The Shepherd's Journal - Disney's Atlantis: the Lost Empire

Atlantis: The Lost Empire was always one of my favorite movies growing up, especially due to the visual aesthetic of the movie.

One of the elements of the film which left a lasting impression on me was none other than the Shepherd's Journal, with its ornate and mystical design.

I had been wanting to cosplay Milo Thatch forever, but I knew I simply couldn't do the costume WITHOUT the journal, so I knew I needed to get to work on designing it.

Pages:
9 x 12 sheets of brown craft paper
Glue
Needle and thread

Covers:
Sheet aluminum
Metal rod
Brass strips
Hinges
Magnet
Rivets
Adhesive backed vinyl

Decorations:
Craft foam
Rivets
Scrap metal
Scrap plastic
Hot glue
Super glue
Contact adhesive
Plasti Dip
Metallic spray paints
Acrylic paints

The hardest part of the design was figuring out the spine of the book. In the movie, it's triangular, which is absolutely impractical for a real life book, but I tried my hardest to keep true to the design from the movie.

To start out, I took my sheets of 9x12 craft paper and folded them in half hamburger style to create miniature 9x6 pages.

I folded about fifty sheets total for a total of 100 pages. With these pages, I stacked them together to make what are called signatures, and bound them together with a needle and thread.

There are many bookbinding tutorials out there which can explain this far better than I can, so I highly recommend you look into some bookbinding methods for your journal.

The basis for the covers were two sheets of thin aluminum, measuring about 9x7" each.

I made a mark one inch from the edge on the long side and bent it in a vise at a 45° angle to create the triangular spine.

The outside was covered in adhesive vinyl, the same kind used for couch repair. This was the easiest option to cover the outside in leather.

To make the book open and close, I cut a metal rod about a foot in length, then using strips of brass, I made hinges for the covers and riveted them in place.

The inner booklet was then glued to the inside of the back cover.

Now that the basic form of the book was made, I was able to move onto the decorations and embellishments of the book.

To create the metal frames on the covers, I first sketched out a template on a piece of poster board and then transferred that template to craft foam and cut it out. The Atlantean "A" was also made in the same manner.

For the spine, I needed to make two end pieces, which I made from two plastic knobs with some Mardi Gras beads glued around the bottoms, as well as a larger bead up at the top to close it off.

I knew it was important that I hold off on assembling these pieces fully until they were painted, to save me the headache of trying to mask off parts as I painted.

The foam parts got a coat of Plasti Dip first to seal them, and the end caps, spine rod, and "A" rune all got a coat of gold spray paint while the frame pieces got a coat of silver.

Now that the embellishments were painted, it was time to assemble the book.

The metal rod slipped into the hinge made on the two covers, and before I could glue the end caps into place, there were still a few things I needed to finish first.

There is a clasp on the book, and to create this, I found two door hinges, cut them down to fit the book, super glued a magnet to one hinge, and then riveted them to the outside of the covers.

Once the clasp was in place, It was time to glue the frames.

Before I glued them down, I took a hole punch and went around the perimeter of the frames and added holes for some decorative rivets.
I glued the metal frames onto the covers with contact adhesive, applying an even layer on both the cover and the underside of the frame. From there, I could super glue the rivets in place, along with the "A" rune.

Then, I could hot glue the end caps onto the spine.

Once the book was assembled, I realized that it looked too new, and needed to look more like an antique.

Using assorted acrylic paints, I stippled some light tan onto the leather to make it look worn, dry brushed some orange around the silver pieces to give the illusion of rust, and added washes of black for a grimy appearance.

After about two days of work, the Journal was complete, and I had the last piece of my Milo Thatch cosplay.

For the costume itself, I tracked down a number of authentic and replica WWI and WWII garments (the pants alone are 110 years old!).

This project was a challenge, but a very fun one. I was extremely happy with the end result, and it's definitely one of the pieces I've made that I am most proud of.