Hi there my name is Flávio and I'm a huge Uncharted fan. To get more Uncharted related items, or more pop culture stuff, please follow me on my youtube channel. Where I create different stuff like 3D Models, custom collectables, cosplay items and show the entire process from the conception, to having it on the palm of your hand.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuRhb0hZJBax_Gai0VDxBhg?view_as=subscriber

Step 1: Introduction and a Bit of Background Story

This guide will show you how I created the Uncharted 3 Journal Replica with all the steps to accomplish it.

I have been a huge Uncharted fan since the first game was released on the playstation 3, back in 2007, loving everything about it, the plot, the adventure, the gameplay, pretty much everything. But when I experienced Nathan Drake going through is attic on Uncharted 4, just going trough every item that he collected during is adventures, I decided that I wanted to recreate every item that we owns. So that thought led me in to make his Journal from his adventures in Arabia. The entire process took me just around 2 months, but I'm very pleased with the out come, and decided to share with you all.

If you want to check out my guide to create the Uncharted 2 journal, click here: https://www.instructables.com/id/Uncharted-2-Journal/

Step 2: Materials

The materials I used were these ones:

A5 Hardcover notebook;
120 gr A4 White Paper;
Glossy Photo Paper A4;
Transfer Paper A4;
2D Printer;X-Knife;
Scissors;
Black marker 0,5 mm and 1mm;
Pencil H1, H2, H3;
Brown Pencil
Glue stick;
Transparent duct tape;
Duct tape;
Coffee;
Hair Spray;

Step 3: Collecting Photos/drawings

To make the journal in the most authentic way possible, I used the photo mode from the ps4 to capture the photos from the video game "The Nathan Drake Collection" while Nathan was using his journal. This method allowed me to get some HD quality photos so I could recreat them in my journal. After the photos were taken I uploaded them to my pen drive and paste them in to my computer so later I could work on them.

Step 4: Edit/Adjust the Photos

In this section I will try to go step by step to show you this process of editing and transforming the images to look closer to the ones we see in Nate journal.

To do it, I used the software Photoshop and went I created a new file with the same dimensions as the pages from of the notebook I had. Then I imported one of the images from the journal and selected the area of interest, either if it was a manuscript or a photo.

With that area selected, I paste it to the file I had created earlier. In here, I scaled the image to fit the page and used the distorse and skew tools to make the photo look like it’s straight, and not tilted.

This method was used for every page, since the photos I took from within the video game were tilted, because of the way that Nate was holding the journal.

After this method was applied for each page, depending on the type of document, I had two different approaches. If it was a drawing, I used the filter “black and white” to get only the outlines of the draw and remove the color noise. If it was a picture or a manuscript, I just had to tweak some parameters, for example, the contrast, the levels of RGB, saturation etc.

Additionally, that were some documents I had to create from scratch, like the newspaper article, the Cartagena flyer museum and the note left from Chloe.

And sums it, for the editing and transforming process of creating the third journal of Nate adventures.

Step 5: Printing the Pages

When every image and photo was done, it was time to print it and to do it I used 2 different types of paper.

For the drawings I opted to use the transfer paper since I was planning on tracing over the drawings to the actual notebook and for the rest, I used the 120 gr paper, which gave a better felling to those items, making them more heavy to the touch and feeling more realistic.When every image and photo was done, it was time to

Step 6: Creating the Journal

Right of the gate, when I was planning on creating this journal, I notice that were 3 different types of paper, we have the beige color looking paper, a browner one and some grid paper at the end.

So apparently, I’m not 100 % sure on this, but actually the journal that Nate used, was a combination of 3 different journals, that he had, during his adventures, and one for each local. So that’s why, the journal doesn’t have the same type of paper.

Since the notebook I used already had the beige color on the pages I didn’t had to change it. For the brown looking pages, I mix a teaspoon of coffee in a bit of hot water and applied it using a paint brush to scatter along the pages. After that, I used some paper towels to absorb the excess and a hairdryer to dry the pages and not let the mixture get to the other pages. This method was also used to make the manuscript and the newspaper article look older.

To recreate the grid effect on the last pages of the journal, I went online and search for some A5 grid pages. Then I went and print them on the transfer paper and trace them over the notebook. And actually, I’m very happy how it turned out, because I didn’t want to waste time drawing each little square along 8 pages, that would be a nightmare and would take way too long.

Before I started to glue the pages and drawing the images, i divided every printed page into separated sheet to help me organize the journal, and it was also helpful when I had to trace over the drawings.

To make the drawings, I used the transfer paper and trace them over the pages. Although this might look very easy in theory, actually this part was the one that took longer to make. Because, after the draw was copied to the notebook, I went and used different types of pencils and pens, depending on the effect and wanted to recreate and the draw itself. For example, the shadow and little silhouettes were made using a lighter carbon pencil. For the outlines, depending on the draw, I opted to use a darker carbon pencil or a black marker. And for some pages, I even used a brown color pencil to make the journal feel more realistic.

For the photos, manuscripts and articles, the process was quicker, I choose were the documents should be placed and applied some glue stick on the area and glued the document to the page.

And that was pretty much it for the actual recreation of the notebook.