PRINCE💦

The Spectral Tome is Trick or Defeat! Henry’s weapon from Fire Emblem: Heroes. It has a few qualities that took a bit of thought on my part. I remember my initial approach was going to be to paint the book purple and sketch the design on that I’d eventually paint in gold, but with all of the interesting details and the fact that it had this cool gemstone set in the center, I realized that I’d much rather give the book some dimension. I’m glad I went with that approach, because I’m very happy with how it turned out.

I made my tome out of a book. Boxes that are refashioned to look like tomes? Fucking awesome. That’s some storage space for you right there, along with the space to put all the wiring guts! I love props that have practical function like that. However, I enjoy posing with my book open far too much to sacrifice the pages storage space, which meant that I had to do some interesting things to the book to get it to accommodate the LED wires and batteries. This is my personal preference for this particular cosplay, since I knew I’d have that coffin for storage if need be. If you wish to re-purpose this tutorial to make a tome out of a box, I encourage it.

How Do I Make This?

First and foremost, gather some reference pics. There are only two refs to go off of, and that’s Henry’s Attacking/Special artwork as well as the sprite of the tome.

I personally relied more heavily on his full attacking artwork more than the sprites, but those were good to refer to if I needed a second opinion. Keep these on hand as you proceed, because it’s good to look at the intricacies of the tome while drawing out patterns or picking colors.

What Will I Need?

A blank, smooth-covered book (read bolded section below) or a box

Newspaper (to wrap the pages in order to prevent them from getting painted on)

Blue tape (I call this painter’s tape in my tutorial) or Masking tape (the tape is used as extra coverage to protect the pages, and if you want to use it on the spine when drawing your neat lines)

Sandpaper: 100, 120, and 200 grit is what I used, but what you need may vary

Paper and pencil to draft patterns

Ballpoint pen to mark craft foam

3mm craft foam

Scissors

Super glue

Spray primer

Purple paint: I used a sample of eggshell interior paint that you might use on walls, but if you wish to use another type of paint (acrylic, spray paint), go for it

Gold acrylic paint

Black acrylic paint, paper towels & water (for weathering)

Matte Modge Podge

Spray finish, matte

EasyCast clear epoxy

Neon green tinting powder or pigment

~3V LED light,  ×2 (I used  green LEDs)

Helping hands

A silicone mold with an oval shape about 40mm in length, such as this one

A silicone mold with an oval/circular shape about 5mm in length, such as this one

Utility knife or x-acto knife

Soldering iron

Solder

Heat shrink tubing or equivalent

CR2032 batteries, ×2

CR2032 coin cell battery holder, ×2

Electrical wire and wire stripper

...you could use a drill! I didn’t! but you could be better than me!

Whew.

Get a book with a cover that is plain and clean. I had a lonely historical philosophy book kicking around, but you can certainly use a copy of Twilight if you think that’s funny. Be aware: some pages of the tome are going to be rendered unreadable later on if you wish for the gemstones to light up, so don’t use a book you actually want.

Using some newspaper, wrap the pages of the book like a present and secure that with some painter’s tape to keep the pages from getting paint on them. If there are any areas of the pages that are still exposed, patch up your wrapping job with some tape.

Lightly sand the cover of the book just to make sure that you remove any gloss, texture, or dirt that might make paint want to flake off. Use a fine grit sandpaper so that you don’t leave any grooves in the covers. After the book’s clean and smooth, prime the book with some primer.

You can spray paint your book since the pages are protected, but I like using interior paint because of how I can customize the color and buy a small sample size. It costs about the same as spray paint and in the end it endures opening and closing the book for a long time. I used a thick foam brush and picked an eggshell finish of a purple interior paint. For this step, you can just apply one or two quick coats just to get the basic color down so that you don’t have to worry about painting it so much to cover up any flaws later on. You will be repainting the book later on. If you are adventurous or time can’t be trusted and patience is your enemy, you can skip this step.

Next comes all of those gold details on the book - at least, the framework for them. You’ll need to draw out some stencils for all of the details on the book, some taking two layers. My list of stencils included:

Base triangle shape (seen on the edge and near the spine)

Border for those triangles (LAYER #2)

Half-circle shape for top and bottom of cover

Half-circle details (LAYER #2)

Large corona-shape on right and left of center gemstone

Small corona shape above and below center gemstone

Triangular shape that adorns the top and bottom of the spine (To me, that triangular shape on the spine looks like the pendants on Henry’s gold mantle from Fire Emblem: Awakening specifically. If that thought helps you, use this larger version of Henry’s talk sprite for reference!)

Trace the stencils onto 3mm craft foam and cut them out. You’ll cut 8 base triangles, 8 borders for those triangles, 4 half-circles, 4 half-circle details, 4 large corona shapes, 4 small corona shapes, and 2 triangular shapes for the spine.

Mark where you’d like for these pieces to end up with a pencil and use some super glue to adhere them to the cover. Hold them in place for about a minute each, just to give the glue some time to dry. You can see in the above picture, I have the upper and lower half-circles with all of their detailing in place.

Once the craft foam is all glued to the book and the glue’s dry, coat the tome in Modge Podge until the craft foam is firm and no longer quite so squishy. I recall coating each foam piece about 7 times or more. Make sure the Modge Podge is applied smoothly so that it looks nice once it’s painted over.

Reapply the purple paint to the entire tome until the Modge Podge doesn’t show anymore. Don’t worry if the details get some purple paint on them in this step.

Use gold paint to paint the foam details with a steady hand. I opted to use a brush and some acrylic paint here. If you make any mistakes and get any gold on the purple, try to wipe it off with a paper towel. Allow it to dry and come back with some purple paint and a small brush to cover whatever gold is left.

I used some thin painter’s tape to tape stripes down the spine of the book, connecting the borders of the triangles in a fashion. Paint those gold stripes. I preferred to paint it directly onto the book this time so that it wouldn’t obstruct the book’s ability to open.

I used a bit of black acrylic paint, a paper towel, and some water to weather the gold paint a little, especially in the upper and lower half-circle portions. I think it gives it a more metallic appearance.

Now that you’ve finished painting everything, spray some finish on the book.

Next, it’s time for the green gems. You’ll need a mold that has oval gemstones that would fit nicely in the center of your book, and you’ll also need very small circular ones. Total, you’ll cast 2 large oval gems and 12 small circular gems. For the following task, I used EasyCast clear epoxy tinted with Slice of the Moon UV pigment powder. There are a lot of epoxy casting tutorials for cosplay online if you’ve never done it before, and I highly recommend that you do a bit of looking and reading on that front to ensure that you have the method and safety down before doing this. Here’s one to start with.

In each of the larger gems, I inserted some green LEDs and allowed them to dry in place with the aid of some helping hands. When doing this, make sure to position the LEDs so that they’re not completely submerged in the epoxy, as you’ll be using the base of the LED to anchor it into the hole in the cover of the book. Here’s a quick and dirty diagram of what I’m talking about:

Not only is this functionally convenient when anchoring it to the book, but after a few tests I also found that the light from the LED dispersed more evenly when the LED was pulled slightly out like that. It just looks nicer. If you need to, experiment with the placement of the LED! Cast as many gems as time allows. The world is your oyster. I can’t control you.

Now you should have your 12 small gems, and 2 large gems that light up.

Next comes applying the gems to the book, starting with the large light-up gems. Punch a hole through the center of the covers of your book, just big enough for the base of the LED to fit through. I did this by starting a hole with my utility knife and then finishing it by puncturing the cover with one of those screwdrivers you get from Harbor Freight, but that’s a lot of dumbassery that you can choose not to replicate if you have the proper tools (read: a drill! remarkable!). Use the knife to refine the hole until the LED fits snugly. I coated the back of my gemstone with some super glue and put a little around the bulb of the LED itself, then stuck it into place.

Once the glue holding the gem in place is dried, wire a simple circuit from a coin cell battery holder to your LED. (If this is your first time dealing with electric components, this is a very simple one to start with as you don’t need to deal with resistors or the like if you have a 3V light and a 3V battery, but I still advise looking up tutorials on LEDs for beginners. You’ll be able to learn how to solder, use heat shrink, etc this way). I bought a coin cell battery holder off of eBay meant to hold a single 3V CR2032 battery, which means that you need one battery holder for each 3V LED. This works for the way I built the tome, since there wasn’t any room to build housing for a battery and switch for both lights at once. Below, you can see the inside cover behind one of the lights.

I used more super glue to mount the battery holder to the inside of the cover. I then cut notches into the first 50 or so pages to give the electrical components some space to exist. Repeat for the back cover so that there’s a light-up gem on both sides. To turn the lights on, you have to flip a switch for each light.

Those 12 smaller gems need to go in various places around the book. You’ll be putting 4 on the spine, like so:

4 more will go on each cover, surrounding the light-up gem. These small gems tend to catch the bright light of the gem in the center

Here it is in the light...

And in the dark.