Finished!

Done at last! I'm finally finished the entire book, done, sewed and everything. It looks fantastic, so happy with it. It was a little nerve-wracking the past couple of days with the gluing and then the hole-poking, and now the sewing, but I think it turned out really well. I like that it has the balance of a children's picture book in feel but is definitely creepy enough to be for adults. the mood of the book comes across nicely in the paper stock and especially in the end papers (love them) and the leather is perfect for the covers. I was really pleased that the hand-lettering worked out for the cover as well (also nerve-wracking) and it completes the look and feel of the book. So, without further ado here are the photos of the finished product.

So there it is. Really happy with how it turned out. Now I just have to be super careful with it and find something to put it in for hand-in. Hope you enjoyed the journey, I know I did and I learned a lot while doing this book and it was probably the most fun I've had doing a project. Cheers!

So....

Okay, here's the deal. I was all ready to finish my book today and I got it printed out and everything and then....one page ended up being flipped around. Not a huge problem except that by the time I noticed it I couldn't go back to get it reprinted. Funny thing is, I checked all the pages to make sure they were right and I thought that one page was fine, too, but when I actually started assembling the signatures I realized there was a blank page next to the text instead of the proper illustration.

The culprit. The queen should be on the right and the blank page should be on the left. Sigh.

 Ironically, the illustration mirrored my reaction to the situation (at least I could find some humour in it). Anyway, I suppose it turned out for the best since I would have been rushing to finish the book anyway as I still had to do the covers (and hand paint the title text). This way I won't have to rush it. Seriously, though, check pages Very Carefully in the future.

In other news, I thought I'd take the opportunity to upload some of my process work up until this point so here are some images of my mock-up book binding and the little mock-ups I did for the signatures.

And here are the signatures I printed that were correct. I'm really happy with how they turned out.

And here are some of the materials including the leather and the end paper.

Here's how the end paper would look beside the title page.

I decided on having the end paper just glued to the back of the cover board since trying to do a spread of end paper (by gluing it to the first signature to anchor it) would be a logistical nightmare (trust me, I tried to figure out how to sew through it - didn't work). Maybe there's a way to do it but I actually kind of prefer the dynamic created by the side-by-side look (not to mention the back of this Japanese paper has some shadowing happening that wouldn't look good with the title page beside it).

 So, anyway, that's my blog for today. Will try to finish this book up in the next couple of days (after I reprint the offending page). I'll post again at that time.

Update Again

Okay, so I'm finally nearing the end of this project and, man, has it been a lot of work (but it's been fun). So all the illustrations are done now (including the spots) which I am really happy with. I've laid everything out and made a dummy mock-up of the sections so I won't drive myself insane worrying about whether the pages are in order. Made another mock-up book for stitching, too, and it turned out a lot better than the first one I did. Hoping to get this this printed tomorrow and see how it goes from there. I still need to do the cover but I figure I'll see how the printing goes first (mainly because I'm terrified of messing with the leather before then).

I just wanted to post this one image spread since it was the last one I did (and it took me about three hours to do it...) and I'm really happy with how it turned out. So here's Snow White with all seven Redcaps (and if any of you want a piece of advice from me, don't ever do an illustration with eight figures if you can help it - it's hell, especially on marker paper).

I'll try to get some of the spot illustrations up too but that'll have to wait for now.

Success!

I've got black leather! I'm actually really relieved I was able to find any (and it's pretty thin, too, which is excellent) so I wouldn't have to start looking for a paper substitute for the covers. Now it's just a matter of cutting them to the right sizes and then painting in the title (definitely need to leave a few hours for that, I think). The leather is really nice and I think it will look great on the covers and give the book a nice tactile quality. I also found some nice end paper which I'm hoping will work for the book.

In other news, still working on finishing up the illustrations (man, they take forever). I've got two more left and the spot illustrations, so definitely getting there. I'll try to put up a few new spreads once I finish off the illustrations (especially once I get the spot illustrations in there).

Next on the list after finishing the illustrations will be another practice book so I can figure out the kinks in my stitching (need to make it as perfect as possible since the binding will be exposed).

I'll keep you informed and try to add some new visuals soon!

Getting There

Okay, so progress is going pretty good so far on the book (almost done!). There's about five more illustrations to finish up and then a few spot illustrations (which are relatively small and don't need marker so it should go faster) and then the visuals are done. Besides that there's really just finishing touches on the layouts. I've added in an author's note page at the beginning because I feel that it might help give the book some context as to how and why it's different. I'm thinking this author's note will be brief (maybe even just one or two lines) because I really don't want to give away too much I just want to establish that this isn't your childhood fairytale (hey, maybe I'll just use that). Anyway, I've practiced some of the bindings as well and pretty much I'm happy with the look of it I just need to practice a bit more so that the stitches are bit more even etc.

As for the leather dilemma, I've managed to find a place that sells leather scraps and skins for pretty cheap so now it's just a matter of going downtown to have a look and see if I can find anything that works for my book. Will keep you posted on the results of that excursion. I was also looking into the vinyl cutting for the lettering on the cover but the only problem is that the detail on the capital letters is so tiny it'll most likely get lost at the size I need to print it which means....I'm thinking I may have to try doing it by hand. This might not be my favorite option but it might actually end up working with the whole rustic look I'm going for with the leather etc. and the imperfections of painting it on the leather by hand may give it more character. I don't know, we'll see.

All in all, though good progress and I'm happy with how it's turning out so far. I'll keep working on it!

Progress to the Final

Okay, so it's been a little while since I made a progress report but I've been super busy doing the illustrations (which take forever, by the way). I'm doing pretty well so far and have about six fully completed (just need to add appropriate backgrounds) at this point and four more pending completion. I think they're turning out well so far. Here are some of the completed spreads.

Just as a side note the little spot illustration guy is a rough not a final so he's lighter.

This is the same spread as the one above but I added a border around the image in this one. I actually think the border might help soften the contrast between the two pages and also gives it less of a modern look which I think the top one is giving off a bit with the full bleed.

Okay, so those are the ones that are mostly finished spreads (still have to adjust the backgrounds on a couple of them).

Alright, so that's the main progress on the illustrations and spread. As far as the binding of the book goes, I've experimented a bit with the sewing and have decided a few things. I will most likely go with the simpler binding (to spare myself many hours of agony) and also that I will most likely not have the red thread for the binding. This last thing is mainly because I realized that while I love the idea of red thread binding showing it's actually so thin it won't have much, if any, impact. I may still use an exposed spine but it will depend on how my stitching looks and whether it still feels appropriate without the red thread. More on this later (once I've reached a definitive decision). I still have to look into whether I can get plates made for debossing/embossing. If not I will have to think of an alternative for the cover (most likely print-based on nice paper - maybe textured to feel a bit like leather).Will keep you posted when decisions are made and when I've got further progress!

Three Questions

Okay, I've been thinking about what questions I still need answered and here's what I've come up with;

1. I am considering using leather for the cover of the book and possibly seeing if I can deboss the title into that. But I'm not sure whether the cover of the book should be hardcover or softcover considering I'm going for an old, worn look. What does everyone else think?

2. On certain pages the text runs shorter and I've decided to put spot illustrations in to fill the space. I'm wondering whether the spot illustrations should have any colour in them (same restricted pallet as the full page illustrations which use only black, white, grey, and red or blue) or if they should remain strictly as inked illustrations?

3. Also, with the spot illustrations, I am wondering whether they need to strictly depict something related to the text on that page or whether they can illustrate something from the broader story. Specifically I'm thinking of having each of the seven Redcaps (dwarves) appear in a spot illustration throughout the book but this will mean that some of them will appear on pages which don't necessarily have anything to do with the Redcaps specifically. I'm not sure whether this will matter or if it's better to just stick with spot illustrations that depict what the accompanying  text is about. What do people think about this?

Thanks!