#trimax bookbinding

[merylstryfestan]

hey so i know bigolas dickolas is about to bully darkhorse into reprinting the manga, but i've actually started a personal bookbinding project to make an english copy of my own! i'm starting with Trigun Maximum vol 1, and I'm going to post updates as i go!

[astra-dark]

I’ve been really REALLY considering rebinding hardcover copies of Trimax for myself. Like I know we’re getting beautiful hardcover editions soon but it sounds like such a fun project ✨

[thatrandombystander]

I'm set on making a TriMax Vash with mechanic articulated wings for my next cosplay project, but I'm tentatively interested in doing a Rune Factory 4 Dolce (on left wearing the tophat in img below) after that because I'd love to make a lolita silhouette dress (and as an intermediary to build up skills and confidence for that femme Sephiroth project percolating in the back of my head)

But of course because I'm Extra and like props I'm also like "her monster form is a giant marionette, wouldn't it be cool to make her monster form as an actual puppet marionette that I could carry around?"

I'm discovering that cosplay is conceptually an exceptionally good hobby for me as someone who wants to try ALL THE CRAFTS! Learning some puppetry would be super cool. And if I ever do a Rune Factory 4 Arthur it'll finally be my excuse to try bookbinding since he's got that weird starshaped notebook!

[merylstryfestan]

We have Trimax at home: update!

So I have finally had time to get back to work on this! I had to take a bit of a break there since my cat got sick (he's fine now!), so that took up a lot of my time and energy lol.

Anyways, last we left off, I had the signatures folded, organized, and ready to go for sewing. Next step was to punch the holes through the center of the signatures for the thread to actually go through. This involved a lot of measuring, then making a template, then using a cardboard box I had laying around to basically cradle each signature as I used a large needle to poke each hole. Normally, there's a better way to do this, but I was not in the mood for buying materials this week so I made do with what I had around the house.

Then the best part: sewing! I used what's called a french link stitch to sew the signatures together. I used this one because I know it'll work well with the type of case I'm planning on making, as well as because it's quick and uses less materials (no need for support tapes or cords).

And here is the final sewn text block! Considering how low effort this was, I'm pretty proud of it. I even just so happened to have the exact amount of thread I needed, which was nice. Next steps are to get the edges of the text block trimmed, add head and tail bands, and then glue on some support for the spine. All of which means it's finally time for me to actually go buy materials, unfortunately. Hopefully I can get a lot if done this weekend but we'll see!

Bonus picture of my cat "helping" by sitting on top of the last signature right before it was time to sew it in :)

[merylstryfestan]

since some people asked, here's how i formatted the Trigun manga panels to be printable to make into a bound book! i'm not the best at tutorials, but hopefully this will be helpful.

gather your images and make sure each image is only one page. most of the time when you download manga for reading on a computer, any two-page spreads will be in one image file. locate any and all two-page images and split them down the middle into two separate files. i used GIMP to do this since it's free, but photoshop or whatever you have access to will work.

make sure your files are all PDFs. on a mac, it's pretty easy to right-click an image file, go to Quick Actions, then choose Create PDF. however, there's lots of other ways you can do it, just try to keep the same resolution (so if your original image is 600x1000 pixels, make sure the PDF is too! otherwise your final image won't be as sharp.

number all your files such that putting them in alphabetical order puts the pages in the correct order from start to finish. luckily the files i downloaded were already numbered correctly, so this wasn't as much a concern for me, but i wanted to point it out just in case.

from here i just followed this tutorial from youtube, and this guy does a great job explaining what to do, and your different options. some things to keep in mind though not in the video!

4a. make sure you put your pages in the correct order! remember manga goes right-to-left, so that will likely be backwards to what the software you're using is going to do automatically. if using acrobat, you should be able to sort the files in reverse-alphabetical order and combine them in that order.

4b. make sure your two-page spreads will end up next to each other. in acrobat, you can choose to view two pages of your document at a time. starting from the top (so at the end of the book) go through and check your two-page images. if you get to a point where they don't line up, go back up to the last chapter break and insert a blank page. this will then line them up. do that for the whole document. then, once you're done, go back to the top and either add or remove one blank page (very important!). this will mess up the two-page images in the acrobat preview, but remember that the first and last pages of a book are not next to another page. to be sure, once you format your pdf into a booklet, do a test print of one signature that contains a two-page image to make sure that it lines up correctly!

4c. when adding blank pages to match the page count you'll need for your signatures, if you're adding to the top of the document, be sure to do so two pages at a time. this will keep your two-page images aligned, assuming you followed what i said in 4b. you can also just add all the extra pages at the bottom of the document, which is fine too, but just remember that'll actually be the front of the book.

sorry if i didn't explain something well, but if you have any questions feel free to ask me! i'd be happy to clarify or go into more depth on anything.

[merylstryfestan]

Trimax Bookbinding Update 1

i finally started making real progress yesterday! after a week of image formatting and testing various software options, i finally got the pages formatted how i wanted and got them printed!

as a quick aside, this isn't quite regular printer paper. regular printer paper is long grain, so it's easier to fold parallel to the long edges. since i need to fold parallel to the short edges, i printed this on short grain paper. (if anyone is interested in hearing more about the paper, let me know and I'll make a separate post!)

with everything printed and ready to go, i then made sure to organize the sheets into their signatures, checking that the page layout was correct along the way. one of the trickiest parts when formatting for printing was making sure all the two-page spreads would actually be next to each other, so that's mostly what I was checking for.

then it was time to get folding! when i've made books before, i would fold an entire signature together at once. however, with several panels that go all the way up to the center fold, i wanted to be very precise so i opted to fold each sheet individually. i'm glad i did, as the results were pretty much perfect!

now i don't own a book press, but i do have a kitchenaid and some boxes so that's close enough. leaving the signatures overnight in the "press" will really secure in those folds and help the final book lay flat when closed.

that's all for now! next update will be stitching the signatures together into a text block (my favorite part!)

full credit to @trigun-manga-overhaul for the translation i'm using! if you want to read the manga but don't want to deal with whacky translations, their project is the way to go.