Hocus Pocus book

This was by far my most ambitious project so far! A while ago, my wife asked me if I could make a replica of the spellbook from the movie "Hocus Pocus". If you haven't seen this movie, I definitely recommend it. Even though it's a family-friendly Halloween movie, it's not childish.
Anyway, I knew this would be a bit more challenging than the books I made so far (especially the ornaments), but nothing that couldn't be done. So let's get started!

I also documented the entire build process on video. Many hours of footage, many hours of editing, and I managed to process it into a 20-minute video! In case you're wondering, I recorded it using a Canon Legria HFR506 camcorder, edited the video in Lightworks and recorded the voice-over with a USB microphone and Audacity.

Materials

• Sewn kraft paper sketchbook
• 3 mm thick MDF
• Cardboard
• Air drying clay
• Apoxie sculpt
• 25 mm glass dome
• Kraft paper
• Unbleached hemp string
• PVC foam plate
• Super glue
• Book binding glue
• Epoxie glue
• Hot glue gun
• Thick needle
• Molding silicone
• Polyurethane resin
• Foamcore board (for the mold)
• Spray primer
• Acrylic paints
• Acrylic varnish
• 8 mm neodymium magnets
• Red felt
• Gauze

The ornaments
Like I said, the ornaments would be quite a challenge. There are the four coiled-up snakes at the corners, the two snakes near the spine, the clasp on the front and a hand on the back. The hand isn't shown in detail anywhere in the movie, so I would have to improvise a bit.
I decided to make one of each ornament, and then mold them in silicone so I could cast multiple copies of them. I used a combination of PVC foam sheet and Apoxie clay, and took my time until I was satisfied with the sculpts.

Then, disaster almost struck. I made a silicone mold, and expected the silicone to be cured the next day. However, when I checked, the silicone was still a semi-liquid, sticky mess! I waited a few more days, but it simply didn't cure any further. What had happened? I suspect the catalyst for the silicone had expired. When I checked the bottle, I noticed some crystals on the bottom. I decided to wait a bit longer, but to no result.
So I ordered some new silicone and catalyst and started over. I removed the semi-cured silicone, and to get rid of any remaining liquid stuff, I brushed some catalyst over it and let it cure, so I could remove it easily. I made a new mold, and this time it worked fine. The next day, the silicone had cured as expected and I could start casting.

I used polyurethane resin for the ornaments. Four coiled-up snakes for the corners, two snakes for the spine, one clasp and one hand. When the resin had cured, I first cleaned the casts thoroughly and then sprayed them with a primer, followed by a dark gray acrylic basecoat. After the basecoat had dried, I applied a black wash, silver drybrushing and finally a satin clearcoat.

One ornament that required a special treatment was the clasp. To make it lock, I installed some neodymium magnets in it. Before painting, I carefully drilled some holes in the back, and glued the magnets in place with super glue. Magnets will be embedded in the book cover as well.

The book
My wife wanted a book with brown pages. This wasn't easy to find! There's plenty of sketchbooks made from brown kraft paper, but they are always either spiral bound or very thin. It took me some searching, but finally I found one on Ebay!
When the book arrived, I noticed the spine wasn't glued. The pages were stitched together, but no glue. To make sure the book would be strong enough, I applied a coat of book binding glue to the spine, followed by a strip of gauze, followed by another coat of glue.
One last thing needed to be done, and that was some sort of headband. I have tried making them myself in the past, but it didn't look too good. A great alternative was a strip of red felt, glued to the spine.
I didn't take any pictures of this, but it is shown in the Youtube video.

The cover
The book cover is made from 3mm thick MDF, and cardboard for the spine. The spine needed to be rounded a bit. I did this by glueing a few layers of thin cardboard together on a piece of PVC pipe, and letting it dry for a few days.
Another prominent feature of the book are the stitches, and the eye. The eye is a stock photo of an eye, printed on photo paper, and glued to a glass dome. The eyelids and stitches were sculpted directly on the cover.

I sculpted the stitches out of air drying clay. For the eyelids, I used Apoxie sculpt. After the clay had dried, I carefully drilled out the holes in the stitches with a 2 mm drill bit, and cleaned them up from the back of the cover.
I didn't take pictures of it (again), but there are six small magnets around the eye. I drilled 8 mm holes in the cover, and put the magnets in them, sandwiched between two sheet of paper on the front and back. These line up with the magnets I put in the clasp, so they keep it in place.
After glueing both cover boards and spine together, I used my wrinkled kraft paper technique for creating a faux leather effect. Usually, I try to use one single sheet of paper for the entire cover, but in this case it was easier to cut it into several pieces. The reason I try to use a single sheet is so you don't see the seams between the sheets. If this case, however, I could hide the seams in the stitches so they wouldn't be visible anyway.
And then it was time for the paint job! As usual, I started with a black basecoat, followed by a layer of brown. I used a mixture of burnt umber with a bit of pyrrole red to get a chocolate-like brown. After it had dried, I rubbed a very thin coat of yellow ochre over it, followed by a bronze drybrushing.
The final metallic drybrushing makes a huge difference! I have tried several colors (copper, bronze, gold, silver, ...) but bronze and copper look the best. I have also experimented with different color combinations the last few months, but that's something for a future post.

Before the final clearcoat, I sewed the stitches. First, I opened up all the holes with a thick needle, and then I sewed them using unbleached hemp string. It wasn't easy, sewing relatively thick, rough thread through small holes, but the result looks pretty nice. I glued the stitches in place from the back with a hot glue gun, and then trimmed everything with a sharp knife.
Next, I sprayed the cover with matte acrylic varnish. In the past, I have used satin varnish, but I think matte looks a lot better.

Putting it all together
And now it's time for the final assembly! I first glued the cover to the book. I needed to take special care to make sure everything was lined up properly, because otherwise the book wouldn't open afterwards. I glued on one side at a time, and pressed everything in place firmly, making sure there weren't any air bubbles. I put the book between clamps to keep everything together as the glue dried.

Next, I put the ornaments in place with epoxy glue, one side at a time and waiting until the glue was fully cured before switching to the other side (about 1 hour).

And then finally, the clasp! I glued a strip of leather between the clasp and hand, glued some felt to the inside of the strap and the clasp (not the hand), and finally glued the hand to the back cover.

And here's the final result! It took me a lot of work, but I think it turned out very nice. My wife is very happy with the result.

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Cemetery Crosses

Besides tombstones, I wanted new crosses for my cemetery. My first set of tombstones I made in 2013 did have a cross, but because of the wide pedestal, it wasn't easy to transport, and it was the first prop to get damaged. Time to start building something new!

Materials

• 20mm thick XPS Foam
• Particle board (leftovers from our old kitchen)
• Trim molding
• Polyurethane glue
• Wood screws
• Drill & screwdriver
• Band saw
• Wood burning tool
• Scenic Dope (see my Tombstone Tutorial for that)
• Matte varnish

Design
The problem with my first cross was, like I said, the wide pedestal. This was necessary to keep it standing, but it made it a pain in the ass to get in and out of the car. I wanted to make my props easier to transport this time (that's why I made the tomb for holding the tombstones), so I had to come up with something new.
So here's the basic idea. The crosses will be a lot taller than the tombstones, so storing them in the tomb won't be possible. They will still need a pedestal for stability, but they also need to be easier to transport. So here's my solution: I made the cross and the pedestal two separate pieces that can easily be taken apart for transport and storage.
I wanted to use styrofoam for the cross, because it's cheap, light and easy to work with, but this wouldn't be strong enough for props that need to be put together and taken apart. Luckily, I had a lot of leftover particle board from our old kitchen. My wife and I had a new kitchen installed earlier this year, and I kept anything I thought would be useful from the old one, wich includes a few large panels.
So here's how I'm going to build them. The pedestal will consist of a wooden box with styrofoam for the ornaments. The cross will have a wooden core that protrudes from the bottom, and fits in a hole in the pedestal, sort of like a tenon-and-mortise joint. The wooden pedestal will also make it bottom heavy and more stable.

The pedestals
I started with the pedestals. Basically a simple wooden box, with a hole in the top for installing the cross. Well, not just simple a hole, I also made this contraption (don't know what else to call it) inside to keep the cross upright; this is the "tenon" part of the tenon-and-mortise joint. The boxes are put together with wood glue and screws.

 

Speaking of screws, I always, always buy Torx screws, even though they cost a bit more than Phillips screws. I hate cruciform screws, because the screwdriver always has a tendency to slip out of the head. Torx screws don't have this problem.

Because I didn't want the pedestals to look like boring boxes, I decorated the edges with trim molding, and made frames on all sides of the boxes. I wanted to put on more decorations on them, but again, I didn't have enough time.

The crosses
Next up, the crosses themselves. I first drew them on sheets of foam, and roughly cut them out. I then cut a piece of wood for the core, and glued it to the back. Some more strips of foam were glued on to enclose the wood, and finally another sheet of foam to close the back, so the wooden core is fully enclosed in the foam.

On the front, I let my imagination run wild. By now, I had a lot of small foam scraps lying around, and I turned them into all sorts of decorations.

I tested them to see if the crosses and the pedestals fit together, and behold, it worked perfectly! Before I started painting, I carved some cracks and chipped corners with a wood burning tool.

Painting
The painting was done the same way as my other props for this year. As described in my Tombstone tutorial, I painted them with scenic dope mixed with sand first, for the base color and the rock texture. This was followed by a dark gray wash and white drybrushing.

To weatherproof the paint, I clearcoated them with matte varnish. This did mess up the drybrushing a bit in some spots, so I had to go over it again.

 

The crosses are very easy to transport, and very stable. They held up perfectly in the rain, although in some places on the pedestals, the paint didn't hold well. I think this was because the panels were still a bit greasy in some places (our old kitchen was quite dirty...). Nothing that can't be fixed, though!

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