Post by Geodus on Mar 28, 2018 18:47:39 GMT -5
I know that some of us on this forum are not only consumers of immersive experiences, but are also creators of such as well. I'm starting this thread as a place to discuss and hopefully share ideas and recipes for creating artifact forgeries: old letters, vintage newspapers, maps, and other relics.
I'll start out by sharing some of my own experience in creating faux aged paper artifacts.
First, avoid using standard bond paper. Century old letter paper tended to be much thinner and lighter than bond (I'm sure Todd could give us a treatise on paper), but most of my experience has been using heavier weight paper to approximate that used by old maps and documents. I've found that resume paper with some kind of interesting texture works reasonably well when you are fatiguing it.
Printing
If you are printing your pages, you'll need to do that before staining/fatiguing, as the abuse you apply to the paper will render it unsuitable for passing through the paper paths of most printers, especially laser printers. I've done all my fatiguing to paper printed on a color laser printer. I've got a nice ink jet, but I'm not sure how well the ink will hold up to water; I suspect a lot of bleeding will occur (which might be fine if you are approximating hand-written letters), but I haven't experimented with this. I'd love to hear about someone else's experience in this regard.
Preparation
I start by wrinkling and crushing the paper into a ball and then flattening it out. Sometimes doing this ends up causing small tears along some of the creases, and that's okay. If it makes sense that the paper would have been stored folded, this is a good time to create those folds and abuse the paper. I've used a wire brush, dry wall saw, and sand paper to create uneven edges on the paper. These will also cause the paper to pick up more stain along the fatigued areas. Light sandpaper on the folds can approximate years of wear on creases.
Staining
For basic staining, the standard aging technique is application of a solution of tea. Some people have suggested using instant coffee or coffee grounds. I've used strong black tea, but one of the side-effects is that the paper can have a persistent tea smell afterwards (I suspect coffee staining would suffer from recognizable smell even more). I've also only tried a single solution of tea, but it occurs to me that more plausible results might be obtained by applied different colored (black and green) teas at different times and unevenly.
I've tried completely immersing the paper as well as daubing the paper with a sponge. The latter only really works if the paper already has an aged look (perhaps from a previous staining with a different color). You don't want to end up with any of the paper left as it's original color. Faux aging should affect all the paper. For immersion, I used a shallow casserole dish or an edged baking pan, and let the paper soak for a couple of minutes. For mass production, this can be time consuming, but it's possible to stain multiple sheets at once.
Drying
After you've got your sheets stained, it's time to dry them. I've done some experimentation here so I can tell you a few things that work and a few that don't work. First thing to note is that at this point, the paper is very fragile and it's easy to introduce unintended tears with rough handling. On the other hand, you can easily fatigue the edges of the paper while soft and wet simply by rubbing your finger on the edge of the paper while it is lying flat in the dying solution. Keep in mind that this will create little balls of rubbed of paper that you will need to clean up later. You can also use a small pointy tool like a chopstick to push/pinch off edges of the paper to create a very natural looking edge. It's tedious work, but it can look very effective.
When drying, it's fine to blot excess solution from the paper with a cloth or paper towel, but you should avoid drying the paper on them. The texture from the paper or cloth towel will imprint on the paper, leaving a very unnatural look. Your best bet is to dry the paper on a smooth flat surface such as a piece of glass or casserole dish. You can speed up the drying process with heat, either with a blow dryer or in the oven. The latter will help if you are mass producing many sheets, but you need to keep an eye on things to make sure you don't over-dry or bake your paper. You'll know it's done when it stops laying flat and starts to lift from the drying sheet. It's okay to remove the sheets when they still have a little moisture, but they should be dry enough to be able to fold and hold a crease.
Additional Wear and Tear
Now that the paper is aged, you can add some additional wear and tear. Tim Holtz has some nice stains you can spray, splatter, or daub onto the paper to create the effect of water stains. Yellow or Yellow/Green work well here. I've put coffee stains on pages the old fashioned way: I made very strong coffee, pour it into a flat plate, dipped the base of a coffee mug in it, and them placed it on the sheets -- air drying them worked to create a really nice coffee stain.
For dried blood, I've found that povidone-iodine (iodopovidone) works well and is easily available. I've placed sheets of paper in my driveway (this only works on a day with no breezes, or you're going to be chasing faux-aged paper into the neighbors' yards), and splattered the solution on the pages from a few feet away. If you're willing to get your hands dirty, you can also pour some in a bowl, dip your fingers in it, and handle some of your sheets to create some nice bloody fingerprints. Air drying works best here.
Another nice edge effect can be achieved by burning the paper. You can do multiple sheets at a time fairly quickly. Grab 10-20 sheets and stack them loosely. Using a torch, ignite the edge of the paper and quickly blow it out. Repeat as needed to take away as much of the paper to suit your needs. Once you are done, brush/rub the edges of the paper to remove any ash parts. You want a nice irregular brown edge.
What techniques have you discovered? I'm particularly interested in learning how to do the following:
1) Create faux vintage photographs. What kind of photo paper works best? How do we get the weight and stiffness of the paper correct? How do we get that old photo curl? What are some good photo enhancement techniques (e.g., in Photoshop) to achieve a vintage look?
2) Create faux vintage newsprint. I'm interested in everything from newsprint that looks 20 years old to newsprint that looks 120 years old. What kind of paper should we use? What are some good fonts to use? What are some good sources of advertisements and stories for the back and adjacent to our inserted fictional material?
3. Other props. What sources have you found for other faux vintage props? I've found a few places that do custom coin/medallion minting, but their prices are usually prohibitive for small quantities. What other sources of custom artifacts have you found, and how do you age them?
I'll start out by sharing some of my own experience in creating faux aged paper artifacts.
First, avoid using standard bond paper. Century old letter paper tended to be much thinner and lighter than bond (I'm sure Todd could give us a treatise on paper), but most of my experience has been using heavier weight paper to approximate that used by old maps and documents. I've found that resume paper with some kind of interesting texture works reasonably well when you are fatiguing it.
Printing
If you are printing your pages, you'll need to do that before staining/fatiguing, as the abuse you apply to the paper will render it unsuitable for passing through the paper paths of most printers, especially laser printers. I've done all my fatiguing to paper printed on a color laser printer. I've got a nice ink jet, but I'm not sure how well the ink will hold up to water; I suspect a lot of bleeding will occur (which might be fine if you are approximating hand-written letters), but I haven't experimented with this. I'd love to hear about someone else's experience in this regard.
Preparation
I start by wrinkling and crushing the paper into a ball and then flattening it out. Sometimes doing this ends up causing small tears along some of the creases, and that's okay. If it makes sense that the paper would have been stored folded, this is a good time to create those folds and abuse the paper. I've used a wire brush, dry wall saw, and sand paper to create uneven edges on the paper. These will also cause the paper to pick up more stain along the fatigued areas. Light sandpaper on the folds can approximate years of wear on creases.
Staining
For basic staining, the standard aging technique is application of a solution of tea. Some people have suggested using instant coffee or coffee grounds. I've used strong black tea, but one of the side-effects is that the paper can have a persistent tea smell afterwards (I suspect coffee staining would suffer from recognizable smell even more). I've also only tried a single solution of tea, but it occurs to me that more plausible results might be obtained by applied different colored (black and green) teas at different times and unevenly.
I've tried completely immersing the paper as well as daubing the paper with a sponge. The latter only really works if the paper already has an aged look (perhaps from a previous staining with a different color). You don't want to end up with any of the paper left as it's original color. Faux aging should affect all the paper. For immersion, I used a shallow casserole dish or an edged baking pan, and let the paper soak for a couple of minutes. For mass production, this can be time consuming, but it's possible to stain multiple sheets at once.
Drying
After you've got your sheets stained, it's time to dry them. I've done some experimentation here so I can tell you a few things that work and a few that don't work. First thing to note is that at this point, the paper is very fragile and it's easy to introduce unintended tears with rough handling. On the other hand, you can easily fatigue the edges of the paper while soft and wet simply by rubbing your finger on the edge of the paper while it is lying flat in the dying solution. Keep in mind that this will create little balls of rubbed of paper that you will need to clean up later. You can also use a small pointy tool like a chopstick to push/pinch off edges of the paper to create a very natural looking edge. It's tedious work, but it can look very effective.
When drying, it's fine to blot excess solution from the paper with a cloth or paper towel, but you should avoid drying the paper on them. The texture from the paper or cloth towel will imprint on the paper, leaving a very unnatural look. Your best bet is to dry the paper on a smooth flat surface such as a piece of glass or casserole dish. You can speed up the drying process with heat, either with a blow dryer or in the oven. The latter will help if you are mass producing many sheets, but you need to keep an eye on things to make sure you don't over-dry or bake your paper. You'll know it's done when it stops laying flat and starts to lift from the drying sheet. It's okay to remove the sheets when they still have a little moisture, but they should be dry enough to be able to fold and hold a crease.
Additional Wear and Tear
Now that the paper is aged, you can add some additional wear and tear. Tim Holtz has some nice stains you can spray, splatter, or daub onto the paper to create the effect of water stains. Yellow or Yellow/Green work well here. I've put coffee stains on pages the old fashioned way: I made very strong coffee, pour it into a flat plate, dipped the base of a coffee mug in it, and them placed it on the sheets -- air drying them worked to create a really nice coffee stain.
For dried blood, I've found that povidone-iodine (iodopovidone) works well and is easily available. I've placed sheets of paper in my driveway (this only works on a day with no breezes, or you're going to be chasing faux-aged paper into the neighbors' yards), and splattered the solution on the pages from a few feet away. If you're willing to get your hands dirty, you can also pour some in a bowl, dip your fingers in it, and handle some of your sheets to create some nice bloody fingerprints. Air drying works best here.
Another nice edge effect can be achieved by burning the paper. You can do multiple sheets at a time fairly quickly. Grab 10-20 sheets and stack them loosely. Using a torch, ignite the edge of the paper and quickly blow it out. Repeat as needed to take away as much of the paper to suit your needs. Once you are done, brush/rub the edges of the paper to remove any ash parts. You want a nice irregular brown edge.
What techniques have you discovered? I'm particularly interested in learning how to do the following:
1) Create faux vintage photographs. What kind of photo paper works best? How do we get the weight and stiffness of the paper correct? How do we get that old photo curl? What are some good photo enhancement techniques (e.g., in Photoshop) to achieve a vintage look?
2) Create faux vintage newsprint. I'm interested in everything from newsprint that looks 20 years old to newsprint that looks 120 years old. What kind of paper should we use? What are some good fonts to use? What are some good sources of advertisements and stories for the back and adjacent to our inserted fictional material?
3. Other props. What sources have you found for other faux vintage props? I've found a few places that do custom coin/medallion minting, but their prices are usually prohibitive for small quantities. What other sources of custom artifacts have you found, and how do you age them?