If At First You Don't Succeed, Part Deux

So, how to dirty up and distress my page from the Ponape Scriptures?

First off, I'm going to try using a dye stain technique instead of the tea staining technique I've used for years. Curious Goods has an excellent description of the basic method using walnut ink crystals, and I Googled up a few more pages describing variations aimed at scrapbookers here and here. Unfortunately, none of the local arts and crafts stores carried the crystals, so I had to buy some off Ebay. That means I'll be waiting a few days before I can tackle that aspect.

In the meantime I decided to work on the edge treatment. There's nothing inherently wrong with leaving the paper edges un-distressed, but I think roughing them up a bit will make the finished prop more believable. At the same time I want to avoid the over distressing that some propmakers, myself included, are sometimes prone to. By that I mean the grotesquely worn and excessively oxidized edges that scream "fake", particularly when the rest of the paper prop has little or no distressing. I want a happy middle ground- enough wear and oxidation to imply age, but not so much that it looks ridiculous.

That's why I decided on a faux-deckled edge treatment. Deckling is the rough, fibrous edge produced during the traditional manufacture of paper as the loose pulp is scooped up to form the sheet. There are a number of tools available to produce the effect, most of them consisting of scissors or rulers with some kind of rough edge that cuts the paper. I'm inherently cheap, so instead of buying any of the over-priced gadgets I just made one myself.

On the top, a cheap aluminum ruler I bought for $1.50 at WalMart.

On the bottom, the same ruler after a few minutes of work with my beloved Dremel motor tool.



Tada! A faux-deckling cutter for the price of a cup of coffee. After trying it out on a few different weights of paper I was pretty happy with the results. It might need to be ground out a bit more in the future, but it's perfect for the light touch I'm looking for on this project.

Update: I just realized I never described how the cutter is used. In case you were confused, you lay it flat on your document and then tear the paper along the roughened edge. The tear will then follow the little nicks and crannies of the cutting edge, as opposed to the strait tear you would get using the normal edge of the ruler.

If At First You Don't Succeed

This particular project has been driving me crazy.

On Saturday I decided I wanted a scroll or parchment seized during the raid on Innsmouth. I already had a few design elements finished, most notably the "Seal of Dagon" I posted last week, but I hadn't put any of them together into some kind of cohesive whole. So I fire up the scanner, break out the graphics editor, and start fiddling around.

This is the result:



Yes, that is indeed my shop light in the lower left hand corner. Manse Propnomicon's photography "studio" isn't a very high-tech affair.

That aside, I just hate the results. Let me count the ways:

1. While the individual elements turned out well (the Dagon seal, the tribal-style deep one, and the stylized R'lyeh) I'm not happy with how I put them together. The design gets across my vague conception of a "Contact Deep One" scroll, but there's still something missing.

2. The font is just too big and layed out in too regular a fashion. It needs more randomness.

3. The whole thing looks way too fresh and clean.

Most of this week's posts will probably involve attempts to fix the various problems. The biggest is the need to make it look more distressed and ancient, since my traditional acid staining of the paper just isn't cutting it. I used a basic dip-and-dry technique, saturating the paper with tea and then drying it on a flat glass plate, followed up by some spot applications of tea crystals to the damp paper to produce age staining. The results seem flat, so I'm going to try a full blown dye treatment followed by some spot bleaching, a grunge wash, and a faux-deckled edge with staining.

We'll start that tomorrow.

Vintage Poison Labels

Spookshows.com has posted some awesome scans of vintage poison labels. You can download each label individually or grab the whole bunch as a zip file.

The Sounds of Cthulhu: Dance Tunes of the 20's

If you're looking to create some atmosphere for your next "Call of Cthulhu" session you should visit The Hot-Dance & Vintage Jazz Pages. The site features a variety of period music in MP3 format at no charge, but if you really want a ton of tracks to work with I think it's worth paying for one of the very reasonably priced archive CDs. There's something about the juxtaposition of the jaunty tunes of the 20's with the horrors of the Mythos that really kicks things up a notch.

Quick and Dirty Tomecraft

Artist Dave Lowe has posted an excellent how-to for creating creepy old books at his blog:

I love old dusty books that look like they came from another time containing forgotten knowledge or secrets. I thought I'd make a few to accent some of the interior decorating this year.

The results speak for themselves. While his tutorial is more concerned with static props than producing Mythos tomes the utility of the construction technique should be obvious. I've used the paper towel faux leather technique to create covers before and the only real problem I encountered was cracking along the joint where the cover flexed when opened. Using a flexible adhesive like, not surprisingly, flex glue helps take care of the problem. If you try Dave's technique the only change I would make is to mix your base colors of paint into the glue when you decoupage the paper towels to the cover. That will save you a step when you start painting and produces deeper, richer colors.

Powder of Ibn Ghazi Label

See the invisible! Dispell all illusions! For immediate results, apply vigorously to creatures not of this earth or beings cloaked by an eldritch veil.

I know I'm skirting dangerously closely to the dreaded "Cute Cthulhu" syndrome, but a little frivolity is good for the soul. This is another patent medicine style bottle label for Halloween.

Tillinghast Field Warning Sign

The unfortunate results of Crawford Tillinghast's original experiments with his "Illuminator" device haven't deterred others from exploring it's potential. Cruise conspiracy sites on the web and you'll find dozens of stories that paint a disturbing picture of how his creation lives on long after it's inventor's death. Rumors of secret experiments in "stealth" technology using high-frequency energy fields aren't anything new, but the whispers of horrific accidents involving dimensional phasing are all too reminiscent of Tillinghast's unsettling end.

This warning sign is based on the idea that research into Tillinghast technology has considerably refined the capabilities of the original device described in Lovecraft's "From Beyond". Somewhere, hidden behind barbed wire and armed guards, there are labs and hangers where carefully marked areas are surrounded by signs like this.

Just click through for the high resolution version. Print it out on a sheet of sticker paper and you're good to go.