Odin82
Sr Member
I've always wanted to get my hands on a proper Book of the Dead. Since the first time I saw Army of Darkness in 1993 at the age of 11, and then seeing ED1 and ED2. It was a project I've always wanted to tackle, but in recent years, I just didn't have the time with the day job consuming/ripping my soul out. I recently had my first holiday break from work in five years, and over it, I was trying to decide what project to keep me busy. Of course, I was indecisive, and in the last 2 days of my holidays, I decided I wanted a Book of the Dead, and had no other option but to make one myself (a story I won't go into here, going by the past threads on the topic, but I did try to buy one legit).
I'm a huge prop book fan, Ninth Gate, The Craft, etc. So I decided to do a ED1 book to learn the skills it takes for building a book, binding etc. I decided to use all the illustrations from the 3 movies and the remake. I played around with the idea of having the front of my book the ED1 look, but flip it upside down and turn it to the back, the "back cover" would then be the front cover of the remake book. I thought it would be a great idea, but I ended up swaying away from it. (Don't know why now in hindsight, kind of wish I had done it now!)
I used the Elder Props illustrations for the remake pages, and ended up spending almost all of my free time once back at work in Photoshop and Illustrator, cleaning up and vecotorising whatever images I could find online of them all. I'll include some pics at the bottom, but over this weekend, I just did a test pull from my mould for the cover. Few areas that need to be cleaned up and filled on the mould, but overall I'm happy with the test pull. I did a test book boards from Plywood, and since I had no A3 paper on hand, I used a big brown envelope (even though I had a big roll of brown Kraft paper upstairs... (improvisation waits for no memory recall!)
I then did a test paint, just to see how the watered down acrylics spread on the latex test pull resulted. Which leads me to positing here looking for help. I have the mould now filled etc for the imperfections etc. The next pull will be the final, and I'll be beginning binding the 70 odd pages that will be in the book once the waxed linen thread arrives in the next couple of days. . I'm looking for help as regards bonding the latex pull to the plywood boards covered in brown paper. I have picked up some Elmer's rubber cement... but I'm not sure if this will be adequate, and wondering if some of the wise and helpful people here can chime in and give me some advice on what adhesives to use.
I'm also looking for advice on.... what can I use, if I can... to clear coat the latex cover with when it is on the book... maybe to make the colours just pop, and add some extra protection (i've searched the site, but none of the answers seemed to be suitable for my predicament. I've been out of the latex crafting hobby for almost ten years now at this stage. I probably will end up doing a silicone cover from the mould next, but since I'm so close, I'd like to finish off one with the next latex pull. Can anyone help as regards both questions? And thank you for the help in advance.
And on with the pics... and a reminder, these were just a test pull and test paint, so apologies, it's a bit sloppy.














I'm a huge prop book fan, Ninth Gate, The Craft, etc. So I decided to do a ED1 book to learn the skills it takes for building a book, binding etc. I decided to use all the illustrations from the 3 movies and the remake. I played around with the idea of having the front of my book the ED1 look, but flip it upside down and turn it to the back, the "back cover" would then be the front cover of the remake book. I thought it would be a great idea, but I ended up swaying away from it. (Don't know why now in hindsight, kind of wish I had done it now!)
I used the Elder Props illustrations for the remake pages, and ended up spending almost all of my free time once back at work in Photoshop and Illustrator, cleaning up and vecotorising whatever images I could find online of them all. I'll include some pics at the bottom, but over this weekend, I just did a test pull from my mould for the cover. Few areas that need to be cleaned up and filled on the mould, but overall I'm happy with the test pull. I did a test book boards from Plywood, and since I had no A3 paper on hand, I used a big brown envelope (even though I had a big roll of brown Kraft paper upstairs... (improvisation waits for no memory recall!)
I then did a test paint, just to see how the watered down acrylics spread on the latex test pull resulted. Which leads me to positing here looking for help. I have the mould now filled etc for the imperfections etc. The next pull will be the final, and I'll be beginning binding the 70 odd pages that will be in the book once the waxed linen thread arrives in the next couple of days. . I'm looking for help as regards bonding the latex pull to the plywood boards covered in brown paper. I have picked up some Elmer's rubber cement... but I'm not sure if this will be adequate, and wondering if some of the wise and helpful people here can chime in and give me some advice on what adhesives to use.
I'm also looking for advice on.... what can I use, if I can... to clear coat the latex cover with when it is on the book... maybe to make the colours just pop, and add some extra protection (i've searched the site, but none of the answers seemed to be suitable for my predicament. I've been out of the latex crafting hobby for almost ten years now at this stage. I probably will end up doing a silicone cover from the mould next, but since I'm so close, I'd like to finish off one with the next latex pull. Can anyone help as regards both questions? And thank you for the help in advance.
And on with the pics... and a reminder, these were just a test pull and test paint, so apologies, it's a bit sloppy.














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