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Manual of Magnificent
Gaming 2004 Leather, brass, paper. 9" x 12"  clasp locked open for reading  clasp closed |
| This piece started as an experiment to see if I could
design and manufacture an embellished book for sale to the public. To
be practical, the methods of fabrication needed to be labor efficient
and require only basic equipment. The subject matter had to be
something that had a broad base of acceptance, yet was still appealing
to me personally, to hold my interest. My eventual design uses piercing
(simple equipment & technique), repetitive photostatic etching from
my single original drawing (labor efficient), and is built around the
core rule books from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons* (an old favorite
of mine, but a game that is widely known). The experiment yielded unexpected results. I thought that by tracking materials used and hours spent, I could establish a baseline cost, and then auction it on Ebay or elsewhere. The final price would determine what, if any, profit were to be had from this sort of work. But what I found was that, once finished, I was caught by a nasty Catch-22: the work felt inferior to many of my other pieces, due to its lack of outrageous attention to detail (see One Ring), and I felt guilty sending less than my best work out into the world to represent me. Thus the dilemma: make affordable work that I don't dare show in public, or make the work I feel is right and have to give it away, because no one could possibly afford to buy it. The piece still sits on my shelf. *Specifically, the Dungeon Masters Guide and Player's Handbook from 2nd Edition. This is, of course, the best version of the game. Because I said so. |
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