Papercraft

[Cognisant]

It's possible to make some pretty amazing models out of paper and I can think of many applications for this, everything from props for tabletop RPGs, LARPGs, film props (some papercraft guns are life sized and very convincing) and just that last one, say you wanted to do a spoof of the infamous "Guns, lots of guns" scene from the matrix, well even with digital replication the number of plastic/rubber props they had would have been expensive, whereas with paper versions the exact same scene could be shot at a fraction of the price.

Spoiler

@loveofreason

 

[own8ge]

I made a vase with roses for my mother on mothers day.

Roses are helpful too you know. Whenever some1 is mad at you or whatever the problem may be, to make em a rose always seems like a rather rewarding solution.

I also sometimes make boomerang paper-aircraft, people get amazed by it somehow. And I can bully people with it, I can throw it at them, but it'll always fly back in my hands, ready to be thrown again

 

[Cognisant]

I'm thinking about using papercraft to make some kind of street side animatronic puppetshow, I mean if it's just paper once I've got a variable character template or several specific character templates I can change the puppets, props and set quickly/easily so I can put out a new show every week, y'know to maintain the novelty of it. But there's also music, dialogue and the story scripts to consider, but I don't have enough time/talent for all of them, it would definitely help if I could find someone else to come up with 30sec jingles, the dialogue I supposed I could do with voice modulation software (and some acting on my part) and lastly coming up with story... well nothing comes to mind right now but it's midday and I'm sober

 

[Kuu]

Papercraft is nice, downside is it's dreadfully time-consuming and minimally automatable. That offsets whatever price advantage it had IMO, save for those utterly cash-strapped and dedicated.

Now, the structural potential of light-weight curved thin-shells and folded plate surfaces? That's fascinating.

 

[Cognisant]

No I think it's quite automatable, sure if I was only using paper that would present some interesting challenges, but with fishing line, glue, toothpicks, maybe even some clay, I could make some fairly impressive puppets, and with cloth I could almost hide their joints entirely.

 

[Cognisant]

I highly recommend checking out these sites:
http://paper-models.eu/
http://moekami.himegimi.jp/download/download.html

There's also other sites that do ships, guns, mecha, animals, structures, simple machines, etc.

My idea is to make something like this:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k6qcBQoK7uI

If I can get approval busking here is free, I don't know of any regulation against automated puppet shows, at 50c a viewing for a 1min-30sec show that's not bad value for a spectacle, I'd pay it to see the Duloc show above if I hadn't seen it before, if nothing else it's definitely the sort of thing I'd do on a date with some time to kill before a movie or whatever.

Edit: Be honest, how many times have you watched the Duloc show?

 

[Kuu]

Eh, what I meant by automatable was the production of the paper models themselves, not the puppet show.

 

[Cognisant]

Well a lot of it's derived from wireframe models and I'm sure there's software for that somewhere, at the very least to lay out the wireframe in 2D so texture artists can work on it, then if we consider what's possible with character creation these days, and that the "polygon count" of these models isn't going to be high (think back to the days of obviously polygonal characters like on the Nintendo 64) I don't think making a modifiable template for humanoids would be that hard.

Everything else can be grossly stylised so it doesn't matter if the shape doesn't come out well, most people will assume that the proportions are just a part of the wacky style

 

[Wolf18]

I like making paper models. Someone got a book for my brother's bar mitzvah called "Paper-toy Monsters." He never read it, but I did and although I am not so into building things according to a construction manual, I made some cool monsters with ideas from the book. I also made a model car from paper, but it's not very good. I would like to learn to make more detailed models. The paper-models.eu site is interesting, but does not have a lot of variety and does not give any tips. Do any of you know of sites that give tips on how to build paper models?

SW

 

[Cognisant]

From what I've gathered thus far if you're making your own models it's best to start in 2D, drawing the subject on grid paper from different angles, use the measurements from that to deduce the geometry (or build a virtual 3D model if you have the software and skill) then from there you just have to be a perfectionist, make every fold and every seam as immaculate as you possibly can.

Curved parts seem to be the hardest due to their non-uniform geometry, if you're doing a cone like face it's best to practice a bit first, get used to what the paper is like, how much it can twist and bend.

I haven't found any sites with written advice, I guess it just comes down to patience, practice and personal experience, none of which a guide can help with.

 

[Wolf18]

From what I've gathered thus far if you're making your own models it's best to start in 2D, drawing the subject on grid paper from different angles, use the measurements from that to deduce the geometry (or build a virtual 3D model if you have the software and skill) then from there you just have to be a perfectionist, make every fold and every seam as immaculate as you possibly can.

Curved parts seem to be the hardest due to their non-uniform geometry, if you're doing a cone like face it's best to practice a bit first, get used to what the paper is like, how much it can twist and bend.

I haven't found any sites with written advice, I guess it just comes down to patience, practice and personal experience, none of which a guide can help with.

Thanks, I guess that's what I've been doing. I don't have any software (or skill) to make a virtual 3-D model.

SW