Ensor•Skulled Bindery

Other Places to Find Me

@ryeallytired @demodoggonetired @knightswaypoint

I had actually started the typeset for this almost a year ago and then life happened… It’s by no means perfect, but it was fun!

First time typesetting any style of script, so that was neat challenge—although I didn’t actually go all that different from the typical look of a script lol. But as TPP was one of the first audio dramas that actually got me properly hooked on the format years ago, this bind meant a lot to me (even if my time constraints didn’t let me go as far with this bind as I would have personally liked).

The cover was inspired by season one’s theme of the story’s “overworld” being a hotel. So I crafted a 3D faux hotel door with Juno’s Episode 1 & 2 room number of J12. The door itself is covered with bookcloth (from a sample pack so I do not have the brand and color number sadly). The door’s nameplate and handle are colored cardstock detailed with a Sakura Pentouch Calligrapher gold pen and waxed with beeswax for protection. The door trim is similarly waxed and embossed cardstock.

The fic is a Shrek AU, so I went for a sort of fairytale vibe on the interior to match the storybook opening of the Shrek movies. Only, while I was redrawing the storybook page openings (so that I had them in a higher resolution) I tweaked some details to better match the story/characters ;)

The challenge I faced with these lovely storybook pages however, was that the paper weight that I use was a touch too light and the illustrations showed through slightly on the reverse page. Which wouldn’t have been as much of a problem if the gold gilding pen that I purchased wasn’t oil based and didn’t bleed through to the back side of the page…

Sadly I didn’t have any higher weight paper on hand so change of plan involved tweaking my typeset so that each illustrated page had a blank backside to it. Then I tipped the edges of the pages together. And then I tore the faux deckled edges into the book. All of which had to be completed only after the text block was sewn, because some of the signature middles landed on those blank middle pages. 😭

Suffice to say the construction order of this book was one big puzzle that had me doing this the entire time

However! I am so, so pleased with the results! This was my first time attempting faux deckling like this, as well as my first time doing interior gilding! Also my first time doing a proper laminated dust jacket! (Which also had gilding woo!)

Speaking of, the design of the dust jacket is one I especially love! There’s a gorgon character within the story and another character that often mentions their beloved strawberry patch back home so it was only befitting that I combine the two for the cover! (Slightly stylized of course, and yes I know you wouldn’t be able to see the snake tails if they’re relating to a gorgon but hush.)

My one regret with this book that I didn’t catch in time (before I had already sent the dustjacket for printing), is that the spine text is the wrong direction 😭 Every book I almost make this mistake but catch it in time, and this was the one time I failed that. 😔 Alas.

But can we talk about how well those endband colors match the endpapers and cover???? 👀

This fic features the characters from both audio dramas hunting/being hunted down by a creature with a bird-like skull covered in feather-like shapes, so I took that aspect and ran with it.

I initially wanted to have more to the cover of this bind but life got a bit in the way and I was honestly quite liking the more simple look for this. Makes it feel more like a mysterious and ominous book you'd just... find somewhere, yaknow?

Overall, the chisel trimming turned out alright. Surprisingly harder to do on a smaller book than a full sized one! (At least for me lol). First time sanding/edge-coloring and that turned out not bad!

Materials: I actually got this bookcloth from a Talas sampler pack (and they don't label their samples) but I believe it's Asahi Bookcloth in #2379 Black. (And it adds such a neat texture for this bind.) The endpapers are black cardstock with overlapping feather textures printed on it, so the pattern is subtle until it catches the light. Bound using linen thread and archival pva glue, endbands sewn using single strand embroidery thread in a faux-double core style. Printed on Hammermill 20lb cream paper.

Cover: An inset window that holds a paper cut bird-like skull. Made with cardstock cut into different layer silhouettes, painted details, glued together, waxed, and then glued into the window (which took so many little tabs to get that shape lol)

I made 9 small, woodcut-style drawings for the different hand signs in this fic

and I finally got to use some of the medieval-esk fonts I've been stashing, hehe (and here's the book notes pages for credits:)

Oh gosh I should have written this description back when I finished the books, let's hope I can remember/find everything! 👏

The two fics I bound were: The Little Mermaid (starring Stiles Stlinski) By whentheywrite Blinded by You By DaughterofDarkness

My recipient for this exchange was @when-he-writes-stuff ! (I am frequently bad at discord, I hope you enjoyed your books!!)

I finally got a shiny gold HTV I like, woohoo! And I had a much higher success rate with chisel trimming on these books! (Which, having to trim 9 different textblock sides was great practice 👌)

Materials: TLM: Made with Cialux bookcloth in 1259 Violet, and French P Marbled Paper #2202 for the endpapers. Cover graphics are Siser Metal Gold HTV. BbY: Made with Cialux bookcloth in 1521 Maroon (listen Cialux bookcloth has such a lovely texture to it, I'm hooked), and a locally made handmarbled paper. Cover graphics are Siser Metal Gold HTV with a window insert of a printed graphic.

Both are bound using linen thread and archival pva glue, endbands sewn using single strand embroidery thread in a double core style. Printed on Hammermill 20lb cream paper.

Cover: TLM: This fic starts off with an inconspicuous-totally-not-cursed take out coffee cup that felt the most fitting for a cover object. Of course, replacing the Starbucks mermaid with a howling wolf to befit the Teen Wolf theme. I tried for an overall more fantastical storybook style with fancy framing and little wolves inside said framing.

BbY: Food (or lack there of, as this partially takes place on Tarsus IV) is a bit of a reocurring "theme" in this fic, with almost all the chapters having a specifically mentioned dish/snack. So pulling from that I tried to give the cover a sort of family cookbook vibe. With the family trio inside a cutout window (my first attempt at something like this woo!) Then each chapter page has a small colored pencil drawing of a referenced food.