Sketchbook

LoTekK

Not exactly the usual stuff. Since I'm too cheap to buy a moleskine, I recently got the crazy idea that I wanted to make myself a sketchbook or two. This first one's gonna be a gift, but I plan to do up others with watercolor, marker, and drawing paper (or possibly one with all three).



Still pretty early (that's 96 pages out of the 200 I've prepped), and I'm going fucking blind stitching the binding. The cover should be a little more fun.

If anyone's interested, I'll add links to some sites I found that explain the prepwork and stitching.

t4paN

That looks interesting, but I just bought myself a nice (well it's not nice because it's got the shitty white mac-ish design but anyway) shinny Wacom Bamboo so I don't see me using paper again any time soon!

I find it so much easier to do concept art infront of the pc where I can also browse the web and slack around at the same time.. But that's just me.

A sketchbook like that would impress the ladies though. And your avatar is fucking awesome -_-

zenarion

A sketchbook is also useful if one has long, BORING chemistry lectures. t4paN, drawing digitally is very fun, and leaves lots of room to experiment with, but don't talk smack about plain old pen/pencil sketches.

LoTekK

Plus, a little sketchbook is infinitely more portable than a tablet and pc (even a tabletpc). The one in the pics is about 4"x6", which fits handily into a cargo pocket. Gonna see if I can incorporate a pencil/pen loop somehow.

More pics tomorrow when I've gotten the binding done (almost there!) and hopefully the cover will have been constructed and attached as well.

Btw, just curious, but does anyone else here bind their own sketchbooks?

Option

I'm the proud owner of 5 moleskines, a pocket sketch, 3 normal sized sketchbooks, and one of those water color ones, love them all to death (especially since I can keep ref pics in the back pockets).

and to any doubters, yes I've actually had a girl come up to me because it was a moleskine, and now she's one of my really good friends.

but as a project this looks awesome, binding books is a good time too if you're into that sort of thing, best of luck!

t4paN

The only smack I talked was about the shitty design of my Wacom man. Like everyone I used to draw with pen pencil, but I don't go to class all that much nowdays, and I got my tablet last month, so I just rather work with that.

Total respect for the people keeping it real in class though, that's how I started. Although I don't envy you for the chemistry classes to be honest :P

By the way, I doubt you could get that kind of a sketchbook to class. It's too nice for that IMO.

Justin Meisse

What's the cost of materials to make your own?

Empty

ew I hate moleskins. The paper is terrible.

Thats really cool LotekK. I'm definately going to have to try making my own.

DarthRevanII

Wow, how ironic. I've recently had the idea of making myself a small sketchbook i could keep in my pocket so I could immediately start drawing my ideas if I'm not at home or if I'm on the go. I wanted to create a black papered sketchbook that I could draw in with a silver pen, but I've been lost at how to go about creating it. All the places I've been don't really have anything that would work for it

How did you go above making the backbone of the book?

LoTekK

DarthRevan:
I've got a bunch of bookmarks that got me going as far as instructions on the binding, as well as a couple dealing with leather covers. I'm deviating a little from the directions, though (the 4 leather thongs running across the spine are gonna be used to attach the covers, and I think I'll leave the spine exposed, similar to this)

http://www.trumpetvine.com/sketchblog/moleskine-reloaded/
http://michaelshannon.us/makeabook/index.html
Awesome site with directions for leather covers

Justin:
If you're doing basic binding, material cost is dirt cheap for the pages (cut up the paper to size, bind with needle and thread).

I think the main cost variable comes from how you want to do the cover. A decent, cheap cover could probably be some corrugated cardboard covered in decorative cloth or paper, along with some glue. A more expensive but nicer one would be stiff leather (which I plan to do for the second one). And many other cover types otherwise.

Of course, the main cost comes in terms of time spent.

LoTekK

Aside from a bit of cleanup and then painting something on the cover, this one's basically done. It's essentially a hardcover, but it flexes sorta. Kinda like this. 200 pages of 120gsm paper (from 13.5 sheets of A3).

LoTekK

Done, I think. I used acrylics to paint the cover, which was kinda fun.

dom

Remove the sunflower!!!!