MisterBull

Earlier this week I posted an incomplete version of this image to the forums gallery requesting opinions. This is the completed penciled sketch of this piece and I finally labelled it "The Meeting at the Crystal Fountain". I've considered writing a short simple story to go with it, but that's just an idea I'm toying with atm. The work itself is not actually finished, however; I still intend to paint it digitally and then transfer it into a 3D image [something I've done before with recent pony artwork, ask if you'd like to see the older examples]

I also considered doing an illaborate clay sculpted frame for this image complete with a detailed paint job (to make it look antique-ish). If I do, I'll use this thread to showcase the work in progress.

I would had posted it again to the gallery, but I felt it was a bit too soon, and I might risk looking like a spammer if I did so... so I decided to post it here [despite how inactive it usually seems here]

So, what do you guys think so far?

Its really annoying when the graphics in the foreground keep you from seeing stuff that matters

Graphics like those obstructions will probably be used for in-between areas, where there would be no enemies or platforming... though maybe a puzzle or sometnhing as suggested in the Youtube comment section of this video.

Looks like you are making good progress. Are you gonna turn it into a full game?

lol, well that is my goal ^_^

Many thanks!

This video is just to showcase a tileset for Spikes Quest

the graphical theme here is called 'The Lost Shrine'

let me know what y'all think

Other posts have been deleted because of pure speculation and information on staff liberally (and falsely) issued without checking facts first.

If the submission is gone/missing from your gallery (you can view your own images even if they are not yet approved) they have been rejected and deleted.

* If it has been deleted it's clearly not following the rules/guidelines.

* It's highly unlikely you'll be contacted. (The sheer amount of work required on the board prevents that from happening)

Yours, in particular, (since you wanted to ask us publicly rather than sending a PM), was rejected because of the blatant drug references.

This isn't the place for that, even if it's MLP related.

Oh, well in that case, I'm sorry I even tried...

[content removed]

To Artax, sorry I didnt think to do the PM thing, it might have made me look like a total idiot for bringing the issue to the public eye. I simply just wasnt thinking correctly in this regard.

I submitted a comic strip of my new OC pony webcomic days ago, but its never seen the light of day in the gallery. I'm not sure if the gallery updates are just super slow, or if my work was rejected for some silly reason...

So that's why I'm posting this thread, as a question regarding the status of that art submission.

as a note, I posted it twice. the first time I submitted it, I missed the notice that its pending for moderation approval and I thought it just didnt go through. Got the message after the second attempt which made me literally say "Oops!"

sorry 'bout that!

What if you used some kind of sealant over the cover like glue or something?

That's a thought! I'll have to experiment.

I'm sure that there's crafting sealant out there that may work on vinyl.

thanks for the suggestion!

From the Ponychan thread:

Anonymous Tue, May 8, 2012 7:57 PM No. 38206

>>38203

Hmm. What I would... I say you start over, but before that, use this book as a test subject of personal use!

It might not be in the right state to be sold -I share your observations, as a fellow perfectionist-, but this is your chance to see how sturdy the book is as you built it.

Write, draw, paint on it, flip through the pages, use it to its fullest and see how well it stands to the rough and tumble life of a personal journal.

I think this will be the best way to see if there's something fundamental to be changed in your process that you wouldn't have found out otherwise.

Reply • Report Anonymous Tue, May 8, 2012 7:57 PM No. 38207

*What I would do...

Speaking of perfectionism, oh ho ho.

Reply • Report Anonymous Tue, May 8, 2012 7:59 PM No. 38208

What I'm getting at, is that it's better to find out if there's something important to improve before you start selling these.

Reply • Report

Anonymous Tue, May 8, 2012 8:01 PM <a href="http://www.ponychan.net/chan/collab/res/37703.html#38209">No. 38209

>>38208

Okay, I've got to stop hitting "reply" before thinking everything through...

Anyway, I think this way you'll find out what exactly are the weak points in the process, and hopefully that way you'll find out the reasons behind the imperfections that popped out just now.

Reply • Report

My response:

Misterbull101 Tue, May 8, 2012 10:59 PM No. 38210

>>38209

I actually kinda like your idea here. Use the book as a sort of 'Beta' book and also as a kind of personal journal.

that being said, I dont think I'll apply the decorations to this one, but rather save them for a much more complete and perfected final form. I'll still finish work on the inner cover pieces though I may work more patiently at them and finish them over a period of time.

This will also give me some time to save up for some better tools needed for these kinds of journals. A book press, sewing rack, hole puncture rack and a few other things come to mind.

Oh, and I've decided to tackle some much smaller projects until my methods are completely perfected. And by 'smaller' I mean smaller journals half the size of this one. Instead of 30 signatures I'll go with 10 or 15 and I'll trim the pages in half to meet the ideal size.

I'll begin work on this shortly. Perhaps tomorrow. Or whenever I get the chance to go to the store again and purchase some more glue... c_c

Reply • Report

nuff said. I'm calling it a nigh- erm, morning c_c

Alright, so I got a bit impatient, but the glue has completely dried and now I can have a better look at the book as it is now... coverings and all (minus the decorative bits)

This is the part where I ask everypony for opinions. Should I keep working on this project or scrap it and start fresh and anew?

In my honest opinion, even though some of my earlier fears were proven wrong, I'm still seeing other flaws that can and may have already ruined the project for me.

Please observe the image and read the descriptions I post here to understand why I feel that way...

> #1

Here you see the fully bound book sitting right next to an age old classic. This is somewhat for comparison to another book, but its also my chance to show off a book from my own personal collection. I totally recommend Felix Salten's Bambi as a good bedtime read! but I'm getting a bit off topic here... c_c

> #2

okay, first issue. No matter how hard I try, I cant seem to keep the pages nice and flush. this is a shot of the side edge where the paper seems to jut out a bit crookedly. I could try sanding it down, but I fear that if I keep sanding away at this that the book would just become a warped mess...

> #3

And here, for some reason the cover looks a bit fat. I've pressed it between my fingers a few times, but it still retains that random mass... It may be how it was glued or something. Its not warped, in fact the book is pretty solid. Its just this middle part that looks a bit odd...

> #4

And here we can see that the vinyl became wrinkled for some reason. This might have happened while I was working the winged edges around the cover board. Honestly, I dont really know how this can be fixed.

> #5

And in the final image, I present the smallest and possibly the most insignificant of errors. The ribbon is too loose. Maybe its not such a problem, but the ribbon should probably stay centered. Perhaps I should had did a bit of head banding to fix that before gluing the book together. But I'm not yet any good at doing such thread work. (lol, bad excuses)

there are a few other problems that I could not fit into this image without it getting ridiculously too big for my liking. one of those problems has to do with the emboss work becoming a bit smoothed out and faded towards the books spine. The other has to do with the end pages being a bit roughed up from earlier sanding.

From all these things, I think I've learned a few simple lessons that I can certainly use on the next attempt. But for now, I really need to decide just what the heck I need to do with this one.

I certainly don't think its e-bay worthy in its current state (yes, I want to make and sell these things...) . Perhaps if I later added in the finished decorations that maybe it would even out, but I seriously have my doubts.

I'd really like to hear some opinions on this...

Just one word... WOW! This is absolutely one of the best projects I've ever seen attempted! I did some simple bookbinding years ago to make volumes of some magazines I wanted to save, but this goes well beyond anything I ever attempted.

lol, well I'm glad that someone likes it

Here you see the book completely glued together. I'm letting the glue dry over night so to avoid completely screwing it all up.

Of course, I'm having doubts on the stability of the project atm. Despite having measured everything to a T I'm discovering a few annoying flaws and one major flaw that could totally make this project go kaput.

The smaller issues are ones that probably can pass as noticeable blemishes. first little flaw that I noticed was that sometimes during the process of gluing the cover material to the boards, it apparently slid a couple of fragments of a centimeter making it slightly out of line which makes folding the winged edges over the cover board a bit crooked and whatnot. the second slight error is that because the cover material is a bit off, one of the books corners has this nasty exposed spot. I may have to purchase some brass book corners to cover that up

The one major error was discovered when I started gluing the end pages to the boards. When I try to close the book, the paper's edge wants to slide up the board, and when I try to open it, it wants to slide back down.

This means that I may have made an incorrect measurement on the spine. I'm hoping that by tomorrow when the glue is all good and dried that this wont be such a problem.

But if it is, then... well... this project is as good as ruined.

I'd have to start right back at square one, and that will ultimately suck...

Bad idea with the markers. After feeling I might have overdone the antiquing I found out that all the marker can very easily be wiped away with a damp napkin. The cover is completely spotless of marker as I type this.

Not sure whether or not to feel good about this or not. Sure, its good news in that when I totally mess up I can wipe it away. But its bad news in that the desired effect wont so easily last.

What if the user of the journal got caught in a rain storm and upon getting home they try to dry it up a bit?

Yeah, you get my point... c.c

I'll just have to either figure out another way to go about it or just skip the antiquing bit entirely.

Meh... I'm going back to bed. I'll just sleep on the thought.

No pic, as there's not really anything to show.

The emboss work is finished and I successfully glued and applied it to the boards (I had to take it off and reapply it a few times which unfortunately cost me just about all my glue, but its done!)

Atm, I'm just doing a bit of antiquing, by applying a bit of gray colored marker and smearing it around with my finger. When its done, I feel it'll start to resemble that of an old book.

Oh, and I should add, when I fold those winged edges over the boards it gives me an idea of the cover's thickness... this cover is darn thick!

Feeling somewhat burned out on the inner cover designs I decided to turn my attention back to the main outer cover material.

I measured out and cut the vinyl (yes, that's what I'm using). did some more measurements and a bit more cutting and now I'm working on the embossing.

The tutorial I learned this technique from said to first spread glue over the cover before laying out the fabric. But I'm a bit nervous about the glue drying too quickly on me so I'm just getting the embossing out of the way. When I'm ready to glue it all together I could just rub everything into place when I'm ready

The bottom panel is finished! I'll let you guys decipher the writing yourself using this Equestrian letter sheet here:

As an added feature to the journal I'll also include a Tolkien-ish letter sheet on the very last page of the journal. Something like this:

I seem to have misplaced my silver gel pen, so for Celestia I decided to try using the gold one. Bad choice. She now looks like Alicorn Fluttershy.

If ever I find my silver pen before the completion of this project I'll try making corrections. Until then Alicorn Fluttershy dethrones Celestia as the sun goddess.

Oh, did I ever mention my webcam takes damn good closeup images?

I meant how thick the individual pages were, yes. Computer paper answers that question just fine though.

Have you bound books before? This looks really neat and nice. (Not that I know a lot about bookbinding...)

well, to be honest, this is my third go at it.

The first two attempts came out terribly warped but I blame that on the poor choice of glue. As they say, you learn as you go

That's cool! The drawings were always what inspired me. I saw a movie recently -- the Secret of Kells. All the animation's inspired by the style in the Book of Kells. It's gorrrgeous. If you're interested in that kind of thing, it's a great movie to watch.

Out of curiosity, what weight is the paper you're working with?

weight?

I'm not totally sure off hand. The majority of the bulk is just regular computer paper but the end pages are a bit more thicker like card paper (I think it was resume paper or something like that)

If your wanting the overall weight of the book, I'll have to see about weighing it to check for ya. though I dont have any proper scales on hand atm

I can just imagine a pony-inspired illuminated manuscript in there, with lavish little paintings and calligraphy explaining Equestrian mythology.

lol, actually such manuscripts are what inspired me into looking at bookbinding in general. I love old ornate books that house important or cryptic documents

I hadn't commented so far because I couldn't come up with anything more coherent than sitting slack-jawed at how great that looks. Is it going to be a sketchbook? That would be the most amazing sketchbook ever.

It'll be whatever the user wants it to be

I plan to make these and maybe sell them on e-bay (if there's a good demand for them) if that fails, I may just use this as a journal for recording dreams or something

Taking a break for today. Just pigging out on some junk food and watching LP videos. I at least deserve one free day a week, don't I?

I'm still open to ideas for the quote that I am to use for that bottom panel. It doesn't have to be entirely show centric (I just need something thoughtful, like what you'd normally see written on the cover of your standard 'feel good' journal)

I know this thread is generally dead if not for my continual activity with this thing. But I'd like to hear a comment or an opinion every now and then, so please feel free to give me your input about the project so far

thanks in advance!

I've tried getting a good screenshot of this but the limited light in my living room made it kinda difficult. Oh well, this will do for now

The frame design for the inner front cover is almost finished as you may can tell. This is the result of several hours of sketching and then inking with the gel pens. I'm rather proud of how it came out. I just need to fill in those last two blanks. I'm thinking for the top one I'll do a tapestry style illustration of Celestia and Luna on both sides of the sun/moon with a bit of decor around it. For the bottom, I'd like to write some meaningful quote in Equestrian style alphabet.

Anyone got any good ideas for a quote?

Sweet Celestia, gel pens are fricken' awesome!

Facts to be, I'm kinda having second thoughts about the emboss work on this piece and instead just continue doing this sort of design all the way around it. c_c

So I've started on the next portion of the project: working on the decorative pieces for the inner covers. The piece in the picture is for the inner front cover.

The cut panels are actually spaces for some illustration work that I plan to do. The four corner panels may just be ink drawings of different flowers or wildlife. The large center panel will be a pretty picture of a pony. I'm thinking either Fluttershy tending to some cute wildlife or Twilight Sparkle reading a book.

I also plan on doing some emboss work on the black frame. Right now I'm trying to work out a good design for doing just that.

The inner work for the back cover will be similar but with only one big panel with an antique-ish map of Equestria.

The artwork will be inked and maybe water-colored (or some other coloring medium, I'll have to experiment)

Concerning inner covers in general, most people would simply just glue the very first and very last pages to the cover boards and call it quits.. But here, I'm taking it a few steps further. I really want to make this journal look as ornate as I possibly can.

>fig #1

Finished applying the cardboard for embossing. The written numbers are to help in reference to where I'll be applying the embellishments. this image is saved for future references.

>fig #2&3

Here you see the front and back view of what the cover looks like on the book itself. Its still not all put together just yet as I still have much more to do. But these images are just to give you a visual idea.

>fig #4

And also for future reference for working on the embellishments, I've kept a few of the cut pieces to help give me a scale guide to work with.

I have 8 hand made embellishment designs total that I'll need to make for the books outer cover.

Once done with the finished designs I'll make a mold from each of them and use them to make all the needed pieces from polymer oven bake clay.

I'm on a roll today!

Finished cutting up and piecing together the embossing bits for the front cover! (now I have the back cover and the spine to do, but those should be a bit more easier since I dont have much planned for those areas. )

I'm using cardboard from cerial boxes for this portion of the project since its nice and thick (but not too thick). Basically how this will work is that when I start applying the finishing fabric, I can simply go over it with an embossing stylus, pushing the material into the cut regions which in the end will make the book look more interesting.

Some of those cut regions are placeholders for decorative hand made embellishments (For these, I'll be using polymer oven bake clay coated with liquid gold leaf.)

Anyway, time to get back at it!