The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows - Aristide Torchia's Personal Copy

This my interpretation of what Aristide Torchia's personal copy of the Nine Gates would be. This differs from the screen accurate Nine Gates in that the cover is black leather instead of dark brown and that it features full gold foil embossing on the pentagram instead of just the outline. All 9 woodcuts in this book are the LCF versions including the genuine 9th engraving. The book is pristine, i.e. the cover and pages are not weathered, only the page edges have been slightly weathered to accentuate the book's appearance.

It includes loose AT woodcuts (for comparison with the LCF woodcuts in the book), the fake 9th LCF engraving with "CENIZA BROS" written across, the fake 9th LCF engraving featured in the the Balkan version of the book, the two page spread with the genuine 9th LCF engraving, Corso's comparison chart, Corso's namecard, Balkan's postcard as well as the yellow fabric to wrap the book in.

Contact me at swakprops@gmail.com if interested.

Hand drawn Thorin's map and Bilbo's Portrait Video

Custom Nine Gates work in progress

Here's a custom Nine Gates I'm working on for a client. Instead of dark brown leather, he requested black leather and full gold foil on the pentagram (see the comparison pic of my regular cover with the custom one below). The gold contrasts really well with the deep black. The pages will be that of an all LCF book.

December 2013 - S'wak Props Products Update

Hi all,

I'm still offering these items on custom order. I'm still tweaking the Silence Dogood letters so it may be awhile before those are available again. But if you're interested in the Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows, the Grail Diary, Rorschach's Journal, the Labyrinth Red Book or Thorin's map, just drop me a line at swakprops@gmail.com and I'll get back to you ASAP with a quote.

Thanks.

Rorschach's Journal Video uploaded on Youtube

More pics of Thorin's map - now with Bilbo's portrait

This map was hand-drawn using pics of the Weta replica as reference, using pens of differing nib sizes. I then scanned the drawing in high resolution at 600dpi and printed it onto 200gsm textured watercolor paper. This is then weathered with coffee and tea; the folds and creases are added subsequently. The final step is hand-writing the moon runes using UV ink.



If you're interested in acquiring a set, please email me at swakprops@gmail.com.

Thorin's map from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

This is my replica of the map to Erebor from the film "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey". This was originally drawn by Daniel Reeves for the film, modifying the one seen in Tolkien's book. Most notably, the designs for the mountain and Smaug is more artistic compared to the simplified Tolkien version, and Mirkwood has been renamed as Greenwood. An earlier version was also seen when Gandalf visits Bilbo in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring.

For this replica, I printed it on 165gsm watercolor paper through a laserjet, and then weathered the map with coffee, trying my best to also incorporate the folds and creases of the original prop. Once the weathering process is done, I used a cheap invisible ink pen and wrote down the moon runes. Under normal light, you wouldn't be able to see it, but under UV light it magically appears!