Fanbinding: Two Fics by KouriArashi
Jun. 25th, 2023 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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theuntamed_mdzsNow that the gift copies for ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
KouriArashi have arrived I can post about my latest fanbinding project: “The Way It Wasn’t” and “Picking Up the Pieces”!
I had decided on binding both fics about, uhm, two years ago? XD I love all of Kouri’s fics; she’s actually the reason I started watching “The Untamed” in the first place, so it was a no-brainer to bind some of her fics!
The books are supposed to be the first in a series of five, each focussing on one of the great sects, and all books are supposed to actually look like a series, too, so certain design decisions will be the same for each book: colour-coded for the sect, the cut-out on the front, the little graphic on the back, same brand of Parisian marbled paper, frontispiece depicting the location, sect logo as title page, same design for titling on the spine.
I think I did the typset for “The Way It Wasn’t” in 2021 but I didn’t feel confident to tackle the case design just yet, so the printed version sat around for… a while. Sometime after that, I did the typeset for “Picking Up the Pieces”, which took longer because I decided on doing photo edits.
I finally got around to actually making the books this May and I’m very pleased with the results, though there were a lot of stumbling blocks in both projects and I’m actually surprised that the finished books look good. XD I was sure I’d case in the block upside down after all the other mishaps, but at least I didn’t do that. XD
(I might have checked each book like five times, though… just in case. XD)
With “The Way It Wasn’t”, I hit the first problem when I wanted to put the foil on the case. It was supposed to be black foil, but when I tried it, the foil didn’t connect with the cloth at all. Nothing happened! I was confused, since I’d tested that foil brand on a different cloth and it had worked fine… It turned out that this foil is only for using a laminator / hot iron. Using a foil pen, it only works on coated cloth, not the uncoated one, and definitely not on paper. Great…
Luckily, for the Wen Sect, gold foil was also a good alternative, and so I used that one and put the foil problem on the back burner as a problem to deal with later.
Then I forgot to cut the edges correctly on the front and back boards before doing the first turn ins, but at least that’s not a huge problem. I was just annoyed that I forgot.
I struggled some with getting the sect logo to fit the cut-out and of course that finally ended up a bit messed up… One produced quite a bit of air bubbled from the way the paper reacted to the glue, yay, while the other was better, but I didn’t manage to align it perfectly and so you could see the cardboard at the corner of the cut-out! Awful! At least the paper I used was black and so I coloured that bit in with a pen, but ugh!
It’s always fun if you mess up something on one case and think, “Ah well, this will be my copy then, I guess!” and then you mess up even worse on the other case! XD I’d planned on sending Kouri the one with less air bubbles, but then I wrote the title on crooked! I just sat there like, “… FUCK.” T_T So Kouri got the one with more air bubbles but straight title. XD
I added some ornaments to my copy to distract a bit from this mistake. It’s also important to know that I’m a bit OCD about titles and stuff being crooked, I just hate it. This was indeed a very sad moment for me.
But that’s always the danger when fumbling around with that flimsy foil and the print-out. I’ll live! :D
The planned design for “Picking Up the Pieces” really caused me quite some grief, because I changed the colours for that book so often because of the foil problems. I’d wanted a nice purple but the light lilac foil I wanted didn’t work on that cloth, so I changed to a coated lilac cloth where the darker purple foil I have would work. But that cloth didn’t look good with the light coloured paper I used with the logo (not enough contrast), so I went back to the purple and went looking for another foil. I tried rosegold which was okay, but then I lucked out and got the light pink one at a local shop.
(For some reason, my camera refuses to really catch the foil colour from “Picking Up the Pieces” on the titling - it’s a light pink/ rosé coloured foil. )
I also took forever to get the foil to stick to the logo. I tried with craft paper at first, because I do have that in many shades of purple, but it seems there wasn’t enough toner on the paper because the foil didn’t connect well when I sent it through the laminator (which I’d gotten from my neighbour). I worked super well when I tested it on regular copy paper. So I went and bought some fancy letter paper and lo and behold, suddenly, it worked! *sigh*
The cut-out also doesn’t look perfectly round – I should’ve cut the cloth in thinner stripes before gluing it around the edge, but I was too lazy, and it had worked fine with the other book. It’s not awful, but my perfectionist eyes notices and is vexed. XD
Anyway, on to the book block!
I used tapes for the first time when sewing the “Picking Up the Pieces” block. It worked well and I didn’t encounter any problems. Wheee!
I really love this marbled paper – the red one has actual gold in it! Also, the lilac one is more purple than it looks in the photo.
For “The Way It Wasn’t”, I used a lot of official art, mostly by Changyang or concept art:
For “Picking Up the Pieces”, I used a mix of (edited) official art and photo edits I made myself. The “problem” of this fic is that Lan Wangji starts living at Lotus Pier, wearing Jiang colours most of the time and no forehead ribbon. Also, Jiang Yanli is now sect leader and needed some fancy clothes. Luckily, Xuan Lu has acted in a lot of dramas recently where she wore some more dramatic robes that would fit a sect leader.
I had to do colour edits of the robes at times and at one point had to photoshop Lan Wangji into a picture with her. My old Photoshop did not like all of this but I managed in the end. XD
I’m pleased with the results and might make a post with the photo edits at one point.
I also asked Kouri a long while ago about her fancast for her OC Yu Zhiyi. I wanted to include a picture of the character but didn’t want to choose someone at random if Kouri already had someone in mind. Of course, I never mentioned that this was for the book; it was supposed to be a surprise after all! ;D
I’m really pleased with how the books turned out, especially considering all the stuff that went wrong in making the cases… XD I guess I can say I learned some things? XD
I might make a separate post on tumblr and/or AO3 for the photo edits I did. Some people might appreciate them and I like how they turned out.
Materials used:
Printed on Clairefontaine Papago 80g (TWIW) and Clairefontaine DCP 100g (PUTP)
Case + endpapers “The Way It Wasn’t”:
- booklinen Brillianta
- French marbled paper 120g
- craft paper
- hot foil (on brand)
Case + endpapers “Picking Up the Pieces”:
- booklinen Imperial
- French marbled paper 120g
- Rössler letter paper 100g
- hot foil (cheap stuff)
I had decided on binding both fics about, uhm, two years ago? XD I love all of Kouri’s fics; she’s actually the reason I started watching “The Untamed” in the first place, so it was a no-brainer to bind some of her fics!
The books are supposed to be the first in a series of five, each focussing on one of the great sects, and all books are supposed to actually look like a series, too, so certain design decisions will be the same for each book: colour-coded for the sect, the cut-out on the front, the little graphic on the back, same brand of Parisian marbled paper, frontispiece depicting the location, sect logo as title page, same design for titling on the spine.
I think I did the typset for “The Way It Wasn’t” in 2021 but I didn’t feel confident to tackle the case design just yet, so the printed version sat around for… a while. Sometime after that, I did the typeset for “Picking Up the Pieces”, which took longer because I decided on doing photo edits.
I finally got around to actually making the books this May and I’m very pleased with the results, though there were a lot of stumbling blocks in both projects and I’m actually surprised that the finished books look good. XD I was sure I’d case in the block upside down after all the other mishaps, but at least I didn’t do that. XD
(I might have checked each book like five times, though… just in case. XD)
With “The Way It Wasn’t”, I hit the first problem when I wanted to put the foil on the case. It was supposed to be black foil, but when I tried it, the foil didn’t connect with the cloth at all. Nothing happened! I was confused, since I’d tested that foil brand on a different cloth and it had worked fine… It turned out that this foil is only for using a laminator / hot iron. Using a foil pen, it only works on coated cloth, not the uncoated one, and definitely not on paper. Great…
Luckily, for the Wen Sect, gold foil was also a good alternative, and so I used that one and put the foil problem on the back burner as a problem to deal with later.
Then I forgot to cut the edges correctly on the front and back boards before doing the first turn ins, but at least that’s not a huge problem. I was just annoyed that I forgot.
I struggled some with getting the sect logo to fit the cut-out and of course that finally ended up a bit messed up… One produced quite a bit of air bubbled from the way the paper reacted to the glue, yay, while the other was better, but I didn’t manage to align it perfectly and so you could see the cardboard at the corner of the cut-out! Awful! At least the paper I used was black and so I coloured that bit in with a pen, but ugh!
It’s always fun if you mess up something on one case and think, “Ah well, this will be my copy then, I guess!” and then you mess up even worse on the other case! XD I’d planned on sending Kouri the one with less air bubbles, but then I wrote the title on crooked! I just sat there like, “… FUCK.” T_T So Kouri got the one with more air bubbles but straight title. XD
I added some ornaments to my copy to distract a bit from this mistake. It’s also important to know that I’m a bit OCD about titles and stuff being crooked, I just hate it. This was indeed a very sad moment for me.
But that’s always the danger when fumbling around with that flimsy foil and the print-out. I’ll live! :D
The planned design for “Picking Up the Pieces” really caused me quite some grief, because I changed the colours for that book so often because of the foil problems. I’d wanted a nice purple but the light lilac foil I wanted didn’t work on that cloth, so I changed to a coated lilac cloth where the darker purple foil I have would work. But that cloth didn’t look good with the light coloured paper I used with the logo (not enough contrast), so I went back to the purple and went looking for another foil. I tried rosegold which was okay, but then I lucked out and got the light pink one at a local shop.
(For some reason, my camera refuses to really catch the foil colour from “Picking Up the Pieces” on the titling - it’s a light pink/ rosé coloured foil. )
I also took forever to get the foil to stick to the logo. I tried with craft paper at first, because I do have that in many shades of purple, but it seems there wasn’t enough toner on the paper because the foil didn’t connect well when I sent it through the laminator (which I’d gotten from my neighbour). I worked super well when I tested it on regular copy paper. So I went and bought some fancy letter paper and lo and behold, suddenly, it worked! *sigh*
The cut-out also doesn’t look perfectly round – I should’ve cut the cloth in thinner stripes before gluing it around the edge, but I was too lazy, and it had worked fine with the other book. It’s not awful, but my perfectionist eyes notices and is vexed. XD
Anyway, on to the book block!
I used tapes for the first time when sewing the “Picking Up the Pieces” block. It worked well and I didn’t encounter any problems. Wheee!
I really love this marbled paper – the red one has actual gold in it! Also, the lilac one is more purple than it looks in the photo.
For “The Way It Wasn’t”, I used a lot of official art, mostly by Changyang or concept art:
For “Picking Up the Pieces”, I used a mix of (edited) official art and photo edits I made myself. The “problem” of this fic is that Lan Wangji starts living at Lotus Pier, wearing Jiang colours most of the time and no forehead ribbon. Also, Jiang Yanli is now sect leader and needed some fancy clothes. Luckily, Xuan Lu has acted in a lot of dramas recently where she wore some more dramatic robes that would fit a sect leader.
I had to do colour edits of the robes at times and at one point had to photoshop Lan Wangji into a picture with her. My old Photoshop did not like all of this but I managed in the end. XD
I’m pleased with the results and might make a post with the photo edits at one point.
I also asked Kouri a long while ago about her fancast for her OC Yu Zhiyi. I wanted to include a picture of the character but didn’t want to choose someone at random if Kouri already had someone in mind. Of course, I never mentioned that this was for the book; it was supposed to be a surprise after all! ;D
I’m really pleased with how the books turned out, especially considering all the stuff that went wrong in making the cases… XD I guess I can say I learned some things? XD
I might make a separate post on tumblr and/or AO3 for the photo edits I did. Some people might appreciate them and I like how they turned out.
Materials used:
Printed on Clairefontaine Papago 80g (TWIW) and Clairefontaine DCP 100g (PUTP)
Case + endpapers “The Way It Wasn’t”:
- booklinen Brillianta
- French marbled paper 120g
- craft paper
- hot foil (on brand)
Case + endpapers “Picking Up the Pieces”:
- booklinen Imperial
- French marbled paper 120g
- Rössler letter paper 100g
- hot foil (cheap stuff)
no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-26 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-26 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-26 05:40 pm (UTC)Yes, I really like the paper colour, it's easy on the eyes, and they also feel quite nice, too.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-20 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-20 04:52 pm (UTC)And yes, definitely check out her fic, she's one of my favourite authors (in general, I followed her into CQL from Teen Wolf XD). Currently, she's writing a lot for thai drama Not Me.