My latest weathered Nine Gates replica

Those who have bought my Nine Gates before would know that I've used 80gsm white laser printing paper for my books for years. These papers were weathered with coffee and tea to stain them to a darker shade. About two years ago, I came across a few rims of 100gsm paper which have been kept in storage for almost 20 years which resulted in the once white paper turning off-white due to natural aging and I've used this paper for my books ever since, weathering it lightly to accentuate the aging.

But I what I really wanted was the kind of ivory-ish textured paper that was used for the movie prop. Being in my neck of the woods, paper option are severely limited but about a month ago, I came across a new art supplies shop that had, in my opinion, the perfect paper. So I bought loads for my latest version of the Nine Gates. They cost much more than regular white paper, but they're worth it after years of looking.

Of course, I also weathered the pages I printed using this paper, but mildly, with tea instead of coffee as I wanted to maintain the natural color.

Here's a close up on some of the pages look like after weathering to show the texture of the paper:



I've also found a nice dark brown (almost black in some lighting, just like the movie book) lambskin leather which takes well to the stamping process, making the fleur-de-lis frame and pentagram in the cover much sharper (although not as sharp and nice as Flattery's hand-tooled cover ). I've also been trying out new weathering methods for my covers (isopropyl alchohol, acetone, different grits sandpaper, coffee grains etc) to make it look more genuinely weathered, which also in turn, accentuated the cover embossing.

So here are some pics of my latest version of the weathered Nine Gates (Balkan version):










The discoloration on the back comparison, screencap on the left, my book on the right:


I also used the same paper for all the ripped inserts and 2 spread page, but it look yellower in the pics below, probably due to the lighting:



Here it is with my Book of Secrets.

Seriously beautiful work there! Very cool that you have some naturally aged paper, nothing better than the real thing

Congratulations Kal.... cool work on the 9Gates book Indeed very, very nice that you have used naturaly aged paper, as well with some texture on it. This gives the right feeling to this book.

Thanks, gents! Actually, the naturally aged paper is the one I used prior to finding this textured paper. But I feel the textured paper has a nicer aged look, especially after weathering with tea, compared to the naturally aged paper.

One of my favorite movies. A superb replica!!

Thanks, mate!

Definitely nicely done Kal..

Hi Kalkamel

Fantastic job. Just great. Congratulations (a "hell" of movie - one of my favourites)

The sun was nice and shiny today so I thought I'd took some outdoor pics of the book. The natural lighting is great to show the depth of the cover patterns and the weathering.

You got stamping like that in lambskin? How did you do it? That's amazing!

Love your new paper, too. I've wanted to find some like that for a longtime as well. If you don't mind sharing, how much was the paper?

Thanks, Risu.

It was done by way of a hot stamping machine. The depth of the embossing is highly dependent on the quality of the leather and it also took me a while to find the best leather for the best effect.

As for the paper, it was actually used in a sketch pad which I found at the art supplies shop so I called the supplier (here in Malaysia) to buy the paper directly from them, but I had to buy them in rims of A1 size so I had to cut them to the appropriate size myself for printing.

Hm. That makes me think maybe just buying sketch pads and cutting the pages out might be a decent alternative to buying paper. I'm not sure I've ever seen a sketch pad with pages thin enough for what I'm looking for, though.

Here's a custom Nine Gates I'm working on for a client. Instead of dark brown leather, he requested black leather and full gold foil on the pentagram (see the comparison pic of my regular cover with the custom one below). The gold contrasts really well with the deep black. The pages will be that of an all LCF book.

Unbelievable work mate!!

Highest regards

MARK

Really beautiful work once again, kalkamel! :thumbsup

Thanks, guys!

Wow. Looks great. The weathering looks very authentic.

Beautiful work there, mate! I prefer the dark brown leather version, it looks more real to me

I love that prop so much and your take on it is fantastic! Do you have a junkyard thread?

Great work! For a prop that seems so "simple" it is truly inspiring to see just how much effort and time has to go into getting it right.