t raise his voice. You watch him closely, eyes wide, as he recomposes himself. “There is something wrong in this house. I can’t sleep, can barely eat. It feels like—like I’m never alone. Moreso than usual, okay? I’m waking up in strange parts of the house, and my shit’s in places it shouldn’t be. And I called Brad,” his manager, “and he thinks I’m full of shit. Thinks I’m on another bender. I just…fuck. I just need you to believe me.”

You blink. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Dieter parrots. His eyes are all glossy, ready to spill with fresh tears. You thought that you had seen all of this man, the barest and ugliest parts of him. Now, you see you were wrong. He looks sad. Scared.

“I believe you,” you sigh. “I believe you. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“We could leave,” you suggest.

“No, no,” he insists. “I don’t think it’ll like that.” It.

“So then, what?”

“Stay here? With me,” Dieter says.

You should say no, heart racing now as blood rushes hot through your brain. Instead, you nod and follow him to his home theater, where he seems to be camping out. Dieter has too many candles lit not to be a fire hazard, with bagged snacks and bottles of water strewn about the floor and the plush horseshoe couch; the middle is stuffed with the same plush cushion as the back of the seats, making it more of a circular daybed than anything. Blankets are balled up at one end, two beaten up pillows next to them.

Dieter has the radio playing off of the luxury sound system, the large projector screen dark.

“I don’t think it likes noise,” he explains.

Dieter asks you to sit with him through the night, listening to shitty pop songs, car commercials, and every once in a while, FM radio static. He says the static is it, a creature he refuses to elaborate upon. He fists his hand into the blankets each time the station cuts out and turns to white noise.

This goes on for almost two hours. You start to get bored, and more pressingly, tired. Sleep calls to you, your mind settling the weirdness before as your imagination, and whatever is going on here a facet of Dieter’s. Is it possible for two people who haven’t seen each other in days, and live on opposite sides of town, to share in the same delusion? Surely. They had a name for it—folly of two.

That must be it. Working for a celebrity has finally driven you mad.

Leaning heavy against the cushions of the couch, you allow your eyes to slowly slip closed. Before the world disappears entirely, something is shaking you awake. No, not something, but Dieter. His wide palm is grasped over your shoulder, swaying you back and forth violently in his grip.

“What? What is it?” you growl.

“You can’t sleep,” he says.

“You’re fucking kidding me.” Your irritation skyrockets as you sit up, pulling out your phone to scroll through your contacts.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling your goddamn sponsor, so he can do his fucking job and I can get some shut eye.”

Dieter says your name; you ignore him, pressing ‘call’. “Please, don’t do that.” He tries to grab the phone from your hand, but you get up from the couch, out of reach. You want to believe him, you do, but you have no faith. You can't do this anymore; won't entertain the delusion any longer.

The line rings for thirty seconds before the sponsor finally picks up.

“Hi, is this Jo—” you stop yourself. A deep, heavy breathing sounds off from the other end of the line. “Hello?”

“Hang up,” Dieter whispers, shaking his head. You raise a finger at him. “Hang up!”

He moves from his lax position, kneeling up far enough to snatch your cell phone away and end the call.

“What the fuck?”

“It’s—”

“There is no it!” you yell. “There is nothing here, Dieter! No one is out to get you, or watching you. No one cares, okay? Ghosts aren’t real.”

Dieter watches you, and you watch him back. Holding a steely gaze, you don’t register the fizzle-pop of light bulbs around the two of you until they’ve already exploded. Shards of hot glass fly from the fixtures and land on the carpeted floor. All at once, the flame at each wick of Dieter’s candles is snuffed out. You stand still, frozen in complete darkness.

Dieter uses your phone for light, the screen illuminating the hollows of his face.

“Except when they are.”

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo fanfiction #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedrostories #50 followers

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no-name-publishing · 1 year

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Manacled by SenLinYu

My 8-month marathon on this project has finally come to a close, and I have a ton of pictures to share!

We’ve got a split-board binding with made-endpapers and a built-in tab for extra support. Hand-sewn endbands with silk-finish cotton sewing thread. Done in a millimeter binding style with black leather, and a hand-drawn and -painted floral motif across the middle. Final page count is just under 1.4k. I figure altogether this was around ~50 hours worth of work for the whole binding, from beginning to the typeset to pulling the final book out of the press.

More pictures of the binding and typeset under the cut! If you have any questions or want more info about the process don’t hesitate to ask!

In truth I over measured/estimated the needed length of my leather; this and my poor pare job is definitely visible through the cloth lol, but I’m still jazzed with the result since I’d never touched leather before this. I designed the spread digitally in Procreate, printed it, transferred it to my cloth using carbon transfer paper, then painted using Jacquard Lumiere Metallic gold paint and a refillable .75mm paint pen.

Printed:

Transferred:

Mid-painting:

From starting the drawing to finishing the painting I’d say this part took ~15 hours. Close up of the spine:

Each endband measures around 3 3/4″ (9.5cm) in length and took around 5 hours to complete. The core is 4-ply hemp cord that I coated with PVA glue. Wrapped with a single strand of red silk-finish cotton thread, and one strand of polyester yellow thread, since it’s kinda shiny. Last I counted it was something like 300+ wraps of thread for each band. The uh, cat hair here is just an added bonus I suppose. Like when you buy a new pair of jeans and get that free sticker.

Some progress shots:

The tie downs. I usually will try to tie down every other signature. With 68 signatures you can understand this ate up a metric shitton of thread.

Different angle. Also a good few of the top of the textblock, which was trimmed painstakingly by hand with a wood chisel.

Smooth as a shark etc.

And some shots of the innards!

Each chapter page when through four rounds of printing: 1st through an inkjet, for the floral; 2nd through a laser printer for the number; 3rd through a laminator for the gold toner-reactive foil; and 4thly for the rest of the text.

Half-title page:

One of the attempts to foil a crane. The toner may have been too thin a line for it to work, or perhaps not dense enough tonerly. I don’t have control over that setting on our Xerox unfortunately.

A second shot of a golden crane. This was slightly more successful but lord knows why. Luck.

Fun fact is that this Daily Prophet page ALONE was about 8 hours worth of typesetting. I do all my typesetting in Word, and this page was recreated line-by-line individually. A few of these elements I also had to redraw by hand since there were just no good alternatives online. Anywho though, good payoff.

Nextly, some in-progess shots I don’t have a good segway into lol. A detail you can’t see on the book but I know is there, is hand-dyed scarlet linen thread, drip drying on my shower curtain rod:

Freshly sewn. 68 signatures, no waiting:

Rounded and backed:

And a close up of the special tab/made-endpaper construction. Stupidly I didn’t take any shots of gluing the split boards on, but I think the idea is pretty easy to imagine. Just picture this tab getting glued in between the cover boards.

You can kind of see it here:

And finally, the behemoth on the shelf. This bad boy tips the scales at just over 4 pounds (about 1.8 grams). Glad to have it; more glad to move on with my life.

Thank you for reading!!

#manacled #senlinyu #harry potter #fanficbookbinding #fanbinding #book binding #nonamepublishing #long post #dramione

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