"They're papercraft dolls, not models!"

While searching around in my "ideas" folder, I came across these guys. I want to make the whole set of course, but rather not all at once.

When I decide which one will be first, I'll let you know. ;o)

Ninjatoes?

People sometimes ask me how I got the nickname "ninjatoes", but the story is not very exciting I'm afraid.

The truth is, I just made up a crazy word that I thought people would easily remember! ;o)

Tomb Raider 1-3 T-Rexes

I finally figured out why Tomb Raiders 1 through 3 are still the bests in the series: they have T-Rexes!

And now you can make your own:

• download Tomb Raider 1-3 T-Rexes

Have fun building!

Giant Alice in Barcelona

A couple of weeks ago, Victor Abad from Barcelona sent me a couple of "work in progress" pictures of a giant cardboard Alice based on my American McGee's Alice templates that he and his friends were making as part of the street decorations for the Festa Major de Gràcia.

The festival should be well underway by now (August 15-21) and now that it's finished, you can see they gave Alice the more classic look from Alice in Wonderland.

This way, she fits better with the lots and lots of other decorations the people from Carrer de Bruniquer made for the festival: slideshow

Like I said, the festival should still be underway, so if you happen to be in the neigbourhood... ;o)

...and now it's brown.

I have been thinking about possible poses for Twilight Princess Link, but I always do that for possible future projects, and I haven't started working on him yet.

In fact, I have been making some simple display stands for my green papercraft. ;o)

Hunchback Link?

While I was working on another project, my Oni Link caught my eye.

I kinda like the pose he has, I think it could really work on TP Link too; although like this, I would lower the arms a little, and maybe make the stance not *that* wide... ;o)

And make him lean forward a bit less (so he looks less like a hunchback... ;o)

And the Master Sword kinda looks a bit big like this, but overall, it's a nice tense pose that would capture the warrior Link quite nicely!

My newest model...

...is green.

Mmm... download...

Have fun building!

• download Homer Simpson papercraft model

Mmm... glue...

As you can see, paper Homer is as good as finished, I just need to finish the instructions before I release it.

Stay tuned!

Let's rethink that...

That ain't quite working out the way I hoped...

Making the face like this requires the nose to keep everything together to shape the holes for the eyes, but there's way too much room for error and it won't be very strong like this...

The best solution is to just redo the face: I'm thinking something along the lines of how I attached the arms to the body on Tomb Raider Chronicles' EDS.

The result will be much better looking when everything doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. ;o)

Homer and thinking ahead?? (Homer and thinking...??)

Here you can see how I unfolded Homer's pants. Most of it is pretty straightforward, but you can see how I seperated part 5 from part 6 though, while at first glance they could easily be joined together.

But thinking ahead, when I tried to assemble the parts in my head, I thought it would be easier if you could glue on part 5 seperately to finish the backside first, then the strip of part 6 around the top of the pants, and then the "circular" piece of part 6 as the closing top of the pants.

But to be able to do that later on, you have to make this decision now: you need to know already how you want to assemble the paper model, even before you open your 3D model in Pepakura Designer to unfold it.

When your waist is bigger than your pants...

To make a papercraft model easier to build, it's best to break it down into sections in the 3D editing stage, rather than handling it as one, big model.

On a model like Homer, it's very easy to see how you could break the model into the shoes, pants, body, arms and head of course.

If one section is smaller than the other one where they meet (like Homer's pants are smaller than his waist) the easiest way to make the connection is to close the ends of each part, so you can easily build the sections seperately later on and then just glue them on top of eachother.

D'oh!

Not quite Sora or Twilight Princess Link, Homer Simpson is not the sharpest tool in the shed. But I'm guessing he'll make a nice papercraft model for on my desk. ;o)