Commissioned Piece(s)

My friend asked me a few months ago if I could make him some real life Purity Seals from Warhammer 40k, a game he plays.

From the Warhammer Wiki regarding Purity Seals "For the religious or fearful, the Gods offer some consolation in the face of death. Some paint religious phrases on armour or shields, while many others pour sealing wax onto their armour and stamp it with a holy symbol to show their faith. For warriors without plate components, they incorporate such Purity Seals into the rune-inscribed plates they wear around their necks.

He wanted the wax seal version since it was something he wanted to use as prizes for an event he was hosting.  I gave it a whirl and they ended up pretty cool. Fast forward to last month, he commissioned  13 more for another event he is running.  Below are pictures of the process. I still had all the materials from the last time - cotton handmade paper that looked like parchment; wax and wax seal supplies; markers and torch. He asked for a few modifications from the originals and I think they turned out better than the first batch.

First I measured out the strips for each ribbon on the paper.  I couldn't go too wide because I couldn't increase the size of the wax seal stamp. I used a pencil to mark them lightly on the sheet.  I fit about 5 on each one. I left space in between each one so they could be cut apart with enough edge left to distress.  I then looked up some prayers of protection in Latin.  He said I could use Lorem Ipsum (I had no clue what this was at the time, but it basically means filler text!), but I wanted them to feel more authentic so that is why I wanted to use Latin prayers. The spacing on the first batch was wonky and I had a lot of issues with gaps, so this time I used random Latin words as filler in the prayer to make it work for me. He wanted a drop cap (giant letter) to start the paragraphs and then a specific insignia at the bottom of them all. I tried to change up the order and pairing of the prayers so that they weren't all the same. I used a Uni Pin oil based pen to do the writing because it didn't bleed on the paper like some of the other fine liners I had used when testing on the first batch.  For the insignia, I freehanded them after a failed attempt to use my optical tracing board (still trying to master this product :/ ). Once finished, I cut them apart and then got to distressing.  I used a small torch to burn the edges and make them look battle-worn. I then added the wax seal to the top. Let me know what you think!