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Photo of handbound book of Black Irises in the Sunshine by imalwaysstraight, with cover art of Harrowhark with a suit and fedora smokingALT
same books as before, now photo'd from aboveALT
Photo showing the spines are rounded, with the title on them in red colored foilALT
endpaper that is red, pink, ad white marbleALT
Page showing the book was made for the 2023 big ressurection TLT fic event, with art by nakji and rhywhite fang, and cosplay by thelostaborsenALT
title page of bookALT
chapter one of bookALT

Black Irises in the Sunshine by imalwaysstraight/@nooomagnus

art by @rhywhitefang, @nakji, cosplay by @aborsenkatiel, cover art by @nakji

Nova & Co Private Investigations is the best damn detective agency this side of the River—and strictly a one-woman operation. But when Harrow gets shot (again) while working to expose corruption at City Hall, her so-called friend Palamedes goes behind her back to hire her some muscle. The good news: Harrow only has to work with Gideon until she’s cracked the case. Once she’s busted this thing wide open, they never have to see each other again….right?

This fantastic fic has been on my to-bind list since before it was even posted on AO3, and I’m so excited to finally share it! I tried a lot of new things with this, especially the cover. This is the third and final bind I finished for @renegadeguild’s Fanfic Writer’s Appreciation Day event!

Progress pics/process rambling under the cut!

MASSIVE massive thank you to @nakji for the INCREDIBLE cover art, and for so graciously allowing me to slap text over it. I was really going for the aesthetic of those pulpy noir detective novels, and I think it turned out really good! This is the first time I ever tried an art cover. I basically formatted it in photoshop, then printed it in black and white a couple times to make sure I had sized the image right for what I wanted before taking it to fedex to print in color.

It is printed in color on normal paper, and then I sprayed the shit out of it with Krylon Crystal Clear. I also bumped the saturation a bit before printing, which I think worked well because in my experience coor printers often desaturate/fade out color prints

hand holding coverALT
hand holding krylon spray over the coversALT

I then put the case together as normal. I used gold foil for the spine, and then used a marker to color it red because I didn’t want to buy red foil just for this, and honestly it worked out great, 10/10 money saving method!

case with red markerALT
the book in the pressALT

I really adore how this came out and I’m excited at my new art cover powers… I will be using this in the future!!