Isildur's Account

L

Legion

Active Member
Okay, I'm looking for advice on this. I'm trying to age a piece of parchment paper that I laser printed Isildur's account of the One Ring. Here it is:

DSC_0003-11.jpg


I actually had to cut an 11 X 17 piece of parchment and then soaked it for awhile in an oven pan full of tea (3 bags). In the process of lifting it out, I ripped the paper, which is the tear in the bottom left.

I left it to dry overnight, and then just now I took a BBQ lighter to the edges. I found out that you get the weathered, brown edge by quickly passing the lighter back and forth. I actually cut off the bottom right burns, because they were all choppy. I wanted it to look old, not as if I had just pulled it from a house fire. The paper is now kind of stiff, though due to the dried tea.

All advice and tips are welcome.

Cheers,

Guy
 
The tea bag soak in an oven is my favorite method to do age like this. There's also a really good tutorial on using a few other items to get the little traits of age, I'll see if I can dig it up - I know it's hiding somewhere on my prop drive.

Great work!

-sctcarts
 
sctcarts said:
That's just wrong....:lol and funny.
Click to expand...

No kidding....LOL! And no, I didn't write it. A member on the Ultimate Collector's Forum had this image, which I printed on a laser printer. There's no way I could do calligraphy like that.
 
Granules of instant coffee dropped on a moist sheet will give you the darker spots like you see on old parchment.
Just make sure it's flat or the color will run.

If you have it around the edge and bake it it will have the nice exposed old parchment look.
Burning with a lighter doesn't look real unless of course the piece in question was supposed to be partially burned.

This site has some links to sites on aging paper and other interesting things like dried blood made from soy sauce and food coloring.
 
I printed out another document and crushed it into a ball and tried ironing it out between two sheets of white paper, however, when it came out all it looked like was a document....well, like it had been balled up and ironed out.

I'm going to experiment with the granules, and also try another trick I've seen mentioned on a few boards: using lemon juice and backing it carefully in the oven. People say that it browns the document, especially the edges.
 
Okay, I tried the lemon juice thing last night...to a rather unsuccessful account. To be honest, it looks like burnt caramel with a few patches of light paper. I soaked the paper too much, and had too much in the pan. So, today I printed a map of Beleriand and gently rubbed a paper towel with some lemon juice soaked on the tip, thereby allowing me to control how much went on. I was so afraid to burn the damn thing I probably could have put more. As it was, after checking minute by minute I pulled the map out when it looked like this:

DSC_0003-13.jpg


It had darkened in some areas, and none in others. I was afraid if I left it for the other remaining areas to darken, the rest would be too dark. I gave it a quick crumple, loosely. I then thought about putting it in a tea bath to even out the color, hoping that the lemon areas would still be darker.

DSC_0004-9.jpg


I dropped it on the rack to dry, and I could see right away the effect was much better than my other attempts. As it was, I could see the difference between the lemon and tea areas.

DSC_0005-10.jpg


Lastly, I took a serrated knife to the edges to rough them up a bit. I think I'll do more, but here's tonight's work.

DSC_0006-1.jpg


Opinions and advice are most welcome, good and bad.

Cheers,

Guy
 
Looks good and I like your step by step pictures. You could also fold it into thirds and then take the knife and rough up the edges while it folded to add some more age as well.
 
Stivie said:
Looks good and I like your step by step pictures. You could also fold it into thirds and then take the knife and rough up the edges while it folded to add some more age as well.
Click to expand...

Do you mean fold it like a letter and then take the knife to it? Wouldn't that just produce matching marks? When I finished with it, that certainly was one of the major things that bugged me; the edging is a critical step from looking like a cut sheet of modern paper to actually an old document. Maybe I need to use a different knife....
 
put it in with the gerbils over night or chinchilla and that should help with the weathered look greatly, the tea bag is the only one I use though I think you could try coke too, but try coke on another piece of paper as a tester first....
 
Nice job. You can use small files or even sandpaper to remove the crispness of the cut edge. On thick paper I actually use a dremel to rough up the edge.
 
Hello!
Materials I use to age paper:
Nogalina (wallnut cristal ink) , cofee , tea
To make brown spots in paper : cofee grain or pulvericed wallnut cristal ink ( care with this , it tint a lot!!!)
Sandpaper
Sometimes oils for edges .
By the way... if in a printed text you use digital technics to variate the intensity of letter ink , it will look more "old" , because time ages all:paper and INK...
 
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