hi! i love your aftg hardcovers and was wondering how you made them? thank you <3
Hey! Thank you! Sorry for answering so late but I was away and then a bit busy.
So about the hardcovers! Did I have the skills to do that? No. But I'm a gay and I believed I could and so can you. I also tried it out first on my copy of 50 Shades bc I didn't care. I also used whatever I had on hand, so it ended up being relatively cheap. It takes time but it's worth it.
So here's how I went about it:
1. Watch these tiktoks, they're the basis of the whole thing:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLtrgU3D/
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLtrXue5/
2. Find supplies:
some hard cardboard (I used the back of sketching notebooks but you don't have to be as cheap as me. It justs needs to be thick enough to not bend or break easily)
Thick but bendable paper
cloth in 3 colours (or 1 if that's easier or you want them to look more alike. I'm not your boss. I used cotton for most of them but 3 things matter: the cloth shouldn't absorb the paint too much (test it! Including how it reacts with the tape you'll use for the stencil), it should be easy to glue to your cardboard pieces and when you fold it on itself (for the corners) it shouldn't be too thick.)
Paint (I used fabric paint for the white but otherwise 2 coats of acrylic should work fine)
For the stencil: some masking tape and an exacto knife.
Glue
3. The first step is exactly like the first tiktok. They explain it pretty well. I also had to deal with a severely bent spine for TRK and TKM but I was able to fix the paperbacks first. But if you follow that step for the three books, you should end up with the core of the cover.
4. You can follow the second tiktok if you wish (cloth/faux leather and thick paper on which you could potentially print the design) but I prefer the look of cloth. Cut the piece of cloth about 2 cm around the book cover.
5. Glue the cloth to the spine. Wait for it to dry a bit, then glue the rest. Make sure it's flat with no air bubbles. Wait for it to dry.
6. Cut the corner of the excess cloth and leave about 2mm so you don't have a gap in the coverage. Glue the up and down excess fabric on the inside of the cover. Make sure it's flat. Let dry.
7. Tuck in the little excess on the side. The video explains it for paper but it's the same thing. Then glue the borders. As always, make sure it's flat and let dry. I had to use pegs for some of them but not all, it helps make sure it stays flat while it dries.
8. The border. I protected the cloth with masking tape and, after delimitating an outline (1.5 cm from the top and bottom and 9 mm from the sides for the covers, 1cm top and bottom and 2-3 cm sides for the covers) delicately cut out a 2mm line all around.
9. Paint your line. Sponge and paint. Make sure your tape is properly stuck to the cloth or it will bleed under. It might still bleed under and you may have to fix it.
10. Now we gotta make the stencil for the cover design and that's the hardest part I guess. Like I said, you can simply print it out on thick paper and follow the tiktok guidelines. I used masking tape, and exacto knife and paint because I like you make my life hard. (https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLqcKnb2/ here is me doing it for the aftg shirt I made a while back). A mat to cut things on is best, idk what it's called, but you can use any surface that's hard enough as to not cut through it, but from which you can peel off the tape. Three layers of tape are pretty good (one top to bottom, side to side then top to bottom again). Print the design, making sure it's the right size (I used 19.4cm x 12.2). Cut out the pattern: you need to cut out the place that will be painted, so if you want a raven on their, cut out the raven. Here are the patterns I designed:
Covers: here
Spines: 1, 2, 3
Please credit me if you use them.
(I tried to keep what was on the original cover and add something else. And the inspiration was quite obviously the penguin Classics).
For the back, you can just cut out a little square with the design and place it where you want it.
11. Stuck your stencil within the outline you previously painted and paint that too. Once again, make sure it's properly stuck. Sponge works well, but don't put too much paint on it. It's better to go over than too have an excess.
12. Take off the stencils. Try your best to fix if anything bleed.
13. As for the lettering, titles, quotes and author, I used one of these:
It's gold foil that's applied with heat. I got it for pretty cheap in Action. It works well when having a piece of paper with the writing to trace on top of the foil.
Okay now you should have your cover. Leave it on the side for the moment and take your book. This tiktok helps:
14. It's gonna hurt a bit but that's part of the process. I guess you could turn the cover into some sort of sleeve in which to put the book but by virtue of being stiff, I'm not sure how well that would go. So you have to carefully cut out the original cover of the book. Keep the glue on the spine.
15. Take a paper the size of twice the pages' size in length (here about 12.2 cmx2) and the height of the page (19.4 cm). Fold it length wise so that it's the size of the page. Do it twice.
The paper can be whatever colour you want. I did the colours of the cover (so for instance TRK's papers are red and black.)
16. Put a tiny bit of glue on about 4mm on the side of the page near the spine and glue the fold there. Repeat on the other side of the book.
17. Once that's dry, glue the spine of the book to the spine of the cover. Make sure it's centered. Wait for it to dry. If you need to, put the book between other books, spine down so that it doesn't move while it dries.
18. Put some glue on the first folded page and carefully glue it to the inner cover. Make sure it covers all the cardboard and hopefully a bit of the cloth. Don't put too much glue or it might bleed to the pages. Make sure you can easily open the book, put a piece of parchment paper in between the folded pages so the rest of the book stays mostly dry. Wait for it to dry.
19. Repeat for the other side.
20. Congrats. You've got a hardcover book!
Idk if that was really clear so don't hesitate to ask me any question you need answered! Keep in mind that I'm absolutely not an expert on the subject. But there you go. Tag me if you try it out! And thanks for all the love on the hardcovers šš„°
