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Necronomicon Book Of The Dead Pdf



When it comes right down to it, I'm no good at drawing or painting. I can, given time and lots of patience, produce something recognizable, but it will never be mistaken for art.I knew right away that would be the hardest part of this project. To be honest, I'd been toying with the idea of making something like this for a while, so I already had the cover pretty much finished in my head. Actually making pages that looked good, however . . . I wasn't even sure where to begin!After a lot of thought, I resorted to asking my spare brain (google) if it knew where I could find some necronomicon-looking pages. I did a fair amount of digging through peoples' work that was either substandard, not quite what I was looking for, or more frustratingly, awesome but only two or three pages long. Eventually, I found the website of Francois Launet, a professional artist and Lovecraft enthusiast. His work was EXACTLY what I had been looking for! However, it was so good, I almost didn't contact him. This guy was such a talented and professional artist, I almost felt like I'd be insulting him if I asked to use his art!I dug around on the net some more, but just came up empty handed. After some more thought, I decided it couldn't hurt to ask. I mean, I wasn't asking him for his art so I could go and make a bunch of money on it, I just wanted to build something really cool for a non-profit theater.To my surprise and delight, Francois, or Goomi, as he is known, got right back to me. He stipulated that I could only use his work for non-profit purposes (no problem there!), and promptly provided me with high resolution copies of the pages I requested! I want to be absolutely clear: this prop owes about 95% of it's awesomeness to Goomi's amazing artwork and generosity! Besides the art from Goomi, I also pulled some paper ageing ideas and other inspiration from , they have some really awesome tutorials!




Necronomicon Book Of The Dead Pdf



The cover of the book, I decided, would be plywood. I needed something sturdy to stretch the rubber over, and I already had a bunch of 1/4" ply on hand.I cut five pieces, one thin strip for the spine, two large pieces about the size of a piece of paper for the main covers, and two very thin strips to help the spine/cover interface flex better.Once cleaned up, I hot glued some spare felt I had over the pieces to act as hinges. I should have used a sturdier fabric less prone to fraying (and less green!), but it worked out all right. I attached some both on the inside and the outside of the cover.


Looking at pictures of the book used in the movies, it seemed to me that there was some sort of ribs or ridges underneath the "skin" the book was bound in, so before attaching the mask, I fired up the hot glue gun. Starting from the center of where the face would be, I started drawing thick radial lines in hot glue. I continued these onto the back side of the book as well.


Starting at the nose, I put a large daub of hot glue down and held it in place until it set. In a circle maybe 1-2 inches around the nose, I put down a layer of epoxy. I surrounded that with another circle of hot glue, followed by another circle of epoxy, on until I reached the edges of the front cover.I didn't put any epoxy or glue over the spine, I figured it would need to flex. Starting from the spine edge of the back cover, I finished stretching the now quite chopped up mask over the book.


To finish stretching the mask, it's a simple matter of pulling each of the strips around to the inside of the book, hot gluing them in place, trimming the excess, and using epoxy to make it permanent.After that, I took all the strips of excess rubber I carved off the mask and used them to fill in the gaps. I used nearly all of the rubber, and just barely covered the book!Finally, feel around the cover. If there are any loose spots, just poke a hole in the mask there with an awl of knife, insert the tip of the hot glue gun, and squeeze some in. Once that cools, it will be sturdy and ready to paint.


The paint job was a four step process.First, I covered the whole thing, inside and out, with a simple white acrylic primer. Next, I mixed up a fairly large batch of grayish brown paint, which I put a couple of coats on the inside and outside of the book.Next up I made two more colors, one a darker, reddish brown, the other a very dark brown. I used them for detail--lots in the eyes, nose, and mouth, and just lightly around most of the outside cover to add some contrast. By this point, I wasn't happy with the shape of the mouth, so I used the brown paint to reshape it to more of a scowl, as somehow in the stretching process it almost looked like the book had a slight smile!I didn't like how flat the finish was, so I hit the whole thing with some gloss enamel spray paint. It actually dissolved the acrylic a bit, which I was really worried about at first, but it ended up looking great! If I'd had more time with the book (I had to give it to the stage director), I'd have hit the whole thing with some very fine grit sand paper. It went from being very dull before the gloss to being a bit too shiny afterwards. At this point, the cover is done! Now it's time to move on to the pages.


The first part of ageing the pages is to soak them in warm water in a shallow pan. After a few minutes, even the thick paper I used was saturated and soft.Using a fork, I scratched at the edges of the paper, making them look ragged and worn. I left one side of each page, the side that would be towards the spine, intact.To add a sense that the book was old and used, I put creases, tears, and small holes in some of the pages. Do this while it's wet, but before the next step! While the page is wet any damage you do to it will be magnified as the fibers tear and fray.A major plot point in both the movie and play is that several pages have been removed from the Necronomicon and must later be recovered. This is a good time to remove the pages. I wanted to make it look like they had come loose or been ripped out, so for three of the pages I folded and then tore them off near the spine edge. I kept those edges so I could later bind it into the to book.Once each page has been scuffed and damaged, hang it up to dry--if it still has water in it, it won't absorb the tea as well.


Once all your pages are aged and dry, you're ready to bind them into a book. I found a lot of methods for doing this online, and if I'd looked into it BEFORE i started the process, I would have made the pages first and cut out the spine of my book a bit smaller to match them, and done this in a slightly different fashion.However, this will work quite well, and requires less precision than some other methods.First, I got a couple of large, flat, heavy boards and a couple of clamps. I carefully collated my pages as best I could, lining up the spine edges as neatly as possible. I clamped these down between the two boards, leaving about 1/2" out.I thoroughly painted the exposed edge of the papers with plain white glue, making sure to stick the bristles of the paintbrush between the pages. When done, I clamped two small strips of wood over the pages, pressing them firmly together, and let it dry overnight.


This is the step where a narrower spine would have come into play. The sheaf of pages is too thin to glue in along both edges, so I was only able to glue it along one side. It worked fine, but it wasn't quite what I had imagined.I used epoxy for the glue which seemed to work out well. After placing the pages where I wanted them and laying down the epoxy, I closed the book and put a heavy weight on it overnight.Once the epoxy cured, I painted the green felt a brown close to the color of the rest of the book, let it cure, and it was done!


What can I say about the play? It was . . . simply amazing. It was the most fun I've ever had in a theater, by a long shot. By the end I was absolutely soaked in fake blood, and my cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing so much. Everyone involved in the play, from the director and background staff, to the actors and the live band were just great. It was a messy, ridiculous, bloody madhouse, and I loved it! A local brewery even produced a limited run "Dead by Dawn Red" ale that was delicious!I cannot recommend this musical enough! Look around at Halloween time, there's a good chance someone in your area is putting this on!One of my big concerns about the book, how shiny it was, was allayed when I saw the play. When they first discover the book, they blow a bunch of dust (actually ash) off the cover. This dust took down that shininess, and at the same time made the book look very old!By the time I saw the play, the book had already developed a bunch of blood stains, particularly in the ripped out pages. They looked awesome!Here are a few snippets of video I was able to snatch when I wasn't hiding the camera from the gouts of blood spraying everywhere:


Nice work! I'm making a book inspired by the 2013 version of "Evil Dead" and have been scouting out ideas. Having done somw bookbinding before, I'm using a slightly different method, but the ageing and distressing stuff is very useful. Thanks for sharing


Will do! BTW, two excellent guides to making your own hard backed books can be found on YouTube here and here. You can also pre-print the pages to produce your own Grimoire, spell book and other props.


Leathercovered necronimicons are quite cheap so I prefer physical book over having to sit near computer and make my eyes sore. I just remembered how someone made book out of elder scrolls oblivion's book found all over the real, printed them and bound them to book form and even made a custom leatgercover with rune symbol 2ff7e9595c


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