Harpy

These were such a pleasure to make, and honestly, great practice for me. I no longer feel intimidated by leather binding and gilded fore-edges! Though with temperatures soaring up over 105 this summer, the hours I spent outside sanding down edges made for hard work 💪🏽

Each book has it's own personality, with none being exactly identical. I tried to match marbled paper and woven endband colors with what I had planned for each individual fore-edge painting.

After roughly planning out a thumbnail in Procreate, I try to finish the physical painting within a single day to prevent putting too much strain on the book spine for too long. This tiny painting press was jigged up by my dad (¡gracias papito!), and it helps immensely while I complete the piece.

It also delights me that all 4 books (including the first gifted copy) were made from the same leather hide! Though each cover has its own patterning and texture from being individually cut and hand dyed, they are all connected ♥️

Since the book is set during the 14th century, I really wanted to do a typeset that included semi-contemporary art as accents. Before even printing the book there was a lot of work to do in the typeset process, including researching the artwork for chapter pages and dropcaps, as well as the title page image, all taken from woodcuts from the 15th-16th century (most of them are from Hans Holbein the Younger). It's not quite the same time period as the story, but I liked the more austere look of old woodcuts to illuminated art from the 1300s.

After typesetting and formatting, it was time to print, fold, and sew!

Then trimming the sawtooth edges with a chisel...

...and gilding the edges, weaving faux double-core endbands, and painting a hidden fore-edge image that reveals itself only when the book is flexed. These were all Firsts for me, and while they are far from perfectly executed, I'm obsessed. Every book is getting gilded edges and fore-edge paintings now.

I really wanted this book to have a leather cover, both because I've been eager to try my first true leather case, and because it felt so fitting for the rough, Medieval vibes of the book itself. Unfortunately, I got influenced by my local leather supplier, who convinced me that dying my own leather was the way to go...

...and she was right 🙈 I love how much control over the color and texture of the finished leather I have this way, and I will definitely be using up this veg-tanned hide that I purchased for future projects.

The symbol on the front (matched on the back) is my own design, and meant to evoke a comet. The detail of the protagonist Thomás witnessing a comet in the sky, and thus standing between the fires of the heavens and earth, was one I wanted to emphasize for the title.