corduroy-creates - Tumblr blog

[corduroy-creates]

I wanted to put this mod on my big mod list, but it was hidden at the time.

It adds a little cozy spot for Paarthurnax to chill at. That's it.

Paarthurnax's Perch

[corduroy-creates]

A strange coincidence (that I didn’t plan)

Also he was raised by Altmer but elves nonetheless.

Lore tidbits for those interested:

I like to build player-ocs by my experience with the game. Lynthrax was unique in the fact that I didn’t know what Argonians were, much less that you could play as one.

So I never knew anything about their culture while starting my journey. This led to a “Well Thats Lore Now” moment, and Lynthrax turned out to be an argonian who’s finding his people and exploring the culture he didn’t have growing up.

It’s also the reason he’s so weird sometimes lol.

I am brainstorming his backstory, but I’m going to wait until I know more about the world to set stuff in stone.

(It will likely matter that the name and suffix in “Lynthrax” is closest to Daedric names)

[corduroy-creates]

made these studying cat genetics over the past 2 weeks!

i felt like there weren't enough visual guides of cat genetics so i went ahead and made some simple ones, my main references were Sparrow's Garden the website, Sparrow's Garden the blog, Messybeast, and The Little Carnivore.

[corduroy-creates]

Back in the office/ back on my bullshit

[corduroy-creates]

I've always loved drawing people and especially portraits. Your art is so inspiring! Do you have any advice on drawing portraits with accurate proportion? What aspects are the most important in portraits, do you think? And what are good exercises? I'm sorry for bombarding you with so many questions! :3

Thank you! There’s one thing about drawing portraits that I don’t think I’ve ever touched on, and it’s the technique of constraining features.  Basically, it becomes easier and more intuitive to rotate the face in 3D space once your mind grasps exactly where the features are located and, furthermore, where they can’t be located.  

I use a weird double trapezoid shape that I’ve depicted below in red to keep track of facial feature placement every single time I draw a face.  It follows the top of the eyebrows, touches the corner of the eye, traces down to the corner of the lips, and finally ends at the bottom of the lips.  

The shape of the constraint will change depending on the person’s features, and it works for every angle of the head.  For me it really internalized where each part of the face was, as well as where it started and ended. It kinda helps moderate your drawings; i.e., you’ll stop drawing features that are wildly misplaced or off-sized.  I don’t literally draw this shape out every time I draw a face, but I see it in my mind’s eye 100% of the time.

If you’re still learning proportions, a good exercise is to grab pictures of people and trace this shape over them (either digitally or with a marker or something) to get an idea of what realistic constraints looks like.  Then go back to studying faces, and constantly check your drawing by tracing along the eyebrows and down to the bottom of the lips to make sure that things aren’t off (e.g., the constraint isn’t terribly asymmetric).  It takes a while to get used to, but it might help you get a good feel for portraiture.  

There’s one other unrelated thing I like to do with faces, and if you’ve seen a lot of my pics you’ve already picked up on it.  If you kinda add some shading to the area on the cheek just below the eye and down to the nose, I think it adds a decent amount of depth to a face.  Don’t go overboard of course but there’s another little tip that could be of use.

[corduroy-creates]

Bookbinding: A Stitch in Time

My mom has been hoping to get her hands on a hard copy of A Stitch in Time, which, as I'm sure most of you are aware, tends to be pricey if you can find it. (It's currently listed for ~$115 on eBay, and more expensive elsewhere.)

So, I decided to put my bookbinding skills to use and make her one for her birthday.

Notes on the design and construction:

The cover design was inspired by (or rather adapted from via considerable photoshopping) this book cover from 1901 that happened to cross my dashboard in a post with a bunch of other cool old book covers:

I created the Cardassian building silhouettes based on a screencap, and the DS9 silhouette is borrowed from the Niners logo. The orchid on the back cover emerging from the Obsidian Order logo is one I found in Cricut Design Space.

(Feel free to use these in your own projects, if you like.)

The bookcloth is by BOOKCRAFTSUPPLYCO on Etsy (dark green). The cover designs are HTV, Cricut Everyday Iron-On (black), Cricut Foil Iron-On (gold), and Vinyl Frog Metallic Foil (holographic silver). The Cardassian Union logos on the end pages were done using Cricut's foil transfer system (gold). The fonts on the cover are DS9 Title and DS9 Credits from st-minutiae.com.

[corduroy-creates]

Bookbinding for Beginners by a Beginner

All of the stuff I've written thus far. [October 28th 2023]

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Five and A Half

Part Six [Added October 31st 2023]

Trouble Shooting Aside [Added November 11th 2023]

Part Seven [Added November 16th 2023]

Part Eight- and Final Post (Until I ultimately write more, cause lets face it, I've already started tweaking how I do things) [Added November 29th 2023]

[corduroy-creates]

Charting Stars on a Stained Glass Ceiling by Mornmeril

baby’s first merthur 🫶🏻

cover art by @merlinlikethebird

[corduroy-creates]

It's time! for! 2ha!!!!!!! I've had 'the husky and his white cat shizun' on my radar as a bookbinding project basically from the very start, back when I thought it was impossible that any of these danmei novels would ever be licensed for english translations. But this book is so long, and besides, the translation wasn't complete, so it went onto the backest of back burners. Until now! So, the book has been licensed. It's started releasing! As usual, please support these authors, they have a passionate english-speaking fanbase, and I very much want them to enjoy that success in a practical sense and not just an abstract one. And I also want more of these novels translated, haha. But the nature of licensing means I've also gotten a lot more interested in preserving prior translations in formats that can't casually be yoinked from the internet.

Now, this is a big novel. This was 1.1 million words. The stack of pressed text quarto blocks was over 15 inches, and once I added covers (very thick, for reasons I'm about to cover) and boxes, this thing was 22 inches long. Oh my god. This sustained effort naturally overlapped with an international trip and two crucially Important work presentations. I almost died. I had to split it into multiple boxes because I wasn't sure I could laminate boards thick enough to support so much weight at so much length and still cut it with any precision, lmao

And those covers? I took inspiration from notebooks I've sent with cover flaps like these, and also decided to see if I could incorporate the strip magnets I bought for peller box experiments and barely used. The downside that didn't make itself apparent until late in the construction process was that laminating boards to match this depth made the covers REAL thick, and difficult to cover with a crisp finish. Duo bookcloth can get wrinkly and fragile when it's wet, so it didn't entirely take me by surprise, but it's something I'll be accounting for next time I try this construction!

I tried to stick to a black and blue and silver color scheme, because it matches the book, but I also accepted some gold highlights on the endpapers. The duo bookcloth tends to photograph with a bit more brown in the color shift than I see in person, but I think it plays out well in person or in photos! The endpapers make for a nice striking pop when the book opens and don't blend into the cover fabric, which was something I definitely wanted to avoid.

And, speaking of thematically appropriate, I found this image for chapter headers that was almost perfect, but the wrong kind of flowers. So I did change those to haitang blosoms, haha. That happened early in the typesetting process, but I did also have that on my mind as I worked out decorations for the boxes! Mostly, I just titled what book of the novel it was on the top and left it there, but the very last detail I added was a pair of foil flowers done in pink and silver, on the outside edges of the boxes for book 1 and the extras. I finished that last night and then went to bed SO excited to take pictures in the morning. I really had an incredible time with this book, and the whole adventure reminded me just how much I love 2ha. I'm so happy I did this, I really had just an incredible time!!!!!

[corduroy-creates]

Sheppard's Law, by @cesperanza

Version 3 of the fic I bound for the Renegade Bindery gift exchange! (you can see speranza and @gempothospress's versions here)

I had a lot of fun typesetting this--I took the epitaph motif from the section titles and ran with it. I have never seen any form of Stargate, so thanks to cesperanza and @annerbhp for consulting. Other things I hadn't done before making these three books: cover cutouts, or foil.

"I don't know much about Stargate," said I, "so I'll just put a Stargate on the cover. Should be pretty straightforward." I then proceeded to learn that foil quills were not my friend, that the cricut foil head was finicky as hell (it works beautifully on bookcloth-- but not on leather or buckram,) and in the case of this particular edition, remember too late that unlike leather and buckram, you cannot wipe glue off bookcloth with water. I think I might start taping wax paper over my covers when I'm casing in so that I stop having this problem.

That being said, both the foil and the cutouts were kind of addicting. So I might end up sneaking them into more books where they may or may not belong.

[corduroy-creates]

Lord of the rings! Again! I'm fond enough of this story, but what this project definitely taught me in contrast to things like svsss is that I have I have basically no patience for repeating myself unless the thing I'm repeating was a passion project from the start, haha. But after I finished my first take last year as a gift for my cousin's wedding, like a fool, I told my brother he could pick what handmade gift he wanted for his wedding and he said... lord of the rings.

I wasn't going to give my brother a less extravagant version than I gave my cousin, so I went all in! And I really think i nailed it with the edge art. Watercolors are classic, but I was the type of sketchbook kid who stuck to pencils and pens. It was originally going to have watercolors also, until the lines turned out this detailed and I started worrying about making things muddy. And honestly, doing lines like this where you don't miss the watercolors worked out REALLY well, and I'm going to keep that strategy in mind going forward. I want to get good at watercolors, but I also know it's valuable to play to your own strengths!

I'm really pleased with how the elements of this came together! The last book was black and blue, so flipping the palette to reds was a lot of fun, and I really enjoy these endpapers. Leather endbands against a leather spine remain one of my fave effects. And as painstaking as drawing the siege of gondor was, and as hard as it was to scrape together references for a spread that 1) showed the cool stuff and 2) had the aspect ratio to cover an 18"x4" surface area, it was really rewarding to see it all come together. I'm really delighted with how this turned out! Two last indulgent pictures to show off the art without those covers getting in the way:

[corduroy-creates]

I saw this binding method on Susana Dominguez Martin’s Instagram page on Sunday and my mind was so blown that I had to figure it out and try it myself.

This is genius for thick books 🙌🏻

[corduroy-creates]

Mo Dao Zu Shi!!!!!

Ahahaha, what can i say that i haven't said before? Actually, I'm not certain I've explicitly stated that I'm determined to make myself lavish single-volume editions of all my most favorite cnovels with lavish edge decorations, and mdzs has been a notable hole in my collection (my collection of two, lmao. and svsss deserves an edition with more extravagant decorations). So here we are!

I've adored this set of illustrations since i saw them, years ago, and i finally got ambitious enough with my pens to try to go for it. It was.... a lot of work. A lot. But it turned out so well I can't even be mad at myself! I wanted to get a good pair of thematic images, without having to draw too many faces at such low resolution (did i properly consider all those background lans and corpses? I did Not). These were high drama and a good pairing for the characters being at their stubbornest, lowest point. Never again! But I'm glad i did it XD

What else. This typesetting came in at 1360 pages, small text but very comfortable for my eyes. It's rounded and backed (probably the outside limit of what i want to round and back in a quarto book, honestly), and it has chiyogami endpapers and leather endbands. This time, i chose a contrasting shade from the spine leather and honestly LOVE the effect, I'll probably do it again.

This was a lot, but again, i absolutely love it! It might get a box soon, but i don't have plans now, so I'll post this as is and add to it if needed :D

[corduroy-creates]

Who wants to make a peller box?

Guess what! I finally gathered my pages of scribbled notes, my camera of haphazard in-progress pictures, and finally compiled a set of instructions for making one of these bad boys!

And not only that, but I've got two versions of this baby. I like mixing and matching my unit families because sometimes 1/32 inch sparks joy and sometimes 14 mm is just so convenient, but especially since all of my chipboard comes in english thicknesses, here's a version of the process for my fellow imperial units weirdos:

And here's one for the sensible folks of the world, raised on a base-ten system rather than dividing everything in half and then in half and then in half-- I won't subject you to inches, when there's a workaround, but I was tempted! Have your localized version of the story and have fun with it:

Mad credit of course goes to Hugo Peller, who developed these things in the first place, but also to Jack Fetterer, who preserved a set of notes from a 1990 class, which, as far as I can tell, are the most complete set of instructions available online. But I'm an engineer, I couldn't be satisfied there, I had bludgeon it into a system of equations, sorted by usage and material. And I also go into some of the hiccups I ran into trying to follow those class instructions, like being a green amateur at leatherwork, or not having the equipment to saw plywood boards in my apartment. These instructions still do make some unfair assumptions about the base knowledge level of anyone who wants to give this a try, like using bookcloth rather than plain cloth, but I may try to loop back and adjust that soon.

I can't claim any kind of expertise in this type of work, but I beat my head against an interesting problem, and it's time to share what I got out of it! And, secret goal, I want to help more people make more cool things, and maybe improve on my process in ways I can absorb and chew on in the future. Save my work, change it, I dare anyone who sees this to improve it!! I want it to be better. Credit would be cool, and of course the actual experts I leveraged for this deserve all the credit in the world, but that's not my priority. I want the world to have more exciting things in it, and I want more people to have exciting skills. Go forth and go nuts!!

[corduroy-creates]

so, you wanted to start bookbinding?

so @princetofbone mentioned on my post for "factory settings" about wanting to know more about the binding style that i used for it. so i thought i might make a post about it.

i was as terrible as i always am for taking in progress shots, but i can link you to the resources i used in order to make my book. i would also like to point out that "factory settings" is my 120th bind, and i have been doing bookbinding as a hobby for just over 3 years now. unfortunately this means some of the methods that i used for that bind aren't particularly beginner friendly, just in terms of the tools and methods i have used, but i would love to point you in the right direction when it comes to resources. i dont say this to sound pretentious which i fear i might come across, just so that youre fully informed. getting into this hobby is fun and rewarding, but it can definitely be intimidating.

with that caveat, heres a list of links and resources that i have used for bookbinding in general, with additional links to methods i used specifically in regards to this bind.

ASH's how to make a book document. it gives you a great introduction into typesetting fics (where you format the text of fics to look like a traditionally published books) and then turning them into a case-bound book (the style i used for "factory settings"). it is comprehensive, and explains how to use microsoft word to do your bidding. it was invaluable to me when i was just starting out! currently i use affinity publisher to typeset/format my fics for printing, but i only bought and learned how to use that after i had been binding books for a year and a half. i made some beautiful typesets with word, and some of my close friends use it still and design stuff that i never would be able to in my wildest dreams (basically anything by @no-name-publishing)

DAS Bookbinding's Square Back Bradel Binding. a great style to do your first bind in! this method requires, when making the case, to attach the cover board and the spine board to a connecting piece of paper, which makes it so much easier to match the size of the case to the size of the text block (your printed out and sewn fic). using this method is what allowed me to get much more accurately fitting cases, and made me much more confident with the construction of the books i was making. a well-made book is something that is so wonderful to hold in your hands!

DAS Bookbinding's Rounded and Backed Cased Book. This is the specific method that i used to create my bind for "factory settings"! even before i could back my books, i found that watching DAS's videos in particular helped me see how books were traditionally made, and i was able to see different tips and tricks about how to make nicer books.

Book Edge Trimming Without... i trim the edges of my text block using my finishing press and a chisel i have sharpened using a whetstone and leather strop with buffing compound on it. i follow the method for trimming shown in this video!

Made Endpapers. i follow this method for my endpapers, as i used handmade lokta endpapers, and they can be quite thin, but they look beautiful! i used "tipped on" endpapers (where you have your endpaper and then put a thin strip of glue on the edge and attach it to your text block) i used for a very long time before this, but these feel like they are much more stable, as they are sewn with your text block.

Edge Sprinkling. this is the method that i used for decorating the edges of my text block. but the principle is basically clamping your text block tight and then sprinkling the edges. i do not believe you need to trim the edges in order to do sprinkles on the edges, and that's what makes it accessible! i personally just use really cheap acrylic paint that i water down and then flick it onto the edges with my thumb and a paint brush.

Double-Core Endbands. i sew my own endbands, which i followed this tutorial for. that being said, it's kind of confusing, and this video is a bit easier to follow, but it is a slightly different type of endband.

Case decoration. i used my silhouette cameo 4 to cut out my design for "factory settings" in htv (heat transfer vinyl). i also used my cameo 4 to cut out the oval of marbled paper on the front, as i honestly didn't want to try my hand at cutting an oval lol. i also glued some 300 gsm card with an oval cut out of the centre of it onto the cover before covering it with bookcloth, to get a kind of recess on the cover. i then glued the oval of marbled paper onto the top of the recessed area once it was covered with bookcloth, so that it was protected. the images i used were sourced from a mix of rawpixel, canva and pixabay. a more accessible way to get into cover decoration is by painting on a design for your cover as described in @a-gay-old-time's tutorial just here. or even doing paper labels, which look classy imo.

physical materials. sourcing these will depend on your country. i am located in australia, and have compiled a list with some other aussie bookbinders of places to buy from. here is a great post describing beginning materials for getting started binding.

@renegadepublishing. this tumblr is great! its what got me started bookbinding, and being in the discord has been inspiring, motivating, and honestly just one of the best online experiences i have ever had. it is full of resources, and most people in there are amateur bookbinders, with a couple of professionals thrown in. the discord is 18+, and anyone can join!

i'm sorry this post got so long, but i hope that this has a lot of information for you if you would like to get started bookbinding. its one of the best hobbies ive ever had, and i genuinely believe i will have it for the rest of my life.

[corduroy-creates]

❣️ "Shipping" characters means that you are interested in the idea of what it would be like if characters were involved in a romantic or sexual relationship with each other.

❣️ Shipping something does not mean that you think that the relationship would be the most ideal, desirable, healthy or moral relationship for the characters to be in.

❣️ Shipping something does not mean that you think it should be canon.

❣️ Shipping something does not mean you think it would be good, healthy or desirable in real life.

❣️ Shipping something just means that you think that it's interesting to think about, look at art of, read fiction about, write fiction about, or create art about.

❣️Shipping something means you think it is interesting in some way, not that you think it is morally good or desirable.

[corduroy-creates]

Khajiit players, here's a double-whammy of tiny mods for your special custom kitties:

Khajiit Eyes Tweaked

Mesh replacer

Edits the eye mesh to use Environment mapping, as well as applying the invisibility eye fix.

Edits to the general glossiness of the eye

Adds a glow via Emissive Color/Strength settings: I prefer this to a glowmap, due to retention of the cubemap effects. The glow is subtler than all the Khajiit eyeglow mods I've used (including Khajiit Eyes Extended.)

Compatible with custom eye textures

Optional ESPFE edits all default Khajiit eye textures to use the werewolf normal maps and the eye cubemaps

LM's Beast Teeth - Custom Khajiit Consistency

LM's Beast Teeth is one of my must-have mods to fix the awful default Khajiit and Argonian teeth.

However, I use a lot of custom Khajiit heads that come with their own mouth meshes, and won't work with the improved mesh. So I've patched them here.