You see, there’s this classic Wincest fanfic called Ergonomic by sobrecogimiento, where Dean finds out that Sam wears Saxx underwear and becomes obsessed with the idea that his brother has a big dick. It's one of those precious stories that manages to be both a crack fic AND is really sweet, and touching, and tender, and hot af. It was one of the very first Supernatural fanfics that I ever bookmarked, and I've gone back and re-read it more times than I can count.
So when I was thinking about the next fanbinding I wanted to do, Ergonomic sprang immediately to mind. And what better way to cover this gloriously unhinged tale, than in the very thing that sets the events in motion in the story...
So I went online and I ordered myself a pair of Saxx underwear.
These were some of the first men's briefs to feature a special pouch to hold all a guy's dangly bits in a way to help keep them from getting all sweaty and smooshed up in his shorts. And the material that pouch was made of turned out to be the perfect end band material!
Then it was just a matter of finding the most phallic endpaper design I could (that turned out to match perfectly), and piece it all together in a way that's reminiscent of how Jared Padalecki's underwear waist band is so often visible above his belt and under his shirt. So there's a thick belt leather spine and a bit of hemmed flannel. The end bands perfectly match the orange stripe on the waist band. You can see part of the seams from the front of the briefs because I used a real pair of underwear.
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Maedhros wakes up again, on the first morning of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.
Of course, nobody calls it that. For them, it hasn't happened yet.
Approximately one million years later, here is my project from the yearly Renegade Exchange! Truly, this fic was such a pleasure to work on. I bound this one fandom blind-ish, which is to say that I had the passing familiarity with LOTR that any D&D player / child who read any fantasy she could get her hands on has. I did very much come out of this bind with a new found love for a bunch of dysfunctional elves. Love those guys, and love this incredible fic.
About the Bind
Text Block: 20/50 lb cream short grain
Endpapers: Indian Marbles in Gold/Silver on Black (~125 gsm), prepared as made endpapers
Case Style: three piece in-boards bradel binding, covered with Verona bookcloth in coal
Cover and Titling: foiled using the WRMK foil quill attachment with a Silhouette Portrait 3 and only a medium amount of swearing and threatening the vinyl cutter with bodily harm
Additional typeset pictures, as well as progress pictures and construction / design notes below the cut.
This is, far and away, the most involved bind I've done so far. That means that I have way more to say about it than I usually do, and I also have a few progress pictures (which is rare for me). So, if y'all will indulge me a little:
Typeset
The typeset was pretty standard fair, complete with my ongoing love affair with running footers. I also had a little bit of fun with footnotes on the copyright page.
Finding a good titling font was... involved. I didn't want to just use The Lord Of The Rings Font (TM), and only a few of the LOTR-inspired fonts I found did anything for me. And then, as an additional complicating factor, I had chosen to set the parenthetical portions of the chapter titles as subtitles, and let me tell you: LOTR-inspired fonts have got descenders for days. They are about 60% descenders by volume, which simply doesn't play nicely with subtitles. Got a very lucky break when a fellow binder suggested checking out uncial fonts, and eventually landed on one I really liked. I also broke my own personal rule about not using a different cap for titling vs drop caps, but I wanted something more decorative, and I found a nice uncial style illustrated drop cap that still matched pretty well.
The other design complication for title page and, more importantly, the cover, was the damn Tengwar. Now, I would absolutely describe myself as a nerd. I simply play too many table top games for that to not be true. But what I've never been is a language nerd. The first step (getting the Tengwar transcription) wasn't so hard. I used Tecendil for all of it (and if there are any transcription errors, well... I did my best). But trying to 1) find a Tengwar font that plays nicely with Affinity Publisher and 2) learn how to type correctly in that Tengwar font was.... God. That was a week long endeavor. As it turns out, there is one (1) Tengwar font that Affinity Publisher can render correctly, and that font is Alcarin Tengwar. I'm not going explain why because this post is already going to be long enough as is, but I will at least save the rest of you the trouble of the trial and error that took me.
Covers
For the cover design, I had a pretty strong idea of what I wanted to do from the beginning, although I did try one alternate version. As usual, all the design work was done in Affinity Designer. (This one also definitely tested my ability to work with my own vectors vs just using other people's vectors.) Regardless, I knew that I wanted to incorporate the idea of "unspooling" or "unraveling." This is a timeloop fix it fic, and I wanted to get that feeling of the new story overwriting the tragedy of the old.
With the importance of Maedhros being able to save Fingon within the story, I keyed in on the moment in The Silmarillion where he dies and foiled those lines in silver:
At last Fingon stood alone with his guard dead about him; and he fought with Gothmog, until another Balrog came behind and cast a thong of fire about him. Thus fell the High King of the Noldor, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.
Now, the moment I pulled from A Thread Unraveled isn't exactly the same moment, but it is the moment in the fic where I think Fingon is saved for good within the loops:
He deserves to live. He is valiant, and good, and I know that he deserves more than death as his reward. He deserves everything I can give him and more, and he doesn't end here. He cannot end here. Please. See us. See what we have become. I know I have done wrong. I know there is so much I can never make right. I know it. But I am trying. I love him, and I am trying. He loves me, and so I am trying. Is it enough? If you are listening, if you can hear me, please. Have mercy for the Eldar and their love. In the darkness of his mind he sees silver, and blue. The stars as they first emerge in the dusk sky. As Grond reaches the highest point of the swing, Fingon so small on the ground beneath him, Thorondor appears out of the breaking clouds and dives for Morgoth’s face.
And besides, "Have mercy for the Eldar and their love" is a line that really stuck with me after reading the fic. This section is what I foiled onto the cover in gold. High concept design? A bit. But I gotta have fun somehow.
The actual covers were foiled using my Silhouette and a fine tip WRMK foil pen. I messed up two transfers over the course of making three books, but I didn't run out of foil OR bookcloth, so [through gritted teeth] that's fine.
The Text Block
Ah, the text block. Now this is where we started to get a bit fancy with it. After the usual round of glue, rounding, and backing, I started experimenting with some edge decoration techniques. One of my guiding design principles for this bind was the idea of light: this is a story that's preoccupied with finding the light in the darkness in both a philosophical sense and in the very physical "finding a Silmaril" sense. So I had in my head this image of sort of iridescent blue edges. The problem was getting there.
I settled on acrylic inks for my color, mostly because I was scared of accidentally gluing a text block closed with acrylic paint. In general, I have actually really liked working with inks. My method still needs some refinement to eliminate the tendency for inks feather a little into the pages, but they produce incredibly vibrant colors. That said, at least at my local craft store, there weren't any blue metallic inks. And even if there were, that's glittery, not necessarily iridescent. To get myself the rest of the way there, I started playing around with a colorshift acrylic glaze.
IF YOU'D LIKE TO SEE PROGRESS PICTURES FOR THE COLORSHIFT GLAZE, PLEASE CLICK ON THIS IMGUR LINK. TUMBLR KEEPS FLAGGING THESE IMAGES AS EXPLICIT FOR REASONS THAT ARE ABSOLUTELY BEYOND ME.
Now this is a really interesting material that I'm looking forward to experimenting with more. The pictures above are from my test block with the glaze layered over black ink. With all of the edges, I watered the glaze down with some distilled water (mostly due to the aforementioned terror of gluing my text block closed—I still took the block out of the press and fanned it immediately after application). I was reasonably happy with the results, but the problem I consistently ran into is that if you just look at the edges dead on, you don't really get the effect. The light has to hit them just right. (It also makes these edges a pain to try to photograph.) Additionally, this glaze sheds glitter like a motherfucker. I contained the glitter with a coat of watered down acrylic medium, but my success rate with that was variable. Some of the edges turned out great, some of them got a bit cloudy. That might be my stupid glossy acrylic medium at play again, or maybe something else entirely. More experimentation needed.
At any rate, some of them turned out better than others. This is one of the actual text blocks, with the glaze layered over a prussian blue acrylic ink. On the whole, I'm happy with the results, they just aren't quite as eyecatching as I was hoping.
The last new technique I tried out on this bind was handsewn endbands. I've had the materials for a while, but actually figuring out the process intimdiated me for a while, so I'd been putting it off. Turns out that they're actually not too hard to do!
These are faux double core endbands sewn with two strands of embroidery floss held together over a leather core. Lots of little mistakes, especially on my personal copy (which I did first... so that I could make all of my mistakes on it), but very happy with the results.
And that's all I've got to say! I worked on these pretty much non stop for three months, and I'm very proud of them and also very glad they're done. On to the next project!
After almost 8 months I can finally reveal my secret project, a fan bind of one of the most delicious Silco fics ever. Drink With Me was a monster of a book, and I had so much fun letting it get bigger and bigger. The cover art is gold, orange, and black heat transfer vinyl (that didn't want to photograph well on the spine)
The original plan was red, gold, and black for the color motif, but when I saw the name "whiskey" for a color of Duo cloth I had to. I had to. So the headbands have a dark brown instead of black to match the spine cloth. The endpapers were marbled by hand by a friend of mine on gold paper.
The typeset was the most involved I've ever done so far. I cannot stop myself from maximalist all the time, even when I'm trying to be subtle, which I wasn't, here. I went nuts with the flowers.
I commissioned the title page art from the wonderfully talented @celine-designs because I knew exactly what I wanted it to be and knew I'd need like 10 years to be able to draw it myself. It needed to be that moment. I took inspo from Celine's label design for the cover art.
Anyway thank you so much @ink-and-dagger for this joyous ride of a story. I laughed, I cried, I screamed, I stayed up way too late reading, I had to remind myself I was asexual a few times. I wanted to return your labor of love with one of my own. Thank you for sharing this story with all of us, and I hope when you see this you see a reflection of the incredible time and effort you put into your writing.
I just received this lovingly created, beautifully packaged, fanbinding (bookbinding) starter kit from @starblightbindery .
If you’re looking to get into binding the fics you love, don’t buy your supplies from soulless corporations. Buy them instead from this lovely person.
Thank you @starblightbindery for the supplies, the helpful fold-out, and all the posts you have made on tumblr and the Renegade Bindery Discord about affordably going down the rabbit hole of this hobby.
The “slow burn” sticker now adorns my Macbook. Anyone who has read anything I’ve written knows it’s more than appropriate.
Starblight Bindery Store - https://starblightbindery.bigcartel.com/
I was asked which tutorials I followed to achieve this look by @0n1ythisandnothingmore, and I figured it might be helpful for others so I’ve compiled a list!
For setup (downloading from Ao3 etc), tools, layout and printing:
For the binding process itself, this tutorial by bitter melon bindery goes over the whole thing step by step:
For the half-bound look (paper and cloth), here’s another video by bitter melon bindery:
When designing my own covers, I figured that I could just print the title onto some pretty scrap paper before I did the cover construction. I used my inkjet printer and it worked out pretty well, though I wish the blacks were deeper. (I found that laser printer toner rubbed off when I tried to burnish over the paper with wax)
For the sewing itself (with tapes), I followed this tutorial by Renaissance Bookbinding:
(He also has a really good video on the ways that little things can compound to make a book look professional, which I found helpful)
Anyway, I hope this helps someone. And of course, I'm happy to answer questions as well! I know how intimidating all of this looks, but it’s not so bad once you work out all the steps. If there is interest, I might make a tutorial at some point for using free programs like LibreOffice and GIMP for doing the layout and cover design.
(P.S. if anyone wants the layouts I did for Reversal and Saint’s Guise, I will see if I can find a way to share them)
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So thankful to my artistic Santa, @brunheiffer, who so kindly did a custom binding of my first long Good Omens fan fic, Anchored.
One reason I wrote this story was to hang onto memories related to my love of sailing and life aboard a boat. Now I have a far more beautiful vessel for my words.
Thank you so much @brunheiffer for sharing your talents and artistic eye with the fandom.
I’ve decided to do a series of posts on how to book-bind since I talk about it a lot, and I think it’s a really fun process. This post will include various inexpensive alternatives to “professional” supplies, many of which you will have at home. Not everyone can afford a cricut and that’s ok! I will also be listing more expensive materials for people who want to invest a bit more into the craft, but they absolutely are not a must.
This first post will focus on a list of supplies you can use to make books, but will not yet get into the instructional part of it. That will come later!
Anyway…
Bookbinding Materials: Essentials
These are items you need to bind, but many you can find around your house!
Sewing thread: Any thread will work for bookbinding, though waxed threads can help reduce tangles. You can also double up thread as another way to prevent tangling if you so choose. Waxed thread is definitely more expensive, so it can be good to use what you have starting out. Here’s a link to the waxed thread I used for those that are interested. You can buy it in a lot of different colors! (White is good if want an “invisible” thread).
Sewing needle: A lot of people say to use a curved needle for binding, but I’ve never found it to be much different from using a regular needle. If you have one, I would recommend a larger needle, however, since it’s better for piercing through signatures (aka the stacks of pages you bind together). In other words: there’s no special needle you need to bind books.
Ruler: I’d recommend any metal ruler since it’s better to use as a straight edge for cutting. There’s a good chance you already have one. It’s just used for measuring and being a straight edge. Nothing fancy.
Paper: Any paper will work. What you wanna use depends on your project really: if you’re binding together a work of text you’ll want to use some kind of printer paper (of course). If you’re making a sketchbook, you can fold up some sketching paper. I like to get sketchbooks with perforated edges so I can tear them out easily if I want to use a blank page for bookbinding. You can also buy large sheets of paper made for any medium. For example, if you want a sheet of water color paper, just search “large watercolor paper sheet”.
Awl (or all alternative): An awl is a tool used to poke sewing holes. It’s nice because it’s sharp and ergonomic, but you can totally also use a pushpin or even a sewing needle.
Bone folder (or a bone folder alternative): A bone folder creates sharp creases when you fold your pages, making them lay flatter. It also helps define the hinge gap on finished books, making it open easier. You can use a ruler if you don’t have one.
PVA glue: PVA glue is what to look out for when it comes to binding glue. There are some designed specifically for bookbinding, which spread out a bit faster than ones that aren’t. You can also use tacky glue which IS a PVA glue.
Book board: Also sometimes called chip board, Davey board, or mat board. This is what you’ll use for hard cover books. It is important to use book board specially, as cardboard will warp. You can buy book board directly, or you can cut the covers off of old textbooks or binders, unwrap the paper/plastic around the board, and use that!
Box cutter or utility knife: for cutting the board
Decorative paper and book cloth: For wrapping around cover boards and for endpapers. Book cloth can also be used to cover boards. You can also draw your own designs on Bristol paper if you want (or any paper with a similar thickness/durability). When it comes to decorative paper I like to either get scrapbook paper or rolls of fancy handmade paper (you can get those on Etsy, through paper source, or through bookbinding websites).
Bookbinding materials: Optional (and not crazy expensive)
These are supplies that you don’t need for binding but that can make the process easier and/or help with the decorative elements of your books. I’d recommend these things for when you’ve been binding for a while and feel these things could be helpful!
Paper trimmer: can cut a few sheets of paper evenly—I find it really helpful for endpapers
Stencils: Super helpful if you want to add text on the covers
Stamps: Good for adding text and also great for adding illustrations if you’re not able to draw them on your own. You can buy ink pads for them or use markers by coloring over the stamp lightly and using the stamp immediately so it doesn’t dry (I’ve tested this with alcohol markers and it works very well)
Paint markers: great for drawing directly on the cover. Since they’re opaque they can imitate the look of vinyl. You can also get them super painterly if you want. The internet usually talks about poscas but there are tons of different brands. Do some research, figure out what you like & can afford.
Hot foil pen & heat transfer foil: Perfect if you want to add foil to your covers but don’t want to spend a ton of money on a cricut. A lot of binders uses the foil quill brand, but there are ones that cost less and work the same (I have both a cheaper one & an actual foil quill because I wanted some nib variation. As long as the pen has good reviews that aren’t from bots you should be good). Also remember: don’t use foil designed for going through laminators (I.e. decofoil) . It doesn’t work the same way.
Bookbinding Materials—Expensive
These are materials I’d recommend for people who have been bookbinding for a while & feel that it’s something they really want to invest in. To be fully transparent, I’m a college student and don’t own these and have little personal experience with them. However, I know a lot of binders who love them!
Cricut machine—Cricuts are cutting machines that can make precise cuts into paper, wood, bookboard, or vinyl. A lot of binders will cut designs out of vinyl and apply them to the covers using a heat press.
Book press—What it sounds like. The pressure helps the pages lay flat and stay even. That being said you can stack heavy books on top of your projects, it just may not have the same even pressure. I also know some people will DIY these, so if you’re skilled with power tools you can give it a go!
Paper guillotine—like a paper trimmer but bigger and can cut more sheets of paper at once. I believe really good ones can also be used to cut bookboard!
Those are all the materials I can think of! Hope this can work as a good starting point for those interested in the craft. I’ll definitely be posting more info about bookbinding for people who are interested :)
