#tiny books bang 2023

[zhalfirin]

A princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs

Full cloth binding, backed with french groove and paper onlays, coloured edge and french double core endands.

The typeset was part of Renegade's Tiny Books Bang event last year, but it took me forever to get enough distance to come up with my own cover instead of copying the wonderful bind that was exchanged in the event.

This wonderful typeset was provided by @tinwhiskerpress

Materials used:

case covers - grey board 2,4 spine stiffener - cardboard covering materials - commercial bookcloth (Duo brick, brown) paper onlays: bugra bütten (yellow, green), marbled paper (by Renato Crepaldi)

inner book bookblock paper - Schleipen fly 05 (115gsm) endpapers - marbled paper by @renato-crepaldi endbands - buttonhole silk (Gütermann), leather core (1 and 2mm) edge colouring - oak gall ink and interference chameleon acrylic ink (Nebula copper)

Size: ~A6

See WIP pictures here and some detail pictures here

[simply-sithel]

because he's a poet by red0aktree [link]

Bound for the @renegadepublishing Tiny Book Bang. Typeset by @mythrilthread. Bookcloth hand dyed by @epitomereally for her Everything is Relative to You project... and I think she gave me the end pages as well...? Edges are buff 'n rub wax.

[ashmouthbooks]

Empty Graves by @unpretty and Empty Spaces (waves and particles) by kathkin

I participated in @renegadepublishing’s tiny book bang last year, and as participant I got access to all the typesets from the event. I saved the ones I thought I’d want to do, and yesterday I looked through that folder, spotted two fics with the word ‘empty’ in the title and thought “oh neat, i know and like these fics, and I can make matching-but-not-same binds for them”. I was delighted to re-discover that they were typeset by the same person, @little-cat-press, so I went ahead with the matchy idea.

Empty Graves is a Superman fic from the POV of Martha Kent, and just so happens to be one of my faves in unpretty’s sprawling series. I chose the marbled cover paper because it evokes stars and galaxies and space for me. The fic is very contained, localised - the Kent farm - but high stakes; Martha will protect her son from the universe if she has to (and she does), because her family is her universe. I liked the idea of wrapping this small-but-big fic in something that resembles the vastness of space. The spine is green to match the hints of green colour on the otherwise dark marble.

Empty Spaces is a Back to the Future fic from Doc Brown’s POV, and featuring transmasc Marty McFly. The Back to the Future movies are foundational to me, and this fic is simply wonderful, highlighting the unique friendship between Marty and Doc. For this I knew I wanted something that evokes time travel, and wound up with this section of a larger marbled pattern that resembles the sci-fi woosh of time (and space) travel. This spine is blue to match the hint of blue visible alongside the green.

Both marbled papers are from Jemma Lewis Marbling & Design. The insides are printed on 90gsm Munken Pure Smooth Cream. These are self-ended, so no endpapers. The bookcloth is sourced from Ratchford but I don’t know which brand it is.

These are A8 sized (printed on A4) - I believe the typesets are intended for letter sized paper, but as I’m not in the US A-series it is. This prints fine on A4. The margins to the sides are slightly wider than originally intended, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue here.

[mythrilthread]

If you believe Lucy Spraggan, we getting lucky sapphic style here: meaning that we did manage to get quite old, and are spending this November on the couch marathoning all the Twilight movies. So what better time to finish binding this delightful Twilight fic by @volturialice gorgeously typeset by @yarnnerd for Tiny Book Bang 2023?

🍎 I wanted to make it appropriately bloody hence the splatter on the endpapers, and the edges colored with a combination of acrylic paint and markers for that extra bleed.

🍎 Fun fact: I got this lovely marbled paper as part of packaging for my Merry Blackbird Postcard Society cards. Reduce, reuse, recycle!

🍎 The symbols on the cover are used in the typeset to mark that it’s basically three texts wearing one coat, so I also wanted to include them.

🍎 This is the biggest tiny book I’ve bound so far, being an A7 (something like 7x11 cm). It’s a very pleasant format!

[saltyteethbooks]

Me, opening the envelope in a restaurant yesterday and inside I was all Kristen_Bell_crying_over_cute_sloth_meme.gif because AAAAHHHHH I KNEW IT WAS SMOL I TEST PRINTED IT BUT

I also found the perfect dingbats so every scene break cat has a different facial expression (I hit the image limit) and added a little rainbow Easter Egg XDDDDD

Trying To Communicate by @copperbadge for @saltyteethbooks for the @renegadepublishing mini book bang!

@saltyteethbooks did the typeset, and I bound it, and sent it over to them.

I'm supposed to make myself a copy too, but stuff happened and I wasn't able to bookbind for like half a month, after procrastinating the first half of the month, and I finished this copy on the last day before we were supposed to get them in the mail.

So.

I'll make my copy later.

It was fun making a sextodecimal book! It's a cute little size, and I'll probably make some more after this. This one might be a little bit of an odd size, because it's typeset for A4 paper, but I shrank it a little to print on Letter instead, and then the printer shrank it a little more because it likes to add margins.

So it's got A proportions, but is a little bit smaller.

The title is done with a new gold paint I got recently! Nice and shiny, and I only had to use one coat plus a few small touchups in spots.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Tiny Book Bang 2023!

So this year is Renegade Bindery's first Tiny Book Bang. Typesetters formatted typesets to be any size smaller than a quarto, and binders later bound up those books!

I made two typesets for the Bang this year: the Kaer Morhan Bookclub by Jack Ironsides, and Gilded Chain by Sroloc_Elbisivni. I am delighted by both books I received from other binders! I learned so much from seeing the bindings that other folks completed! I felt very connected to our fan community, crafting across fandoms and international borders!

But this post is mostly about the book I bound for the Bang: Toy Soldiers by Copperbadge!

@mourningmountainsbindery made a delightful octavo-sized typeset of this story, "lightly comic-book themed" as described by the typesetter. There are three books because I bound for myself, my typesetter, and I always like to tempt the author with a book if I can. Both mourningmountainsbindery and @copperbadge have received their books, so I am free to share!

I tried to sneak in as many fun things as I could. Here we have some shiny foil on the title page.

The endbands are red/white/blue for Steve and red/gold for Tony.

I was incredibly fortunate that 4th of July was right around the corner when I shopped for materials. I found very appropriate cloth for the bookcloth cover ;) And the endpapers I have had for a very long time (a decade?!), so I was definitely glad to find them a home!

Thank you mourningmountainsbindery for the lovely typeset, thank you copperbadge for a lovely story! And thank you mods for all the hard work you do in the background.

[greenhorn-art]

Unqualified Assistance by TheDefenestrator

Art by @lycheeluv

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Words: 9,601

No one has ever doubted the identity of the “team reporter’s assistant” following Excellent Era around to their games, but he sure takes slacking to a new level. How does he get so many exclusive interviews and never publish anything?! Ye Xiu would like to protest that he has, in fact, listened to their advice and published many articles. They’re just all Glory guides.

Collection: QZGS Big Bang 2023

ABOUT THE BOOK

FORMAT: Letter quarto (trimmed), flatback casebinding, french link stitch, no tapes

FONTS: Times New Roman, Permanent Marker [via Google Fonts], KaiTi

IMAGES: Artwork by Lycheeluv

MATERIALS: 24lb Xerox Bold Digital paper (8.5"x11"), 80pt binder's board (~2mm), 30/3 size waxed linen thread, 1.9mm cording, green cardstock, Russian Green Iris bookcloth, DecoArt Crafter's Acrylic Yellow Gold, 20lb printer paper, paste wax

PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher, Bookbinder-JS

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Been feeling restless lately and thought that the focus and rush of Making A Thing would help. So I turned to my AO3 bookmarks to find a short fic to bind. I found three loosely connected by a similar theme: people interacting with Ye Xiu without knowing he's 'Ye Qiu'. I ended up doing all of them as a mini three-book collection.

[First, Second, Third]

Unqualified Assistance was the first one I typeset, using Times New Roman because in the story Ye Xiu poses as a reporter. (Times New Roman -> newspapers -> reporters). I went back in and added the Permanent Marker for the AO3 info after using it in the next book.

I also added a faint Lorem Ipsum background to the title page and first page of the story as a nod to the reporter profession.

Unqualified Assistance is another Big Bang fic. I wanted to highlight the awesome artwork, so I kept the typeset on the minimal side and didn't use any other art. Lychee's work is so lovely and expressive!

For the bookcloth I went with green because in the fic Ye Xiu is known as 'Wang's Rookie' or 'Rookie Wang'. (Time for more word association: Rookie -> greenhorn -> green, and Wang -> Wang Jiexi -> Tiny Herb -> green).

For the endpapers I used cardstock in a colour matching the bookcloth cover. No artwork or decorative paper here, just colour coordination that I can carry throughout the set.

On a whim, I trimmed the textbooks and painted the edges gold. This, I think, was the last step that really made the books a set.

With some finishing touches in the form of endbands and labels, it was done. The faux endbands were made by wrapping bookcloth around a core (in this case, leather cording). The paper label on the front cover was printed on regular ol' printer paper (20lb) treated with a paste wax (wax & mineral spirits/turpentine mix). In the future I'll use 24lb paper, because the 20lb turned slightly translucent after waxing.

[bocularwings]

So as of 2025, I've been regularly doing digital art for five years! I started in 2020, after around four years of an art drought caused by GCSE Art killing all the joy I ever got out of art. So this has been five years of rebuilding skills I'd forgotten, learning what I enjoy, experimenting, and above all prioritising fun over any sort of feeling of obligation to prevent burning out again.

That's why I post only every once in a blue moon and have no consistent style to speak of; I draw only when and what I want, and avoid it becoming a chore at all costs. And it's been working! I've made some pieces I'm really proud of, so I thought I'd make this lil post to reflect on the last five years, picking out some pieces and fondly critiquing some and giving myself permission to brag about others. Thank you lovely lovely people who follow this blog, even though I post so infrequently. <3

So! Starting with 2020, this was the first piece I ever did digitally:

TMA fanart, because TMA was the whole reason I started drawing again in the first place! I had trouble focusing on podcasts when I first started listening, so I needed something to do with my hands and there was only so much Mahjong I could play before I got bored. So I bought myself a tiny tiny drawing tablet (SO small, I didn't realise how much of a difference it made until I got a bigger one and suddenly everything was so much easier), and drew this.

It's cute! I remember having so much fun drawing all the little details - the books on the shelves all representing a fear each, the post-it notes (the phone number is for the Domino's nearest the Institute, haha), the little tape recorders - and I'm still quite fond of Jon's appearance. You can tell I had NO idea how lighting worked, or how to use lighting to create mood. But it's cute, and it's the one that started it all, haha.

Onto 2021, with a couple of my favourite pieces from that year:

I experimented a bunch that year!! The first image was for a Big Bang, and I think that's the piece I learned I really adore texture and I want it EVERYWHERE. A lot of my pieces that year were done entirely with the scratchiest brush I had, just for that lovely texture. That piece stretched me a lot, drawing two people's full bodies with a full background and so many different materials... woof! But I ended up so so happy with it, and I'm still very fond.

The other one was an experimental style which I ended up really liking. That year I'd challenged myself to draw at least one thing per month (with the caveat that I could quit at any time if it became too much like a chore) and I managed it! And it lead to a lot of very fun experiments and styles and outcomes that I probably wouldn't have done otherwise.

2022 was a very light year for art, but I still made something around once every two months. This was the year I was writing my dissertation though, so that's totally fine. But these two pieces, oohh I really love them. This year was a big year for learning how to use light and shadow effectively.

2023 was a great year for art. I learned a TON that year, and created pieces I'm still so damn proud of. That first image was the first real study sort of thing I'd ever done, and it was so much fun. It's based off Germanic Warrior Looking at a Roman Helmet by Osmar Schindler, and studying that painting triggered my hyperfocus sooo fast. I think I blinked like three times in the what, four months it took me to draw that. It was intoxicating and so much fun and I was sooo relieved when I finished and it was exactly how I wanted it to look. Still so proud of it, just unfortunate now what fandom it's in and what piece of shit author it's associated with.

The second piece I drew like, the day after I finished the first one. I needed something super chill and fun so it's just a screenshot study, but that sorta comic book-esque style with all the heavy black shadows just came out of nowhere and I haven't been able to recreate it since. But I looooove how this piece turned out. Also the rocks!!! The rocks turned out so good guys, they look so realistic and I have no idea how I did that.

2024 was also a pretty light year for art, but I made some of my favourite pieces ever. The first one was an art fight attack for my bestie @ninneko19 of his wonderful character I'm obsessed with, and I really like how it turned out. It was suuuuuch fun expression practice, and I love that guy. The hearts behind him are bc of ME, bc I'M obsessed w him. Mwah mwah.

The second piece is my beloved OC Juno. He's so sad all the time </3 so I got his permanent depressed face down p well, bless his heart. But I looove this piece, it's exactly what I picture Juno actually looking like. It took a billion years bc I tend to agonise over every single thing until it's perfect, but I love how it came out. Kissing him on the mouth and also crying abt him.

Finally 2025!! This is the only thing I've drawn so far this year, but I looooove it. Another study, this time of Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel, featuring my dear boy Bash who suffers so much every day of his life. His hair, horns, eyes, etc etc are made of gold and silver and copper, so the metallic textures made me a little insane but in a good way. I LOVE rendering metal, which is good bc I give so many of my ocs random metallic body parts and features, lol. The background on this one is a little iffy, but hey. I'm not here for perfectionism I'm here for fun, and I gotta freaking remember that.

Hopefully I keep going another five years!! Planning to do art fight again this year and maybe try push myself a little with it (I usually draw one (1) singular piece during AF lol). Was also toying with the idea of opening commissions, maybe if I push myself during art fight and see how I actually fare when drawing multiple things under pressure for other people. We'll see! Thank you for reading this far if you did <33

[mythrilthread]

I’m so incredibly happy that my typeset of a dearly beloved fic (go read it here, it’s incredible) got turned into this stunning piece of art.

I shall treasure it always (and never bite it, not even a little bit, even thought it does look a bit like a magic oreo) ✨

Here's the bind I did of @mythrilthread's typeset of @psychofink's fic Falling Like the Flip of a Coin.

I picked this one up for Renegade's Tiny Books Bang (after completely failing to typeset anything myself, cry) and immediately knew what I needed to do with it. It needed to be a coin. The story loops, and I wanted the book to have that similar over-and-over vibe, so I took Ril's perfectly reasonable left to right tiny book typeset and printed it so the pages flip up. When you reach the end of the book, the natural action is to flip it over (and start again).

It was quite tedious to punch the spine and cut out the circles; I made a template out of vellum tracing paper to frame the text when punching holes and tracing the circle for cutting. I roughly trimmed the sewn and glued text block with a craft knife, then I clamped it between book boards cut to size (and shape) and finished it with a belt sander. The belt sander (while effective) left the edge a little toasty, so I painted it with acrylic gouache.

The endpapers are mercury glass paper (from a scrapbooking pack), the bookcloth is Duo 105 (Graphite/Brikett/Briquette), the cover decoration is silver iron-on vinyl cut on my cricut. The knotwork design (from the title page) is repeated on front and back.

I used a lot of new techniques on this book, including shaping, sanding, and edge painting. This is also the first book I've made that isn't my usual case structure, as the spine piece was made separately and attached prior to the boards.

Overall this was a really fun if challenging project, and I'd definitely try it again if I had a book that really called for that sort of shape!

[gargoyleandgremlinpress]

Happy Fanfic Writers' Appreciation Day 2023! Or as we've been calling it, FFWAD.

I participated again this year in @renegadepublishing's FFWAD challenge, to make and send a book to an author as a gesture of love and appreciation.

Last year, it was the very first bound fic I'd shared publicly. This year, I combined FFWAD with Renegade's Tiny Book Bang event, and sent tiny books to an author! How tin, you ask? A few more pics for scale are coming.

For the Tiny Book Bang, I typeset three fic, and signed up to bind one typeset for someone else. Hilariously, the book I bound for the typesetter AND one of my own typesets were both MDZS fic by the same author, so Nirejseki got a copy of Tigers, a collection of short about "what if what the Nies meant by qi deviation was... turning into a tiger?" typeset by the fantastic @kulapti, and I also snuck in a tiny copy of Good Neighbors, a fic about the Nie clan's relationship with the Fae.

Onwards to pictures!

I really loved the chance to riff hard on the tiger theme. Three copies, one for me, one for the typesetter, one for the author. The covers are Duo book cloth in Eruption, some Japanese paper of indeterminate origin (I keep saying that because I have a scrap pack I bought years before I started binding and don't remember what any of it is), and marbled paper from @aetherseer, who is exceedingly generous with her hand-marbled scraps.

The inside is gorgeous too! This is @kulapti's work, and I love the title page SO very much.

You can see where I'm holding it open here that it's pretty small. But not as tiny as...

This one is JUST LITTLE. Book cloth scraps and chiyogami paper for the cover, and stencilling the spine involved a lot more swearing than usual. I did the cover lettering on both books with a Cricut stencil and paint. Still can't believe the tiny letters turned out on Good Neighbors! Some progress pics to show the scale...

Happy Fanfic Writers' Appreciation Day, Nirejseki! Keep doing what you do!

[zhalfirin]

The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe

These books were part of the Renegady Publishing Tiny Books Bang 2023 event.

Typesetting by @yarnnerd

Full leather binding with gauffered and painted cover, coloured edges, hot stamped spine title and protective slipcase. materials used:

cover binders board, 1,5 (case construction) leather, goatskin (covering material) colourshift acrylic paint heat active foil, silver (hot stamped title)

inner book munken polar, 100gsm (book body) munken polar, 100gsm, painted with oak gall ink (endpapers) colourshift acrylic paint (edge colouring) decorative paper, linnen thread (endbands)

slipcase bindersboard, 1 (case construction) satogami paper, black (lining and narrow sides) decorative paper (wide sides)

book size: 3,1cm x 4,7cm

[simply-sithel]

and when you move, I'm moved by Catja [link]

A wee 60 pages- true mini, bound for the @renegadepublishing Tiny Book Bang. Typeset by Indoor Cat Press.

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...this book was so tiny, I lost it in my Drafts! Sharing now, almost a year later, as the 2024 Tiny Books Bang nears it's 2nd typeset reveal

[zhalfirin-binds]

Call of Cthulhu Tiny books WIP pics

All of those were done in the aftermath of Renegade's tiny books bang 2023. You see what happened was, I did a typeset (typesetting one book for the exchange meant I'd receive a copy bound by someone else!), but I could not decide which one I wanted to submit. So I did a test print of the different variations, but since they are so small and the test print took only 2 sheets and I had to print 1 sheet anyway to check margins and the design I picked, I just printed both sheets. Now there they were and it would have been a horrible waste to throw three perfectly good already printed books away. So I bound them and then I had 4 tiny book blocks to try different designs and use up scrap leather pieces that were too small for anything else. Only 4 months later all of them have found a new home and I could do more if I want to.

[ir0n-angel]

Get to Know the Blogger

Hopping on @crackinglamb's open invite. 😘

Passing it on as an open invite to anyone who wants to do it.

Last song: "Railway" by Stray Kids' Bang Chan. Fun fact, I have hypersensitive hearing. This song has so many layers, it literally feels like a tickling in my brain.

Favourite colour: All of them, but I wear mostly pink.

Last book: "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" by Agatha Christie

Last movie: [thinks really hard] I think it was one of the Transformers movies back on New Years 2023-24?? I don't watch much.

Last TV show: Dr. Who 60th anniversary special, whenever it first aired.

Sweet/spicy/savoury: Savory, then sweet. I can only handle a tiny bit of spicy, but I prefer to skip it altogether.

Relationship status: Married and in a queerplatonic polycule.

Last thing I googled: Dr. Who episodes, because I couldn't remember which ones were the anniversary ones.

Current obsession: Cute things. Rediscovering my love of all things Sanrio, collecting cute keychains and lapel pins, and ALL the stickers. I like Stray Kids music and am impressed by their talent, but I love the Skzoo plushies way more. (I have way too many plushies.)

Looking forward to: A couple of shows and events coming up in 2025 that I'm excited for. Hoping to have a few new experiences along the way.

Blank template under the cut.

Last song:

Favourite colour:

Last book:

Last movie:

Last TV show:

Sweet/spicy/savoury:

Relationship status:

Last thing I googled:

Current obsession:

Looking forward to:

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of Gilded Chain by Sroloc_Elbisivni

Gilded Chain by Sroloc_Elbisivni

The throne of Iacon's Primes is draped in golden chains. The glitter hides how strong they are--and how impossible to escape.

Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Megaton/Optimus Prime Characters: Megatron, Optimus Prime, Soundwave, Ravage Words: 3,710

I typeset Gilded Chain for the 2023 Renegade Tiny Book Bang, way back in August. Another member claimed the typeset and bound me a fabulous tiny book. However, while all of that was going on, I was also struck with a vision of a book in gold chains. It took me a while to puzzle out how to make this happen, but here we are now. This is now the second copy of Gilded Chain I have sitting on my shelf!

Here are some exterior shots. I embedded the eyepins in layers of thin cardboard, so they were sunk down into the covers instead of above/below/beside:

The endbands match up well with the chains despite being thread:

With a name like "Gilded Chain", I had to go ham with gold every place I could fit it in, which also includes the endpapers, the frontispiece, and the interior title:

On the inside I wanted to continue the them of ostentatious luxury, so the dropcaps are very elaborate. And the textbreaks are thematically appropriate chains:

So, this is a tiny book, letter-octavo sized. I have a terrible time telling how big are books in photos, so I'm experimenting with some comparisons:

Obviously the ruler is most accurate, but the shell is aesthetically appealing :)

I'm thrilled to have pulled of this cover! There was a lot of fucking around and finding out. @sroloc--elbisivni has their copy and has graciously allowed me to share with everyone online. Thank you wonderful author! I greatly enjoy this story, hopefully a bit of fanart tells you how much!

Also located on A03 here.

[fandom-trash-and-hyperfixations]

Eeeeeeeee

Tiny Books Bang 2023

The Kaer Morhen Book Club by @jackironsides, typeset by @catspawbindery . Amyda has received her copy, and so has the author! so here we goooo

I JUMPED at the chance to bind this - agonised for a while about whether or not I got my first choice in claims - as this was a fic I already know and love and I had IDEAS for what to do with it. Amyda's typeset was so inspiring, including a frontispiece and medieval-esque fonts, and since the fic features medieval romance novels (chivalric, really) I thought it would be fun to try to emulate the binding of the novel Starcrossed Love as described in the fic:

He waves an octavo at them. The cover has beautifully marbled paper, and black leather enclosing the spine with gilt decorations pressed in.

And there it is, with its dark calfskin binding, a single star stamped in gold on the spine.

This is an octavo binding (though printed on A4 paper, so a very small octavo - an A7-sized book), it has a leather spine (animal: unknown), marbled cove papers, and a star foiled onto the spine with a hot foil pen. for endpapers I chose Japanese Chiyogami paper as I'd stumbled over this particular pattern by accident and thought both the colour scheme and pattern matched the medieval vibe. the headbands are green and gold embroidery floss.

I struggled a little with the leather - which I've never worked with before - so my own copy (the first trial copy) didn't come out as well, but lessons learned and the typesetter's and the author copies came out beautifully.

my copy, using a different, thicker leather for the spine, resulting in no visible hinge at all:

it doesn't look bad, but it's not the vibe I wanted and I had to do a lot of infilling to account for the thickness of the leather since I didn't have any leather paring tools.

the author's copy is a different colour scheme for two reasons: I sourced the leather from the leather scraps bin in Shepherd's, London, and the pieces were very small. I was only able to find two pieces large enough to cover the spine of an A7 (I'd brought along a dummy to test the scraps against) and the two pieces were different colours. I also didn't have enough of the medieval-esque Chiyogamy for a 3rd set of endpapers so I chose a wildly different but striking Chiyogamy paper to match the colours of the leather and marbled paper. the headbands are dark blue and pale blue embroidery floss.

bonus: all three copies together: