Gravity Falls - Journal 3 replica (with complete pages)

[jcporcel]

Gravity Falls is one of the best shows ever made, probably my favorite; the story and art are absolutely fantastic and it’s full of mysterious artifacts and weird props of all kinds. Sadly, yet understandably, this masterpiece is coming to its end soon, so I decided to pay tribute and build a replica of the mysterious Journal 3 that is a central part of the show.

This is the story of how I made my replica.

Here is the book from the show:

And my final replica:

And the inner pages:

 

[Psicorp7]

That is a great looking "Real World" version of the book! Well done!

The inner pages look wonderful!

 

[jcporcel]

------ PART 1: Redrawig the pages -------

The first part was to re-draw the inner pages. I mainly used the archive of pages at the Gravity Falls Wiki as reference. But there were so many amazing people that allready made some pretty cool stuff like "Leo Fynn" over here : http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=162583&highlight=gravity+falls (I used his machine schematics to trace mine)

I decided to make my journal with all the pages available from Journal 1, 2 and 3 put together since that makes for a way larger tome.


I took each screenshot, warped it in photoshop to make a flat page and then traced them in hi-res. Here are a couple examples:


I later thought that there were plenty of episodes that where there was no entry on the journal shown within the show, so I added an entry for all the episodes that arent mentioned on the journal like the Summerween Trickster or the Manotaurs.

Here a cuple examples of the new pages I created:


I made a zip file with all the black-and-white hi-res versions of these and all the "canon" pages so anyone can download them over here: http://elderprops.tumblr.com/downloads

You can get the regular pages:


Or the extra maps, schematics and other stuff that I used on my prop:


So, the more or less important part was done, have many many pages ready to print.

 

[Aresh Septango]

Very Very cool, will you be updating it once hirsch finishes making an official one?

it probably wont be as high quality as this though

 

[jcporcel]

------ PART 2: Printing the pages -------

I learned quite a bit doing this part... I regularly use inDesign in my work, but always to create web documents and never stuff to print in paper so in my total ignorance I initially thought of creating a new document with the pages in the weird order needed to make 4-page signatures. This was silly, but here are my mini-test documents so I knew what page numbers should go in each spread...

Do not do this, learn from my ignorance...

After I actually made a complete mini book with all the 130 pages.. I went into google and learn how to do this properly and automatically, blessed be inDesign...

This is how my document looked like in inDesign:

Here is the magic option:

And here are the settings I used:

This will print a pile of pages ready to make 4-pages signatures.
Just fantastic.

 

[jcporcel]

------ PART 3: Aging the paper -------

This is a fun but time-consuming part.

As I usually do I use warm water with coffee to make the paper look old. This time I added a bit of brown dye so I don’t need to add so much coffee.

Put the pages and wrinkle them once inside the coffee, which will notonly change the color of the paper but actually make it look like those ancientpirate maps..

If you the paper looks too old and wrinkly just do the wrinkling beforesubmerging in the coffee.

I used a large plastic sheet to let the pages dry, this protects the floor from all the coffee and dye and forms small pools of coffe that make awesome irregular marks on the paper:

And here are all the pages drying:

Finally, here are the pages already dry and ready to put together:

 

[jcporcel]

------ PART 4: Paper-binding -------

For this part I just did a mix of coptic stitch and other kinds into one that I find easy to do. (For info and tutorials about the actual stitching check this youtube channel, that should be all the styles and techinques you need )

First I joined the pages into 4 sheet signatures:

Then I used my punching cradle to make holes for the thread.

Here are the signatures with the holes ready:

Then comes a couple pieces of fabric to hold the thread:

The begining of the sewing process...

Sewing done:

(For info and tutorials about the actual stitching check this youtube channel, that should be all the styles and techinques you need )

And finally, I put some hard paper beginning and ending to the text block (which I of course forgot at the beginning)

The I used a bit of standard common gauze medical for the upper part:

After a bit of white glue... Text block ready!

 

[jcporcel]

------ PART 5: The 6-finger hand -------

To make the hand on the cover I first turned a screenshot of the book into the size of the paper I wanted to use (half-folio).

Here is the printout on my pre-cut piece of trupan (already on the correct size of the final book) just for a final size check:

Paper hand cut on top of a random crap of trupan:

I sprayed the whole thing with whatever color I had near:

And then I lifted the paper and had a perfect mark to cut out the trupan.

Here is the trupan (or MDF or wood) hand allready cut:

And here is the sheet of copper that I used to make the metal cover of the trupan (or MDF or wood) hand:

Here is the coper hand ready to go on top of the trupan part:

And finally, here is the trupan hand, covered with the copper sheet.

Hand done! Hi-six!

 

[jcporcel]

------ PART 6: leather cover -------

For the cover of the book I used actual leather since I already make all my book with it and I had a lot at hand…
This is my half-a-cow-hide, its called “Sally”.

And here is the text block and one of the trupan covers on top of the leather to calculate the size of the leather I needed to cut:

The leather already cut:

Then I just used some strong white glue (if you have wood glue use that) to stick the trupan covers to the textblock and the leather to that:

After pasting the leather I cut the remaning part out. Yes, I know this is very far from the correct way to cover a book with leather (shame on me), but 1) it's very very fast and easy, and 2) I kinda like it… so there… I’m lazy… =(

By the way, for the back part i just covered the leather in this fantastic kind of duct tape that’s made out of fabric. It looks like this, really have no idea whats its official name…

And yes.. I also know that the journal from Gravity Falls is red all around and has no black parts.. but I usually make some changes on the original designs if I like them so this is one of those changes.

 

[jcporcel]

------ PART 7: Final assembly -------

To fix the hand to the cover I just went with screws. It is very strong, and I think it look cool and medieval.
I made holes in the copper with this tool:

Here is the hand with holes in the copper sheet ready, and the number “3″ painted with black nail polish:

Here are the are the corner parts:

If you want to know how I made and painted these, here is a post I made about the process in more detail.


Its very important to make small holes before putting in the screws so that the wood, trupan or other material you are using wont split once the screws go in.

This is the only pieces that I bought, some cool metal corners, I think they were originally supposed to be for picture frames, but whatever:

Here is the cover with the hand and corner pieces all screwed in place:

Finally, since the book is actually red, I used some cherry colored acrylic paint to give the leather a red-ish hue. Also a couple of gold painted straps for the side (also acrylic paint):

And thus, the book is done! yey!

 

[jcporcel]

I will most certainly update this as soon as there's any new stuff. To begin with, as soon as the series ends on February I will add several pages just for the last 3 Weirdmagedon episodes, there's so many cool monsters and strange stuff that I though that might be a mini-book on its own.

 

[jcporcel]

Very Very cool, will you be updating it once hirsch finishes making an official one?

it probably wont be as high quality as this though

I will most certainly update this as soon as there's any new stuff. To begin with, as soon as the series ends on February I will add several pages just for the last 3 Weirdmagedon episodes, there's so many cool monsters and strange stuff that I though that might be a mini-book on its own.​

 

[The Schlitzie]

That looks amazing! I saw your Enchiridion too.

Let me know if you ever offer either for sale in a run.

 

[jcporcel]

That looks amazing! I saw your Enchiridion too.

Let me know if you ever offer either for sale in a run.

Thanks!

I would love to... but I live in the feral and forgotten lands of Bolivia in South America... where even not even Amazon can reach us reliably, credit cards are futuristic technology, PayPal won't come near and its almost impossible to get anything past our borders without it being stolen, lost or destroyed or cost a buttload of money to DHL. So sadly, the most I can do is offer all my downloadable stuff to the community =(

Sadness!

 

[Jintosh]

I am in AWE of all the work you put in. Truly an amazing piece of work. I have so many projects going right now, but when I get back to my book, this'll make it much easier. You've done all the hard work.

 

[DWVinny]

Absolutely AMAZING!! Well done !! I love this show as well, so cool to see you do this !

 

[infinity00]

could you pls make this page?

 

[Corvonia]

Currently following this guide to make my own Journal. Slightly different outside but using your pages! (I will credit back to here ofcourse)
Couple of questions though -

I assume the pages are printed double sided. Am I correct?

Could you explain in any more detail how you printed this and if you used special paper?

Thanks

 

[Delta13]

------ PART 3: Aging the paper -------

This is a fun but time-consuming part.

As I usually do I use warm water with coffee to make the paper look old. This time I added a bit of brown dye so I don’t need to add so much coffee.

Put the pages and wrinkle them once inside the coffee, which will notonly change the color of the paper but actually make it look like those ancientpirate maps..
http://41.media.tumblr.com/f319b52b2457b5d89a18abe4d3019fa1/tumblr_inline_o0efo4Zfjt1sit3ns_500.jpg

If you the paper looks too old and wrinkly just do the wrinkling beforesubmerging in the coffee.
http://40.media.tumblr.com/afd9362268b1d765034fdea2f1f61c9f/tumblr_inline_o0efya0I5n1sit3ns_500.jpg

I used a large plastic sheet to let the pages dry, this protects the floor from all the coffee and dye and forms small pools of coffe that make awesome irregular marks on the paper:
http://40.media.tumblr.com/6a054522ebe969d2b57b20f8bd29046b/tumblr_inline_o0eg157U131sit3ns_500.jpg

And here are all the pages drying:
http://40.media.tumblr.com/dea8ca0654ebfa4481e62689ae4da785/tumblr_inline_o0eg2nVvTM1sit3ns_500.jpg

Finally, here are the pages already dry and ready to put together:
http://36.media.tumblr.com/2a92508b374cabe6a6f8692e41d980ed/tumblr_inline_o0eg4shyhc1sit3ns_500.jpg

Very, very impressive work! I have a little quetions do you use standard printing paper? I'm curius becouse I doubt the paper I use would survive such bath.

 

[jcporcel]

Very, very impressive work! I have a little quetions do you use standard printing paper? I'm curius becouse I doubt the paper I use would survive such bath.

Thanks! And the paper is probably the cheapest possible paper available since I just went to a rather small copy shop near my house to make those copies. The amount of time paper resists in the coffe (or whatever you use) actually varies quite a bit. I would even say that the cheaper the paper, the longer it lasts. My first experiments were with the not-very-fancy but good paper I normally use at home and that took about 15 to 20 seconds to get soaked, these copy-shop papers took quite a bit more and its was in theory the same kind of regular white paper, nothing special.