I finally gathered the strength to open up my old sketches. In theory, these are sketches for 2024, maybe something from 2023. That's why most of them are just ugly, I chose the most decent ones.
Posting this is still a challenge, but I'm trying to fight my nervousness, so let's consider this part of the exercise.
If I remember correctly, I posted this picture on Twitter. I doubt you've come across this, but I'll just clarify that this is my profile and Ufir is my other nickname. Some of my profiles under this nickname are a bit abandoned.
It's been a couple of days since the last one so I've got another book to show off today. It's not immediately obvious from the photo but this is Car Trouble by summerofspock, and it's a Good Omens human!AU in which Aziraphale is a college professor and Crowley is a mechanic. If you are in the fandom and you haven't read this I beg you to do it immediately. It's wonderful, does not seem like it should work but absolutely does. And it's hot. Really hot.
The photos in this post are a tad overexposed (I think? I do not know photography) but the cover material is a homemade book cloth in a brown tweed pattern, because I thought that was professor-y. It's a garment fabric so it's softer than a purpose-made book cloth. We've got silver photo corners for protection against wear, and black skivertex faux leather on the spine. In the past I've had largely poor results putting HTV on homemade book cloth no matter what kind of cloth I start with, so I elected not to put a title on the front. I'm relying on the corners to give it some visual interest as well as protection.
More photos under the cut!
We do have a title on the spine though! That is pewter foil HTV and I thought it would be fun to make it vertical. I have done that a couple of times, but not all titles are suited for it and it doesn't fit the vibe for every fic. Here, however, it echoes some of the choices I made in the typeset, so I seized the opportunity.
Top view, showing off the shiny gray ribbon bookmark and the handmade endbands. The colors really are not shining through; they are chocolate brown and silver-gray stripe. It's a single core, very basic, and that's on purpose. This story is a lot less...frilly? flourish-y? than many others I have bound. I'm not sure those are the right words. It's hard to explain but a more tailored, less elaborate approach just seemed like the right choice. So the endbands are simple, the fonts are sans serif, the cover is less elaborate, and even the corner caps are a simpler design than the other choices I had on hand. It's a nice book, quality materials, feels good in the hand, but you have to meet it where it's at and understand what went into it to appreciate that. Given some of the story's themes I think that's fitting.
Alright, enough philosophy, let's look inside! The endpapers are cardstock, gray with this metallic gold circle overlay. I kind of wish I'd done an in-fill so the turn-in was less obvious under them, but I almost never do those so I didn't think of it till it was too late. It was hard matching anything with the cover material. My endpaper choices tend towards florals, highly-patterned chiyogami, and abstract marbles and none of those felt right, but plain ones would have been too understated. These were the right balance, though in hindsight I do wish they were silver instead of gold. Oh well.
Remember when I said Crowley is a mechanic in this? Yeah. He's dirty and it's hot. So we've got this streaky graphic I found on rawpixel that is probably supposed to be paint but to me looks like oil. I've got the whole thing on the title page and just the top part on the first page of each chapter, so it doesn't obscure the text. I tend to make my chapter headers kind of simple, which is fine but can get a little same-y when you do as many as I have, so I got a very little bit experimental with this one and made them vertical. The vertical spine title is echoing this. Gives the whole thing some cohesion. I love it.
And there we have it! I know I always say this but I am really proud of this one. The details are maybe sparse but they come together really nicely into the whole, and as I said above it just feels really nice to hold. It has a very high bookishness to it. The qualities that contribute to that are harder to pinpoint than colors or graphics though. It is very square (low spine swell), it has a nice sharp hinge crease, lines are very straight and not slanted, and the spine covering extends the same distance on the front and back. I feel like it is a technical success as well as an aesthetic one.
A trope that gets to me: 'guard dog' character and their partner who are both fully aware of it and honestly don't care/kind of like it. Someone says "call your guard dog off" and their partner does call them off. That person, their 'guard dog', is someone who is unreservedly, irrefutably loyal to them. Someone undoubtedly dangerous who is willing to kill, to maim, to obey, simply because of their love for one another. There's no manipulation involved— it is loyalty, brutal, dogged loyalty. And it goes both ways.
i love in One Piece whenever a deeply traumatized character tries to convince luffy that they're unlovable and that he's better off leaving them behind and that he shouldn't waste his time on them and luffys reaction every time is the most blunt "what the fuck are you talking about? are you stupid?"
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