My friend Brian approached me a while ago with a new project idea. I've mentioned that he's an avid player of Warhammer 40k, a tabletop war game. He has put together many small armies' worth of plastic miniatures and has designed his own Chapter of Space Marines within the 40k universe: the Lords of Oblivion.
All the information pertaining to this Chapter—its history, descriptions of the major characters in the army, "fluff" as the players call it, and then all the stats and mechanics for actual gameplay—would constitute a small book. In fact, it does constitute a small book. That's where I come in.
Brian commissioned me to make a large, ornate book to hold the description of his army and all the reference material he needs during gameplay. The trick is that the pages need to be removable, in case he edits part of it later down the line. A 3-ring binder would suit this, but would break the illusion of being a real and proper book, so I decided to build the book like a photo album, using screwposts. This wonderful screwpost-construction grimoire served as my chief inspiration, and here's the working part of mine:
There's a narrow flap of paper that folds down over the screws to keep them hidden. The book will hold about 60 sheets of paper, which is more than plenty for Brian's needs.
The cover material is faux leather (vinyl)—yeah, I wish it were the real thing, too. The corner braces, however, are the real deal: chunks of metal riveted right onto the book. I took brass-plated angle braces from a hardware store and gave them a hammered finish using a ball-peen hammer. They're heavy; you really feel them as you open the book.
The gemstones are pearlescent snap heads with the snap portion filed off. They're epoxied in place and unlikely to budge. The rivets were cut off a 3/16" brass rod and peened over, and can I just say that hammered rivets are drop-dead sexy?
Brian did all the typesetting for the interior. The original plan was to print everything on parchment paper, but we ran up against a time crunch and he had to make do with a first run of plain printer paper. The lore isn't actually completely written, yet; I'm hoping that, when he finishes it up, he'll be able to do a more official run on the nice paper.
Okay, so that's all the behind-the-scenes talk out of the way... let's do a quick evaluation. Good features: The color balance between the tan leather-look and the green gemstones and ribbon is very pleasing, and the heavy use of brass finish works nicely to dress up the book.
Bad features: I really don't like the lettering on the front. The goal for the book was a Gothic/sci-fi fusion, but those letters seem more to be fighting with the leather and brass than working with it. Brass cutouts might have worked better. The result is a sort of middle-school craft project clash of ideas on the front cover which needs to be smoothed out before the book can shine, though the foundation is good. I'd also like to paint the emblem directly onto the leather, or onto a thin sheet, rather than onto cardstock as it is now, for further streamlining. That said, I think the interior looks great and it's already gotten some compliments, so yay!
Anyway, I hope you like the book! Brian has a few more projects like this one for me, so expect more sooner or later. Cheers!
