I saved Zulf’s book for last and only made it if I had time after finishing both Bastion costumes. I already knew that I didn’t want to put a real book on his belt. It would have been too heavy. Instead, I went with craft foam.
Materials
- Craft foam
- Dark brown fabric
- Matte vinyl
- Printer paper
- Hot glue
The Making Of…
Unfortunately, I made the book very quickly and didn’t take any in-progress photos. I’ll do my best to describe how I made it.
First, I cut out identical rectangles of craft foam and stacked them to make the center pages part of the book. I just hot glued them together.
The cover of the book seems to vary by artwork. Most of them show it as light blue, but there is a Zulf image that shows it as dark brown. I went with the latter because I felt it looked better against the jacket.
With another piece of craft foam, I folded it around the middle part to act as a book cover. It hangs over a little on each edge, like a normal book cover would.
I cut out dark brown fabric and created a dust jacket for the cover, which I just hot glued to the craft foam. I then glued the cover to the middle pages part of the book.
I needed the edges to look like pages, so I cut out some normal printer paper. I drew several straight lines on them with pencil, then just glued them to the edges.
To attach the book to the belt, I used matte vinyl. It’s fabric I happened to have already from making boot covers. I cut out strips and glued those onto the book too. There is a section in the back where it’s not glued onto the book. It allows for a belt to go through.
So yes, lots of gluing. Overall, I think this worked out well. It was very light, so it didn’t drag down the belt. It also looked realistic enough that people thought it was a real book :)