Painting miniatures

A quick update on the tome: I'm planning a trip to Ann Arbor for leather, but that has to wait until next Saturday. I'll be working on cover designs until then and hopefully will have a post going up in the next few days.

In the meantime, here's something completely unrelated.

I'm really not happy unless I have about six different projects going on, enabling me to flit between them at will. For example, in addition to bookbinding, I'm learning to paint war-gaming miniatures. Most people get into this by way of playing the actual games, but I do it just because I think it's fun and a good exercise.

To be clear, here's what this involves: You start with a tiny, grey plastic or metal figurine from a place like Games Workshop or Reaper Miniatures. You apply paint. Lots of it. Many times. Sometimes, you curse. Eventually you end up with a full-color statuette in some degree of artistry. Typically, you then send the model off to war, using dice and codices to rain destruction upon other models like it.

Brian, of course, was the one who introduced me; he's an avid player of Warhammer in both its 40k and Fantasy incarnations. He probably owns models from nearly every civilization in the 40k range and, for several of them, has armies in varying degrees of completeness, all of which he paints himself (have a look: Allerka on DeviantART).

I do believe he saw in me a potential gaming disciple or reliable opponent, possibly both, but I never showed much interest in the games. He, being a cunning man, therefore tempted me, a crafty girl, by offering me models to paint. I suppose he hoped I'd paint so many models they'd just end up as an army, and then, well! I'd surely want to use that army. Unfortunately, I'm both stubborn and interested in diversifying, so I still have nothing resembling even a ragged army, just a lot of totally unrelated, meticulously painted models.

Here, for example, is an Elven sorceress, both buxom and scantily clad, not to mention clearly unable to move her legs:

I've been working on her for probably a couple months, on and off, and as you can see the paint job is very nearly complete. Really all that's wanting is to clean up a few blotchy spots and then perhaps add some embroidery to her cape.

I'm very proud of her sword, so let me show you a closeup:

There are two ways to paint a metal surface such as a sword: (1) using metallic paints, which contain tiny metal flakes to give the paint a natural shimmer, or (2) using regular nonmetallic paints, which are less flashy and require more finesse to actually look like metal. In the past I've had mixed results with metallic paints -- they tend to get out of hand and just look gaudy. I was quite sure this model didn't need any gaudy, cheap metallic tricks, so I took a stab (hurr hurr) at nonmetallics and here's the result. Easier than I expected, as it turns out.

As I was looking for advice on painting the look of steel, I stumbled across a technique for painting a chrome look. Now, the soul of artistry is getting distracted by sorta cool things you're not sure you could ever use but they're cool, dammit. So, naturally, I grabbed the first suitable model I could find to practice on and achieved... well, kind of a chrome look on the leg and back plates of this Tyrannid bug.

So, that still needs some work before it's as convincing as, I don't know, this pantswetting chrome warrior. But it'd be a boring world if everything we tried went just right the first time.

Hm... I had more to share, but it's rather late, so that'll have to do for now. Perhaps I'll post again tomorrow. Until then, be crafty!

The Tome, part III: Structure

Chairete! (That's Attic Greek for "Hello, everyone!) How about a view of the top of my head while I'm working?

I've been making progress on the journal. I've gotten the spine stitched, glued, rounded, and backed. I've stitched in headbands -- making them myself was easier than trying to find a place nearby that sells them pre-made. Here's a picture of the book with all these things accomplished, except the rounding and backing:

Sewing thread isn't quite thick enough for a headband, which needs more of a heavy floss to look good, but that was all I had. Rather than go out and buy something thicker, I decided to make a project of twisting the thread I had, four-ply, into a thicker strand. This would have been absolutely pointless if it weren't an excuse to use Grandpa Parker's hand-drill, but it was, so as a matter of fact it was a complete win.

With the spine all set, I cut cover boards and laced them onto the cords. May I now present to you... structure!

From the inside, the book looks pretty nearly finished -- it just needs a cover on the spine.

The next step is to find leather and start covering the...covers. Cover boards. Decorating them. There.

That means the prettiest pictures are yet to come, so stay tuned for part IV!

Go to: Part II | Part IV

Silver bracelet

My last big craft obsession was with chainmaille. I was pretty deep in it; I kept an extensive set of tools and supplies, had an inventory of around 100+ pieces (some of them quite large and ring-intensive, some quite small and fine), booked tables at craft shows, even put together my own website and was writing tutorials for other artisans. That whole thing kind of just got dropped around the end of 2008, which coincides oddly with the start of my undergraduate career.

I kept all my tools and supplies, though, so as soon as I got a free moment I was able to pick it back up again. I thought I'd share the first thing I made in my resurgence: a simple but classic silver bracelet with a bar clasp.

It's made from 20 ga. sterling silver wire at a ring ID of 7/64". The weave pattern is the simplest and best known of chainmaille weaves, European 4-in-1, which was (and is) the most common armor weave. I'd like to make it a little wider, but with the current cost of silver I think I'll hold off on that unless someone specifically asks for it.

That's all for now. Stay crafty!

The Tome, Part II

Where to begin the new journal project? The cover materials and design will be vital to the final effect, but the structure of a book starts with its paper. In any book, that's what you spend most of your time looking at, at least as a background to the ink of its words; but with a journal, all there is at first is paper.

So, a good start means good paper, which means this time I can't just use normal printer paper. It's too plain and familiar, for one thing, but also too bright white, too flimsy, and just not at all suitable for a proper tome. So, I want paper that's at least off-white and of a decent weight, if not even luxurious. It also has to come in a large size. Most importantly, since this is a tome and I know its owner will do right by it, I fully expect ink and quill to be in regular usage, so it has to accept India ink without bleeding or spreading in weird ways. I found a few candidates:

• Manila drawing paper, 40# 12" x 18". Plenty heavy and inkable, the sheet size would allow for 9" x 12" pages, very respectable. However, it's maybe a little too heavy and too far from white.
• Strathmore 400 series drawing paper, 80# 12" x 18". Same size as the previous, it's off-white and should take ink just fine, but it's a bit dear and holy cow does it only come in that cardstock weight?
• Southworth ivory parchment paper, 24# 11" x 17". This stuff looks nice. It's the right weight, it's off-white, and should be thick enough to prevent bleeding. I'm a little apprehensive about the variegated color, which could affect legibility, but hey, it'll look more like an actual old manuscript, which is great.
• Color copy paper, 28# 11" x 17". Just included as a last resort; it's bright white printer paper, so ew, but it comes in appropriately large ledger-size sheets and has a respectable, not-too-heavy weight. Also it's cheap and so would allow for a very high page count.

In the end, I ordered the parchment paper. This was a good choice. Here's my test page, once I got it in person, being subjected to every writing utensil I could think to use -- ball-point pen, pencil, calligraphy ink in various colors, and finally Sharpie:

The calligraphy ink was completely invisible on the reverse, and it took a thick Sharpie to produce even mild bleedthrough. The pencil lines weren't even as hard to read as I'd feared. Pretty much any journal I've ever written in can go suck it.

So, I proceeded to fold twelve signatures of four sheets each, making for a book of 96 leaves or 192 pages. Final dimensions of each page: 8.5" x 11". That's larger than all but the big art books on my shelves, so I think my scale condition is satisfied -- and with what style! I'm having an affair with this paper.

Don't give me that look, I'll NEVER apologize for love.

TO BE CONTINUED! Next up, I'll show you the stitching and gluing of the spine, maybe more if I get a lot achieved.

Go to: Part I | Part III

Onward: The Tome, part I

In my previous post, I had mentioned a journal I wanted to make for my friend Brian. It's in the works now, and I'll be discussing it next.

First, a bit of backstory. I may not always say much about backstory, but in this case it means talking about Rome. I was there for the weekend of November 11th last year -- and if you're familiar with the 11/11/2011 craze, you'll understand why that was especially exciting. Wish granted! I flew there from Budapest, where I was studying for the semester, and Brian flew down from his study abroad program in Reading, England.

I'm not religious, but also not anti-religious, and since he's Catholic it was a given that we'd be spending Sunday in the Vatican.

There I am on the cupola of St. Peter's Basilica. As in, we were standing on top of it. Mega-awesome, you say? You're so right.

We took the metro from our hotel that morning and got off at a stop a few blocks from St. Peter's Basilica. On our walk there down the shop-lined streets, we happened to spot a side courtyard with -- we couldn't believe our eyes -- a full suit of armor standing by the wall. Both of us being rather rennie-headed, we had to check this out. Opening onto the courtyard was a little shop of everything geeky, nerdy, and medieval our hearts could ever desire: swords, armor, costume pieces, replicas of Sting and Glamdring, of the rings of power, and of Harry Potter's wand, and a hundred other things, cloaks, books, tapestries, statues and statuettes, all we could dream of and more. I wish I'd gotten a picture of this, but it was too overwhelming and my shutter hand short-circuited. One room was full of books, orbs, crystals, and dragons. Brian found wax seal kits and, being Brian, needed to have a kit with his initials, BH.

This was also where he found the leather tome that began all this: big, black, ornately tooled, it was the journal to end all journals -- but we couldn't feasibly expect it to fit in our luggage, and he'd already found one good thing to bring home. Besides, with my well-begun bookbinding project in mind, I piped up that "I could totally do that for you." I wasn't completely sure I could, but hey, it'd be a good challenge.

Normally an offhand remark like that would never lead to follow-through, but you don't know this man. He holds himself to promises and so expects others to do the same. That, or he just really wanted this journal.

So this is it, my half-serious comment now blossoming as an attempt at making something just as cool as that leather journal we found outside the Vatican. What will make it "just as cool"? Well, it'll have to be big, for one thing. I'm picturing pages that make the end of a line of text feel like an accomplishment. I'm picturing epic scale, something big enough for Brian's ego, actually, which would probably mean a book like this, a meter tall:

(Source: Barefootliam-stock on DeviantArt.) Well, maybe not quite that big, but this won't be any piddly little diary you can find in any Barnes and Noble on the planet. Furthermore, it's gonna have to be extravagant. I'll have to figure out how to use leather, for one thing: how to tool it, maybe even gild it, maybe add a clasp or a bit of metalworking. This has to be worthy of the Warhammer 40k universe my dear Brian loves so much, something a bit like this Tome of Daemonic Knowledge.

The posts to follow will document my planning and creation of this work. Until next time, be crafty!

Go to: Part II

A new craft for an uncertain graduate

I have no idea what I want to do with my life, but until I figure that out at least I have a book titled Creative Bookbinding, by Pauline Johnson. I stumbled across this in a Barnes and Noble two summers ago, and the little wheels in my brain went "snick snick snick...whirrr?". Yes, mechanical analogies of my cranial matter can absolutely express a dizzying but wonderful uncertainty.

This is a leatherbound edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and someday, I want to do THAT.

Between my involvement in the GV Writers' Club publication and my bent for crafts, bookbinding just seemed like the perfect idea, so I started my first project. I don't exactly recall what prompted my choice of poetry compiled from The Lord of the Rings, except that I was re-reading the trilogy at the time, so, duh.

There is a lot of poetry in The Lord of the Rings; I wound up with about 70 pages of text, which I formatted using the inestimable Adobe InDesign. Finally, after a trip to the school copy center, I had a lovely set of pages printed and trimmed to size. I folded them into five signatures, where each signature is a set of four sheets folded down the center and nested together.

I won't get into the mechanical details of binding the signatures and adding the covers, at least not just now. Assume it was magic. Poof! Two years later, my little book is complete! Why the hangup? The spine needs a special glue, and I couldn't find it online and/or was leery of buying hide glue. For two years. Yeah. The actual book took me maybe a week of work. But here it is! (Click for higher resolution.)

Placing it on top of Houghton Mifflin's 50th anniversary edition makes my little book look better by association.

This book was a prototype, a see-if-I-can project expecting more to follow if it works out. It did work out. So, what next? Here are my thoughts:

• A journal for Brian. We saw a giant, black, leatherbound tome of a journal at a shop in Rome (yep, Rome). He wanted it; I said I could make him one. I will, and in time for his birthday on May 28.
• Re-bindings of old trade paperbacks. Who wants a custom binding for their favorite childhood sci-fi/fantasy story? This girl, for one. I've been cautioned that the pages on such a book are typically fragile; however, I think I know how to do this in such a way as not to disturb them too badly.
• A special run of past Running Out of Ink editions. Last winter, the Writers' Club hand-bound a portion of the copies of our publication using a fairly elementary paperback technique. I still have some of the unused page stacks, and I have a lot of the old pdf files. This would be a good practice project.
• Journals in general. I know, it's kinda lame, but why not. I could sell them. This gives me room to have fun with quirky ideas like a duct-tape cover.
• Personalized editions of classics. Yes, of course I want my own unique copy of the Iliad. Duh. Inspiration drawn from the Folio Society, who do this on a mind-bogglingly gorgeous professional level; I have copies of their editions of Jason and the Argonauts, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Theirs is the standard to which I aspire.

Incidentally, I got a gold-leafing kit for the monogram detail on the cover, so now I may go off on a crazed gold-leafing tangent.

Until next time, be crafty!