That's not paper?!

No, it's not. ;o)

It's a plastic model kit that I've been wanting to make for ages now already (I don't think Revell even makes it anymore... ;o)

It doesn't have too many pieces, though, and not a lot of painting (the thing is called "Blackbird" for a reason) so I'll be back to doing paper models in no time! ;o)

Stay tuned!

Clocktown Postman release: Myth Busted!

Majora's Mask Clocktown Postman: does he really always ring twice?

You can get the parts and instructions for the Postman (leave out the backpack and hat to build the Running Man from Ocarina of Time) and the mailbox from: www.kickme.to/ninjatoes

(in the Zelda section, obviously ;o)

Have fun building!

Laying out a papercraft template

Personally, I like to position the parts so that they are right next to the edges that they connect to (although that isn't always possible of course... ;o)

You can usually get more parts on one page if you don't do that, but I always think it can offer a lot of help to build the model.

Sometimes I want to give a little extra help, though, so I add little arrows or markings to show which glueing tab should connect to which edge.

If you make sure not to mix up any mountain and valley folds, and know which glueing tab goes where, pre-shaping it to glue it to the rest of the model will be much easier. ;o)

In this particular case, because the Postman's clothes are already white, I decided to give the glueing tabs on those parts a light, blueish colour.

That way it's much easier to see which parts are glueing tabs, and which pieces are actually part of the clothes. ;o)

The part numbers do more than tell you how much parts you have left. They're also there to show you the recommended build order.

For a lot of parts, it doesn't really matter, but sometimes it makes things a lot easier if you build them in a specific order, especially if it means you can still reach inside the model. ;o)

Everybody has their own personal preference on how to lay out the part templates of course, and I think you will find out which you like best easy enough just by playing around with it yourself. ;o)

Have fun!

Almost done!

Well, the Postman is pretty much finished.

As you can see, he is actually pretty well balanced, but the mailbox is also pretty much done, so I will release them together later this week, once I'm done with the instructions.

Stay tuned!

Are you a papercraft addict?

Papercraft can be a very time consuming hobby, but exactly *how* time consuming is it for you? Click the link and tell us!

Are you a papercraft addict?

Special delivery!

At first, I wanted to recreate the same "old school" shadow that the Postman (and all the other characters...) have in Majora's Mask, but in paper... it didn't look so good unfortunately... ;o)

So I don't think it will be on the final templates (you can always just cut out a triangle out of some black paper if you want to make your own of course ;o)

Some things that *will* be on the final templates, are Anju's letter to Kafei and Kafei's express mail to Mama: now that there's a mailbox, we also need some letters for the Postman to deliver of course! ;o)

Stay tuned!

Exactly how much mail do the people in Clocktown get every day?!

As you can see, the Clocktown mailbox will be so big, that many of the parts won't even fit on a regular sheet of A4 paper!

The test build of the Postman revealed that he can stand just fine on his own, though, so you won't absolutely have to build the huge mailbox if you don't want to. ;o)

Stay tuned!

The Postman and old young Link

The backpack and the Postman's hat transform the Running Man from Ocarina of Time into the Postman from Majora's Mask.

When I started the test build, I noticed that the parts were turning out much larger than I expected, and indeed I seem to have messed up the scale... ;o)

The Postman is supposed to be larger than young Link, but this really is too much...! ;o) I also started unfolding the mailbox, though, and even with the new, smaller scale, those parts will still be huge...!

Stay tuned!

Ocarina of Time Running Man

As you can see, I made some pretty good progress on the Postman! The head went together very well, and the body shouldn't really a problem either if you take it one step at a time (which you should always do anyway ;o)

Because this is only a test, I didn't bother with both arms, because they are very similar. The same could be said for the legs of course, but I had to build both of them to test the balance of the model.

At this stage, the Running Man from Ocarina of Time is pretty much tested and ready for fixing. To turn him into the Postman from Majora's Mask, I still need to do the Postman's hat and backpack, so stay tuned!

These legs are made for running

And this is what the Postman's legs look like in paper!

If you look closely, you can see some of the markings I made of things to fix. Not too many really, the legs are quite easy to make.

The biggest problem seems to be that I managed to mess up the scale, and right now it looks like the Postman will be *way* too big to be in the same scale as young Link...

Luckily, that will be a very easy fix. ;o)

Stay tuned!

Break a leg?

I always like to unfold the model in a way that is more or less intuitive to assemble (well, in my sometimes warped mind anyway ;o)

For the same reason, I also try to keep parts that are supposed to be glued together, close together on the template, so you can usually easily see which parts belong together.

This will make it much easier for others to build, and it's well worth the not 100% efficient use of the sheets I think. ;o)

Because this will be a test build, besides seeing if everything fits together properly without too much trouble and looks good, it's also a good opportunity to play around with glueing tab placement, fold line colours... stuff like that.

Stay tuned!

The Postman's Hat

While Link never takes off his trademark green cap in Majora's Mask, the Postman doesn't wear his Postman's Hat when he's off-duty.

So while Link's cap is basically fused with his head (maybe that's the reason why Link cuts off the tip to stick his own, green cap through the hole? He simply can't take it off after all those adventures...! ;o) it makes sense that the Postman's Hat is removable.

I think I will leave it that way in the paper model. That way, by not building the backpack and the hat, you can also build the Running Man from Ocarina of Time. ;o)

Stay tuned!