How to make Dragon Scale Armor cultural and creative products? A full guide to digital printing production
Dragon Scale Binding is an outstanding representation of traditional Chinese bookbinding craftsmanship and is praised as a 'living fossil of bookbinding.' It combines the advantages of scroll and codex formats-when rolled up, it forms a neat scroll, but when opened, the pages overlap and lift like scales. When the wind blows, the scales move and flutter, creating a unique aesthetic of 'a dragon swimming in the book while the book rides the dragon,' offering both practicality and artistic appeal.
With the rapid development of information technology, the way people read books has changed dramatically. Dragon Scale Binding now mainly appears in the form of cultural and creative products, and the content is often produced using digital printing techniques. While the core structure remains the same, the outward form of Dragon Scale Binding has undergone many changes from its original state, and layout design based on aesthetic expression has also diversified.
This article explores the research and development of digitally printed Dragon Scale Binding cultural and creative works from the perspectives of form, layout design, and printing production.
Left Twist and Right Twist
The Standard for Determining the Form of Dragon Scale Binding
When a long scroll is opened or stored, if the axis is on the left-hand side, it's considered a left twist; if on the right, it's a right twist. As a form of long scroll binding, Dragon Scale Binding also requires determining whether it has a left or right twist, which is the basic starting point for studying its form.
Traditional Chinese binding forms can be roughly divided into three types: scrolls, folded books, and flip-through books. Dragon Scale Binding is a type of 'scroll.' The earliest form of 'scroll' was bamboo slips or silk manuscripts, which later evolved into paper scrolls. During its development, scrolls were further divided into unrolled and axed types. Bamboo slips were unaxled, using the leftmost bamboo (or wooden) strip as the axis and rolling to the right for storage; early silk manuscripts were folded, eventually developing into scrolls. Paper scrolls also experienced an unaxled form, usually for short texts, simply rolled into a cylinder after writing. For longer or more valuable texts, an axis was added to the left side of the paper, forming a scroll. Given the ancient Chinese habit of holding the scroll in the left hand and writing with the right, all scroll types except Dragon Scale Binding are left-twisted, with Dragon Scale Binding being the only right-twisted type. The only confirmed existing Dragon Scale Binding is the 'Tang Manuscript Wang Renxu's Corrected and Supplemented Qieyun' (hereafter referred to as 'Tang Manuscript Qieyun') held at the Palace Museum in Beijing (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: "Tang Manuscript 'Wang Renxu's Correcting and Supplementing the Qieyun'"
From consulting literature and historical materials, it's known that the 'Tang Manuscript Qieyun' is the only recognized existing physical example of dragon scale binding in China. As shown clearly in Figure 1, its storage axis is on the right end, while the cover and title strip are on the back of the left end, which is opposite to the storage direction of commonly seen scrolls today. Experts have verified that the dragon scale binding of this item is not its original form but was re-bound by court bookbinders during the Northern Song Dynasty under Emperor Xuanhe. Its original state is unknown, and there is still no definitive conclusion.
The 'Tang Manuscript Qieyun' is right-rotating because of its functional purpose as a book. It was compiled by Wang Renxu of the Tang dynasty and served as a rhyming dictionary for checking metrics when composing rhymed poetry, similar to how we now look up pronunciations in a dictionary. As a reference book, it needed to be easy to flip through and search. The major drawback of traditional left-rotating scrolls was that checking the contents always required unrolling the entire scroll. During the Yuan dynasty, Wu Yan mentioned in "Xianju Lu": 'Ancient books were all scrolls, but because rolling and unrolling was difficult, they were folded.' This indicates that scrolls were replaced by folded and stitched bindings mainly because opening and storing them was cumbersome. When the manuscript was re-bound during the Xuanhe period, to make it easier to consult, the pages were staggered and glued onto long strips of backing paper. Because the text on the pages is written top to bottom and right to left, the mounting sequence of the pages had to be right to left, with subsequent pages pasted under the previous ones. When storing the finished product, starting from the left end would conflict with the direction the pages unfold, so the axis had to be placed at the right end. Starting to roll from the right created the right-rotating dragon scale binding, with its structure illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Structural diagram of the dragon scale mount
From Figure 2, a single scale leaf is divided into three parts: the area used to bond and fix with the backing paper is called the scale root; the part of the rear scale leaf that protrudes staggered from the front is called the scale opening (the top leaf has no scale opening); the middle area used for writing is called the scale surface. The scale surface can be written on one side or double-sided; the Tang Manuscript Qieyun uses double-sided writing.
Some film and television dramas set in the Tang dynasty have also featured dragon scale binding writing items. For example, in the 2025 film "Lychees of Chang'an," the character roster and account book appear twice, both in situations requiring frequent searching, similar to reference books, objectively reflecting the format and use of dragon scale binding writing materials at the time.
Historically, the dragon scale armor was designed to be right-handed, but the direction of right-hand rotation is opposite to the common modern scrolls of calligraphy and painting. So, is it necessary to adopt the right-hand rotation model when developing cultural and creative products?
If making film and television props, right-hand rotation mode must be used; If developing cultural and creative works, appropriate adaptation can be made. Dragon Scale binding was originally designed for convenient reading and to carry large volumes of text, requiring limited space when fully unfolded for viewing, so the backing paper should not be too long. The extant physical "Tang Manuscript Qieyun" contains 24 book leaves, occupying 130mm of backing paper, characterized by small size and large capacity. However, the long scroll still has relatively long sections before and after the Dragon Scale Book leaf, which the author speculates were added during remounting during the Northern Song period, not the original part. Therefore, if developing shorter Dragon Scale binding cultural and creative works with a core length under 150mm, right-hand rotation mode can be fully used to achieve an antique-style effect; If the length is longer and the first leaf on the right is not required to be on the top layer, auxiliary elements such as the top head, leading head, water barrier, and trailing tail must be added. From a structural innovation perspective, left-hand rotation mode can be used, which not only facilitates traditional folding of long scrolls but also aligns with our consistent standards for reading and examining long scrolls.
Scaly mouth and scaly surface
The design focus of the dragon scale pattern
The scale opening is the part of the dragon scale binding long scroll where the lower layer of book leaves protrudes from the previous layer due to staggered stitching; The scale surface is the part of the leaf between the scale opening and the base used for writing. When designing layouts, how to design the content of the scale mouth and the scale surface, as well as the relationship between the two, is a key issue to consider.
From the actual "Tang Manuscript Qieyun," it can be seen that the area at the scale mouth does not have any special content design; it is basically blank, with only edges wrapped to make the book sturdy and durable, with the text concentrated on the scale surface, reflecting its fundamental characteristics as a reference book. Among foreign collections with similar dragon scale binding, the binding method of the Dazang Dunhuang Manuscript No. 2490 (untitled) and the British Dunhuang Manuscript S.6349 "Divination House Auspicious Method" is similar to the "Tang Manuscript Qieyun," both Tang dynasty relics, with special designs at the scaled edges on the book leaves. This shows that historically, the position of the scaled edges in dragon scale binding books was not the design focus. In the past decade or so, with the revival of this binding form, as an intangible cultural heritage, cultural and creative designers have incorporated the scale opening as an important part of layout design, resulting in a variety of dragon scale design works, accompanied by a new term: Guochao. For example, in the "2026 Intangible Cultural Heritage Gala" jointly produced by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and China Media Group, Zhang Yi, the representative inheritor of Hangzhou's municipal intangible cultural heritage-the dragon scale costume craftsmanship-created a dragon scale costume work (Figure 3, left image). The design is right-handed, with the entire image of the first leaf on the right and the scales of the remaining leaves together forming a complete image. After all leaf surfaces are turned to the right, the reverse of the first leaf on the left and the scale edges of the remaining leaves together form a complete image. Between the front and back of the scale leaf, another set of images is printed (Figure 3, right image).
Figure 3 Zhang Yilong's Dragon Scale Book Work
Figure 3 shows a piece that represents the main design style of contemporary dragon scale book-themed cultural creations. The scale-edge puzzle is the first appearance of the work when it's laid flat, while the scale content is the second appearance that you see when flipping through the scales. The scale-edge puzzle in dragon scale book works is similar to the popular fore-edge prints in books in recent years, like the Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House edition of "Wang Jiangnan" (Figure 4). It's a groundbreaking innovation based on traditional bookbinding, greatly enhancing its visual appeal and adding to the cultural and artistic value of the work.
During the development of dragon scale book-themed cultural works, some pieces overly emphasize the scale-edge puzzle design while neglecting the scale content (sometimes leaving it blank), which goes against the basic essence of dragon scale books and is purely for show. In cultural creative design, it's important to give equal importance to both the scale edge and the scale content. The content of the scale edge and the scale must be related, but not identical. For example, the scale-edge puzzle could be a painting, while the scale content could be poems by the same author or on the same theme, serving as an interpretation or extension of the scale-edge puzzle. Alternatively, the scale-edge puzzle could be a complete horizontal painting, and the scale content could be a book-style design using pages with paintings that are the same or similar to the scale-edge puzzle. The core idea in designing the scale edge and scale content is to balance connection and difference.
Figure 4 Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, 'Wang Jiangnan'
The width of the scale openings is another issue worth considering. At present, the scale openings of dragon scale-style cultural and creative works that can be seen are generally narrow, mostly not exceeding 2 cm, which aligns with historical facts. The scale openings in the 'Tang Manuscript Qieyun' were around 1 cm wide. The main advantage of narrow scale openings is that the pages can be arranged densely, increasing the information capacity. However, this also leads to a large number of overlapping pages, with thickness greater in the middle and smaller at the ends, and the rolled edges may not form a perfect circle, slightly affecting the appearance. Based on this, we can consider two situations when designing the scale opening width: if the overall puzzle of the scale openings is relatively short, within 1.5 m, set the width to within 2 cm and use a right-handed rotation. This allows the work to be displayed fully in a smaller space while still maintaining sufficient storage of information on the scales; if the overall puzzle length exceeds 2 m, the width can be set to 4–5 cm. This increases the spacing between scale pages, reduces the number of pages, lowers the thickness when laid flat, uses a left-handed rotation, and when completed, can be partially opened for display, achieving a good presentation effect.
Digital Printing
Implementation Path for Dragon Scale-style Cultural and Creative Works
Before the widespread use of block-printed thread-bound books, most books were handwritten. As a transitional form from scrolls to folios, dragon scale binding also featured handwritten content. Today, with rapid technological development, there are various forms of presenting text and images. For dragon scale-style cultural and creative works, digital printing is the best way to realize them.
01
Prepress Processing
Dragon scale-style cultural works rely on scale openings to piece together the complete image. The focus and difficulty in prepress lies in cutting and segmenting the images for the scale openings. It is necessary to set overlapping values for adjacent scales (Figure 5). The image in the overlapping area 'a' must exactly match the same width of the image from the previous scale page, from the outer edge inward. During the pasting of pages, even if minor positioning errors occur, there won't be any 'blank gaps'. The principle is similar to the bleed and trap in printing techniques.
Figure 5 Schematic of Overlapping Scale Edges
In the practical production of dragon scale-bound cultural and creative works, many designers don't set up the scale edge overlap in advance (i.e., a=0), which places very high accuracy demands on the subsequent leaf-pasting process and increases the difficulty of post-production. Even though the scale pattern can be perfectly aligned once all the leaves are pasted, over time, differences in expansion and contraction between the scale paper and the backing paper may cause white gaps to appear. Therefore, setting the scale edge overlap is crucial. Depending on the width of the scale leaves, the value of 'a' can be set between 3 and 5 mm.
02
Pre-press Production
Currently, dragon scale-bound cultural and creative works are mainly produced with inkjet printing on Xuan paper. The paper used is often roll-format micro-spray Xuan paper with an ink-locking coating, and the ink is mainly weak solvent pigment ink. If a higher color saturation is desired, weak solvent dye ink can be used, but it should be noted that dye ink prints will fade under prolonged exposure to light and are not waterproof. During the printing process of roll Xuan paper, it must remain free of wrinkles, dirt, and broken lines, cut neatly, with smooth edges without tearing, and the print pattern should not be deformed. Only then can high-quality dragon scale-bound works be produced.
03
Post-press Processing
After printing the scale leaves, they must go through folding, pasting, trimming, as well as backing mounting, edge wrapping, and attaching rods, each step requiring high practical skill. In folding and pasting the leaves and attaching them to the backing paper, hot melt adhesive film used for mounting can be applied, with heat applied via an iron for bonding, then quickly cooled with a cold iron to solidify, avoiding deformation in the finished product. After wrapping the edges, pasting the front label, and attaching the leaves, the whole piece can be heat-pressed once using a mounting press at 80–90°C before assembling the bottom and top rods to obtain a high-quality finished product.
This article, based on the structure and craftsmanship of dragon scale binding and combined with modern digital printing technology, breaks the traditional fixed mindset of dragon scale binding design and layout. It proposes flexible design principles and standardized production processes suitable for contemporary cultural and creative development, paying attention both to respecting the historical essence of this intangible heritage and to emphasizing its innovative transformation in modern times, providing theoretical and practical support for the R&D, production, and live heritage transmission of dragon scale-bound cultural and creative works.