The black book of Nathaniel Bane 1

There are a multitude of people out there making prop-tomes.  Bookbinders, artists, sculptors and more.  I wish I was one of them.  Bookbinding from scratch would be a dream project.  Unfortunately, I don't have the time or skillset to do that...yet.

What I've found useful is to start off with a blank book, usually roughing it up and recovering it as necessary.  That was before I found The Diary Shop on eBay.  I've bought from them a number of times now, and have always been happy with their service, products and delivery time. 

Handbound, their journals are a propmaker's dream - each one beautifully made and just waiting to be filled with wild imaginings and eldritch horror.  Or recipes and pressed flowers, whatever floats your particular boat.  In this instance, I'm making the working book of a 17th century warlock, a rather nasty individual that went by the name of Nathaniel Bane.  Of him, more later.  In the meantime, here's the book I'm using as a base:

The Diary Shop have a brilliant range of books available, and I would highly recommend heading over to their eBay shop and having a browse.  From sketchbooks to diaries or full blown grimoires, you're sure to find whatever you need.

The Diary Shop

We've all got to start somewhere...Necronomicon 1.1

There are several sites and blogs out there that have served as my inspiration for starting to write my own, most notably the fantastic Propnomicon, and the now sadly defunct Propping Up the Mythos.
While I've got a few projects I'm working on just now, I thought some other amateur fans of all things Cthulhu might like to see my first attempt at a Necronomicon.

The base was a common or garden hardbound A5 sketch book.  These are great starters, but finding one without perforated pages can be a challenge. 

I wanted to give the impression of a new binding on a much, much older book.  Incidentally, the warping on the back was due to using a microwave oven to dry a 'bloodstain' without thought of what it would do to the glue.  Actually, I quite like the effect, as though something inside is trying to burn its way out - kind of a budget Ark of the Covenant.

The inspiration for the library label came from a template on Propping Up the Mythos.

The page layout was based on a 17th century Book of Common Prayer, i.e. the red lines on the margin.  The text was handwritten, based on Microsoft Word's Symbol font, as I don't read Greek.  Mind you, nor does anyone that's ever perused the prop so far...

One of the problems I've found with any substitution font is that English text still looks like English.  For that reason I broke up some of the words in case of any canny cypher-breakers getting too smug.  As a clue, the frontispiece is a quote from Annie Lennox, who obviously knows something...

This part of the text is a straight lift from the Simon Necronomicon, along with Lovecraft's version of the Elder Sign. 

Knowing that I would later be staining the pages, I wrote/drew with a permanent marker.  While I had read that brown pigment gave an illusion of time-faded ink, I hadn't realised how aggressively it would bleed through the pages.  If I were to do the same again, I would be tempted to use a better grade of paper, or possibly a different approach to the lettering, possibly acrylic ink.  I don't have access to a colour printer at the moment, much less the wherewithal to use natty art programmes - besides, as an old-school technophobic luddite, I quite like the (in)human touch of a handwritten prop.  The downside to this is that you can't make anything in a hurray...

  I hope you've enjoyed this first peek into my slightly mythos-addled mind.  More picture to come later.