A: The term "Papercraft" can be rather broad, possibly referring to many categories such as origami and scrapbooking. In this blog, I am mainly concerned with the kind of Papercraft that involves printing, cutting, and gluing together pieces of paper into fully colored 3-dimensional models. So yeah! Papercraft!!
Q: What is it like to build papercraft models?
A: Well, it's a slow and messy process. Either I am totally Zen with the patiently one glue-tabbing at a time and worrying of nothing else but the incremental perfection of my models, or I am going completely bonkers as I curse the sticky, dirty glue bits as they spread everywhere and mock my clumsiness.
Q: What is this .pdo file in the downloads?
A: A .pdo file contains the 3D model, broken down into pieces and glue tabs. Use Pepakura Viewer to view and print the .pdo file. You can download Pepakura Viewer at http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/download/viewer.html.
Q: How to convert .pdo to .pdf?
A: Open .pdo with Pepakura Viewer. Go to File > Print. Select a virtual printer, such as PrimoPDF, which will output a .pdf instead of a print job to a physical printer. You can download PrimoPDF at http://www.primopdf.com/index.aspx.
Q: What softwares do you use to design papercraft models?
A: I mainly use Metasequoia for designing the 3D models; Paint.NET for editing textures; and Pepakura Designer for carving the 3D models into pieces and glue tabs.
Q: What tools do you use to physically build papercraft models?
A: Most of my tools are shown in the following picture:
- X-Acto #11 Blades (the black handle is the X-Acto X2000 Knife), for cutting out the pieces of paper.
- A dull blade, for scoring (pre-marking the paper edges for sharp bends), which is pretty necessary with thicker types of paper.
- Scissors, for trimming the whites from imprecise knifing and oversized glue tabs.
- Cutting mat, for protecting my desk from the knifing.
- Aleene's Original Tacky Glue, for gluing stuff. Best glue ever. I can't tell if the Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue really does dry faster, but the Original gets it done just fine.
- Tweezers, for pressing tightly the glue tabs and their adjoining edges in the gluing process.
- Toothpicks, for applying the tacky glue on small areas.
- Plastic knife, for spreading the tacky glue over large surfaces.
- Wet/dry paper towels, for wiping off excess tacky glue on my fingers.
- Crayola 64 Ct Washable Markers (available here on Amazon), for pre-marking the white edges, because I don't like them.
- Dowels, rarely used for shaping small cylindrical parts.
- Pepakura Viewer, for the overall big picture.
A: I like my paper as thin as possible. I usually use just some copy paper at 20 lbs, which is nothing special. I have tried 65 lbs and 120 lbs Cardstock papers, and I don't find them that good. I don't like how the thick papers always give me lots of whites at all sharp bends and glue tab junctures.
Q: Why does this blog have so much text and pictures and stuff, unlike most other Papercraft blogs?
A: Most other Papercraft blogs just give you a short description of the Papercraft model, a picture of the finished model, and a download link, or a link to the author's page. In other words, most of them just give you the result, not the process. Well, methinks it would be interesting to look at the process as well.
Thus, it is the goal of this blog to provide not only the Papercraft models themselves, but also a log of rather verbose, opinionated ramblings of myself. I may talk about what I liked about a certain design; what troubles I encountered; and other stuff. I may also provide more pictures showing some intermediate steps of the incomplete models, which are not meant to help anyone, but are fun to look at anyway.
Q: Why can't I leave comments on this blog?
A: Because I have disabled commenting, for esoteric reasons. If you want to say something, please use the Shout Box at the sidebar of this blog.
Q: Who is that stylish character in the blog's header image, drooling by the tacky glue?
A: The character is Yukari Yakumo, from Touhou. See this post where I have endeavored to build this papercraft model most superb.
Any other questions?
