Custom Tome 1

So, I got the change to work on yet another book commission! After some quick sketching the design of the book was developed and ready to go. First couple of steps consisted on putting the cardboard i've been hoarding from cereal boxes, etc to good use! Got started by cutting down cardboard to c. 8.5 x 5.5

 With a thicker cardboard I, i cut out the pieces you see below...

 This type of cardboard is the one that has a sheet of undulating cardboard sandwiched in the  middle so the edges needed to be covered. In this case i used sketch paper. Glued the pieces you see in the bottom image to the sketch paper...

 Cut down the unnecessary paper at the sides and middle...I left tabs on the perimeter since i would need to wrap these around the other pieces of cardboard for the covers...

 On the left in the image below you can see a quick outline of the books design for a show of proportions...

 The design called for some hardwood pieces and a dark brown leather for the corners...

 As for texture i went on to dig around some wallpaper samples and found the one bellow... Proceeded to add gesso and then the requested red acrylic over it...

 At the same time i went on to cut out the wood pieces. These would be two semi circular ones (front and back) and a thin rectangular one for the books title.

 Once the texture was given a couple coats of red acrylic it was time to glue the textured wall paper to the cardboard covers. over the wall paper texture i went on to glue the other pieces that go over...

 Folded and glued the tabs back, to wrap around the whole of the covers...

 Added some corner pieces...

 At this point i added some gray paint to get a notion of the color proportions...

 painted thinner pieces of cardboard, cut them down and glued them on...

 I went on to test out the metallic acrylic on the frame but the sketch paper wrinkled a little too much and some of the cardboard's texture could still be seen (you can see this in the image above)

 To fix this i went on to add more cardboard pieces over the frame as seen in the image below. These pieces are slightly thinner to leave a ridge feature..

 Went on to add a combination of metallic, gray, and black acrylic paint

 Now, as for the corners, i used crazy glue for quicker drying time. First folded one of the tabs as you can see below...

 Cut of the corner to avoid the faux leather overlapping from behind...

 glued the other side tabs to the back...

 and now this guys got some lovely faux leather corners!

 Using bits of cardboard i cut out some circular small pieces...

 Painted over them and burned over them a thin line...

Afterwards i added the fasteners that were painted to have a brass look...
Finally it was time to add the blackwash (diluted black acrylic) and really see what the final product would look like! Left is the blackwashed and on the right is the pre blackwash...

Next post coming right up we'll go thru the pages, wood pieces, bookmark and final images!