Highlander

[BrotherWilliam]

Did anyone ever make a cover for Metallurgical History of Sword-Making?

 

[gusw666]

That´s a good one to make!

Let me see what I can do.

Gus

 

[RafalFett]

Here's an early version:


The font is a placeholder for now, I'll have to find a better one.

 

[RafalFett]

Here is the 1st version, but still a wip:


The text on the back consist of 3 paragraphs, but only the first one is partially visible. The missing text was guesstimated using some text from the Highlander Wikipedia. The sword on the center is a depiction of Excalibur, but I'll have to find the publisher's logo (the circle under her name). The battle scene on the front cover is a cropped part of the Battle of Guinegate (1479) print.

 

[RafalFett]

This might be the final version:


After looking at screencaps, I noticed this frame, which contains the most info for the back cover:


The rest of the info was again guesstimated, but also taken from the screenplay and the novelization, which partially contradicts the retirement place of her father. The text was arranged as seen in this blurry image:


The publisher's logo is an existing logo of Thames & Hudson, because it looks close to the indecipherable blob visible when she opens her present, but also because it is located in New York:


When we will settle for a final version, I will post a higher resolution image for everyone to enjoy.

 

[RafalFett]

For now this is the final version:


I added some folding marks outside of the actual cover to eliminate those white rectangles. I redraw the sword from scratch (not the best representation, but will do it), also I reedited the 3rd paragraph to better match the shape seen in the blurry image from the above post, while the photo of Brenda was cleaned up.

Have fun!

 

[mlsmithjr]

Very nicely done. Hat tip to another Highlander fan.

 

[repy]

Many Thanks for sharing and huge congrats for your talents here...

 

[BrotherWilliam]

Very much appreciate your work on this. Excellent job!

 

[drsyn71]

Great work. Thank you. So from your final version, what is the size of the book I should look for to use your cover on? Kinda laughable that I'll be at a used book store with a tape measure shopping for a book that size.

 

[RafalFett]

Very nicely done. Hat tip to another Highlander fan.

Many Thanks for sharing and huge congrats for your talents here...

Very much appreciate your work on this. Excellent job!

Thanks a lot for the kind words!

Great work. Thank you. So from your final version, what is the size of the book I should look for to use your cover on? Kinda laughable that I'll be at a used book store with a tape measure shopping for a book that size.

Thanks. This was on my mind too yesterday and judging by the hand(s) holding the book I took out an older book from my library which seemed to have the correct size, and to my surprise, after I resized proportionally the cover to the book's dimension, the sizing was almost perfect. The height of the cover is 246 mm and 175 mm width, while the overall thickness of the book is 50 mm. Here's the cover printed to size and put on the book (my home printer had some color issues, but my goal was to see the overall look and feel):


And a crude size comparison:


My plan is to print 2 variants: one printed as is and another one printed as is, but I'll try to add all the silver text and elements, but also the printed gold foil from the front cover.

Here's the cover made to size:

 

[RafalFett]

The closest standard book size I found is called Pinched Crown Quarto and it measures 249 x 177mm. This should be your starting point when searching a book, but thick enough to be converted to a prop.

 

[RafalFett]

Made a few steps toward a great replica. I hade a cheap book safe I bought a while ago which had pretty close dimension of the cover, so I slightly changed the size of the design and printed it on glossy white vinyl which was then laminated with transparent glossy vinyl. Here are the photos of the replica book safe:


I also printed the cover at full scale on A3+ glossy paper, but made it in 2 pieces (because the cover is too big) and glued it together with double sided adhesive tape, then I dressed the book with the new cover:


Last but not least, I already printed the front image on a glossy metallic gold vinyl, and possibly tomorrow I will cut all the writing and shapes from glossy silver vinyl and will do the ultimate cover for the book:

 

[MAKE BELIEVE]

There are no coincidences! Just last week I saw this movie again.
Thanks for sharing the work. Excellent job!
Thank you very much.

 

[RafalFett]

There are no coincidences! Just last week I saw this movie again.
Thanks for sharing the work. Excellent job!
Thank you very much.

That is so true! Thanks for the kind words and you are welcome!

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Here's a bigger version of the portrait:

https://imgur.com/0tnvq6v

 

[RafalFett]

Thanks for that photo, Indy Magnoli. It is close to what I've done to the same image, but yours have more finer details.

 

[RafalFett]

This post will be a long one, so bare with me.

When in doubt... do your own fake book:

The cover was made of cardboard cut to size and dressed with plain paper glued on with ordinary paper glue stick:


The fake pages were achieved by cutting several pieces of 5mm thick PVC foam boards glued together and on the cardboard cover with superglue:


Then the hard cover was dressed with matte black vinyl to better match the screenshots from the movie:


Note that the first and last pages are actual pages, this way the real book feeling is a great way to fool most people.

Both the hard cover and the cover jacket were ornate with glossy silver and gold vinyl printed on a UV printer and/or cut on a printer/cutter:


Here you can see better the difference between the printed cover (left) and the cover ornate with metallic vinyl (right):


This conclude my ultimate book replica from the 1st Highlander movie.

 

[Caplan]

Unfortunately this beautiful work will end up for sale on the net!

Caplan

 

[RafalFett]

Thanks for the kind words! This is why I haven't shared the editable files, only images (true, in hi-res), but once posted on a public forum. it's out of our hands.