Decoupage also means “WHY THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT STARTING TO WRINKLE AND WHY WON'T THE FUCKING CORNERS STAY DOWN?” In some dialects, it can also be directly translated to “Wow. There's a lot of dry glue on my fingers right now.”

Who the fuck came up with decoupage? Seriously? I fucking mean it. It's a horrible idea. Take it from me. We're not even going to start with how I got into the idea, but let me tell you, it's fucking stupid from start to finish.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking “rd95, did you gonna make something classy like all of these folks?” Hahahahaha! That's cute. No. Doing something like that requires actual talent. Which I don't have. No. Instead, I'm gonna be making a nice 11x14 canvas that can be hung up on the wall. Why? Cause I everyone told me that canvas is easy. Well you know what? Either I suck at this shit or everyone else are a bunch of fucking LIARS! Here's a break down as to how I wasted my whole damn Saturday.

First I started out with some very nice comics, such as these.

See these fucking beauties? I mean, damn, just look at them. Don't you want to just pick them up and start thumbing through them? Maybe even start reading them? I know I do. But, no. We're not gonna read them. No siree bob. We're gonna do the one thing that makes every comic collector's asshole pucker up. We're gonna fucking destroy them. We're gonna sit down in front of the TV, turn on Cartoon Network, and take a pair of scissors to them and chop them up left and right until all we have left is this . . .

Well, to be fair, we got this shit too . . .

You can't tell from the picture, but there's about six or seven layers of that stuff. Guess how long it took me to cut all that up? Five fucking hours. If I don't have carpal tunnel syndrome after all this, it'll be a miracle. But that's okay. We got all sorts of good bits that I can work with and plenty to last me for future projects. It was actually five hours well spent and to be honest, it was more than a bit relaxing. Which is great, cause everything else from here on out was one nightmare after another.

Full disclosure, I actually did a trial run yesterday, putting something together for a friend as a surprise gift. It was my first time working it, and I actually learned quite a bit. Namely, you gotta do a little gift wrap fold on all four corners of the frame or it'll look like shit. Also, don't bother wasting good panels on the borders, cause no one will pay attention to them and you're busting your hump for nothing. Also, take a picture of the layout you create in your head because as soon as you take everything off and get ready to actually start gluing, you're gonna forget where every single piece goes. If we're being honest here, the one thing I didn't learn is the one thing I should have learned and it is this. “Decoupaging is stupid. Don't do it.” But the problem is, I'm stupid, so I did another one today anyway.

So first things first, what you have to do is create the borders. Like I said, I learned from my first go around that the borders don't really matter, so just take a bunch of panels that don't really matter and some scrap pages and just go to town to cover up the back and the edges. You'll wanna make sure that you do your best to work nice and slow to prevent the pages from creasing, otherwise you're gonna have a hard time later on. When you're all done, you should end up with something that looks like this.

Doesn't look half bad, does it? My recommendation? Take an extra moment to enjoy your handiwork now, cause you're just gonna fuck it up from here.

The next step is pretty logical. Here is where you'll start taking pieces that you want to use out of your giant pile of cut up panels and images. You can pick stuff based on color, or maybe a single story, or you do what I did and go into “kindergarten noodle project mode” and just start pulling random shit left and right because who gives a shit? We're playing with paper and glue here.

Once you have the pieces you want, start laying them out on the board. Once you're about halfway through, realize that things aren't going to fit exactly the way you want. Take away half of your pieces and find other pieces that will work better for the layout. Now with your new pieces, start all over and once you're halfway through, take away about a quarter of your pieces because they won't fit the layout and find new ones that'll work for you. If you're feeling real sadistic, go looking for that one piece that you put back thinking you weren't going to use it, but now spend the next five minutes hunting for it like that tiny, specialty LEGO block in a big tub of blocks. You need that piece. Fuck all reason about finding a different piece that'll work just as well. You need that piece.

Once you have all the pieces you need laid out exactly as you want them, take a picture before you start gluing. This will allow you perfectly capture your hopes and dreams for your project before your own incompetence completely ruins it.

Now, spend the next hour trying to put everything together. Refer to your picture often. You'll need to. The number of times you drop the F-Bomb alone will make you forget what your final product is supposed to look like. It's not easy. Corners are gonna curl up. Pieces will wrinkle no matter how careful you are in laying them down. You'll lose faith in yourself and wonder why you even wanted to do this in the first place. That's okay though, cause after about an hour of gluing, swearing, cussing, and crying, you'll be near the end. Once you have all your pieces glued in place, all that's left is to put on a few extra layers of Mod Podge, leaving time to dry between each layer, and you'll be done. Then you'll have this baby, waiting to be proudly hung up.

Now think how this is just one super hero of many, and how you also want to do Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, Ninjak, and many others. Remember what you just went through. Now go to bed crying. Because you actually had fun and you don't know why.

Also, sorry for the crappy photos. Like usual.