I made a zine

I've been wanting to make a zine for awhile now. Especially when I came across Bubble Sort Zines and Julia Evan's Wizard Zines collection ranging from command line, linux, networking, http, bit and latest one is "How containers work". I missed a zine workshop by Grrrlzine when they visited Dublin last year as part of the Irish Literature Festival.

Ever so eager, I wanted to run a zine-making workshop as part of LoveLaceSpace but timing didn't work out....

Until a recent email from Science Gallery Dublin and it had a How to Maker a Zine in its newsletter. It was a Friday and I though... "Huh, why not!! πŸ€”πŸ˜ŽπŸ’ͺ"

My first attempt

Followed the instructions (click on the pic in the Science Gallery post πŸ‘†), that's where the scissors comes in, just for a quick snip.

Now for the content... what to do!? πŸ€”

πŸ’‘ I know, it'll be a perfect companion for my Maker project, "Print your own adventure game".

You've got 8 pages (teeny ones at that πŸ˜†), so this what I decided on:-

Making a Zine

Making a Zine

Making a Zine

πŸ‘† The finished 1st attempt before I coloured it in.

Making a Zine

πŸ‘† This is after I used markers and coloured it in.

Before I coloured it in, I inked it with a black pen (muji oil-based, 0.5mm). I wasn't very happy with the results. They were cheapo markers from LIDL (I think), and wasn't very clean, erasing the pencil marks left it really grubby.

Next - let's digitise it!

πŸ€” So I thought what if I scanned it in and then re-ink and colour it digitially on my iPad Pro with Procreate. My recent foray back in to drawing and use the iPad with Procreate properly instead of watching videos/movies got my artsy creative brain ticking.

So that's what I did:-

Making a Zine - Phase 2 - digitise it

Now at this point, I thought it's all done and dusted. First of all, it was not quite centred and it was all a little off after folding the zine, things were not where they seemed or cut off.

Making a Zine - Phase 2 - digitise it

It was much better this time after folding it. It's a bit of trial and error.

Making a Zine - Phase 2 - digitise it

Making a Zine - Phase 2 - digitise it

Now I was not happy with just the flat colours, why not add a tiny bit more details to bring out the chunky headings on each page.

Finally, let's add a little more detail digitally

Making a zine - final

I'm super pleased with the results. I'm still learning to finish details, so it's not for this zine as I don't want it to look perfect, I'll leave that to my next digitial painting project.

Making a zine - final

Making a zine - final

Making a zine - final

Making a zine - final

Making a zine - final

Here's my final demo of the finished zine:

Making a zine - final

Do you have a zine to share?

Anyone who makes zines out there? Do share! You can tweet @DublinMaker and @whykay with #DublinMaker #ShareYourMakes.

Finally, I hope everyone is safe and well in this extraordinary time, let's keep making, sharing and connected!

About Author

Vicky Twomey-Lee

Pythonista, but normally found organising various tech events, and now heavily involved in diversity initiatives like Coding Grace, PyLadies Dublin, and Women in Technology and Science (WITS Ireland).
πŸ‘‰ http://about.me/whykay

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