Craft Check: Framed Manual Art
October 2008 Issue
Features
- From the Editors
- Craft Check: Framed Manual Art
Interviews
- Industry Interview: Jill Duffy, GameCareerGuide.com
- Blogger Interview: Trina Schwimmer of GamingAngels
Articles
- Our Sister Site, Girl-Wonder.org
Author: Robyn Fleming
- Conventions Should be Fun: The Con Anti-Harassment Project
Author: Elizabeth McDonald
- Seeing the Future of Game Design at the 2008 HMF
Author: Andrea Rubenstein
Robyn writes about Girl-Wonder.org, and how the site has impacted Cerise.
Elizabeth explains the Con Anti-Harassment Project, one of Girl-Wonder.org’s newest initiatives.
Andrea tells all about her first ever time attending the HAL-MODE FESTIVAL, where she was able to play video games made by students about to enter into the industry..
Gamer Stories
Reviews
- Darths & Droids
- Retro Review: Heroes of Might & Magic III Complete
Odds 'n Ends
I’m in the process of moving into a new house, and am having a lot of fun decorating. For the first time, I’ve got an office room that doesn’t have to do double-duty as a guest bedroom – which means that it can do double-duty as a gaming hangout, instead! I’ve got my desk in place and bookcases lining the walls, and I’m currently hanging photos and art. It’s a great opportunity to engage in some geeky crafting. Especially since I came across a stack of old game manuals while I was unpacking…
Cost: You can do this craft for under $5 US.
Time: 15-20 minutes, unless you get very elaborate.
Skill level: If you can use scissors, you’re ready for this craft.
Equipment:
- An image to frame
- Pretty scrapbook paper
- Scissors
- Glue or other adhesive
- A picture frame
- A pencil
You might also want colored pencils or markers, stickers, scrapbook templates and a ruler, but you don’t need them.
Step 1: Choose your art
For this example, I chopped up my battered old Quest for Glory II manual, which has some great black and white drawings by Ernie Chan in it (and is printed on heavy paper, making it really ideal for this kind of craft). Look for images you’d like to frame in manuals, magazines and sourcebooks. If you don’t want to cut up the original source, you can get a nice color photocopy made and use that, instead.
Once you’ve picked out an image, carefully cut it out. In my example piece, the art already had a decorative frame around it, so I just cut around that. Whether or not your choice has a frame incorporated into the design, you can cut your image out following the lines of the drawing instead, or use a scrapbook template to trace a different sort of border around the picture before cutting it out.
Step 2: Cut out the background
When you have your image ready to go, choose a piece of scrapbook paper to serve as the background in your frame. You can go for a paper that coordinates with some colors or designs in your image, something abstract and funky, a lacy Victorian-inspired design – whatever looks best to you. I chose a subtle paper in a mottled dark purple. I’ve always admired the Hero’s ability to rock the purple, and I thought the color was a fitting choice.
Take the back off your frame, and remove the front glass. Put the glass down on top of your paper, and trace around the edges with a pencil. This gives you the line you need to cut around to make your collage fit inside the frame neatly. Cut out the background along the penciled outline.
Step 3: Put it together
Now it’s time to place your image on the background and glue it down. You might find it helpful to use a ruler to center your image. Lay it out the way you want it to look in the end, and then carefully lift up each corner (or the edges) and attach some adhesive. You don’t need the image to be attached super-securely, because the glass in the frame will help hold it in place, but you do need it glued down enough that it won’t shift around once it’s framed.
Once you have your art assembled the way you want, all you have to do is put it in the frame and hang it or display it!
There are lots of ways you can get more creative with this craft. If you’re using black and white art, you can add color with pencils or markers. You could use scrapbook stickers to create a more involved background, or layer different papers together. You can combine multiple images into a complex collage.
And, of course, there’s no need to stick to gaming manuals and products when you’re looking for images to use. For my guestroom/library annex (I have a lot of books…), I made a piece of art from a couple of panels out of the first X-Men comic story (don’t worry, fans! The book I cut up was a cheap reprint version).
Get creative, and enjoy decorating with your framed art!
