Blogger's Choice Awards

We'll it's that time of the year where awards are given to the good, the bad, and just plain old weird blogs. There is the sort of like a peoples' choice blogger awards being held at the Postiecon event in Orlando, Florida on June 2, 2007, in which the blogosphere can vote for their favorite and least favorite blog sites. If you're a competitive individual that likes to compare ranks and ratings with your friends or even othe peoples blogs, then this is just the thing for you. Just make sure that you have a ton of traffic on your site and also a very supportive base wouldn't hurt. One of our readers just emailed me and mentioned that she nominated yours truly for the "Best Educational Blog" category (made me laugh:) well, thanks, I guess, I don't know about "educational" because most of the things I talk about you probably knew it already. I've looked at the categories but I can't seem to put a finger on where I fall - well maybe Paperkraft is unique and there's no word to describe us. So go visit the site, check it out a bit, if you see a category that fits one of your favorite or your very own blog, go for it, you never know - you might just win. You can also cast votes for others that have already been nominated. This contest is sponsored by Payperpost.

Book Recommendation - Papercraft Zoo

You've probably seen most of the cute papercraft models featured here like this Corgi, or this giraffe, and even this other dog, they were all created by Kei Goto from the revered KeiCraft Papercaft Studio in Japan. We seldomly see this finely crafted and simplistic style of papercrafts here in the US, and rarely do they sell these on the popular online bookstores - unless you go look for it on some specialty store and wouldn't mind paying extra on oversees shipping. So when I found out that Kei's bestselling book, "Papercraft Zoo", has been made available again here in the US through Amazon.com, I've decided to personally recommend this and insist that beginners and collector's alike should not miss this one and buy a copy of it while it's available locally. The papercrafts on this book are easy to assemble and the price is very much affordable. Follow the link on the bottom of this post to go directly to it's Amazon page.

Papercraft Zoo [via Amazon]

Jesus Christ - Easter Papercraft

Easter is one of the most important holiday for the Christian faith, it is a celebration of the resurrection of the their savior Jesus Christ from the dead after His death by crucifixion. It's observed in the months of March, April, or May each year which approximately coincides with the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Here is a Jesus Christ papercraft model from Yozo Kutsushima of the Happy Origami Ministry in Tokyo, Japan. This paper model is also a paper automata in which its head can move around. We've also got some other cute Easter related papercrafts like this Easter Bunny and Easter Egg that you might want to check out.

Jesus Christ Easter Papercraft [Happy Origami Ministry]

Easter Bunny Papercraft [Related Posts]
Easter Egg Papercraft

Paper Float - Neputa Festival

Neputa originates from a mixture of ancient customs based on an old Japanese legend about two stars that meet in the sky once a year. As time has passed, the festival has become more and more beautiful and entertaining, and now includes traditional taiko drumming and huge paper lanterns on wheels, called ote. On the evenings the ote are pulled through the streets of Hanawa, followed by drums, flutes and children with small lanterns. On the last night of the festival, they are lined up on a bridge, set on fire and floated down the river. Impressive.

Paper vs. Paper

The Nightmare Before Christmas, Chicken Run, Corpse Bride, Wallace and Gromit, and Robot Chicken these are some of the popular movies and shows that used stop-motion process to animate their characters to life. Stop-motion is a film process whereby a single frame of an object is shot, the object is moved slightly, and then another frame is shot. When the frames run continuously it creates an illusion of fluidity in the motion of the object being filmed and they appear to move by themselves. Here's "Extra Strong", a stop-motion short film created by Giovanni Braggio, Lorenzo Latrofa, and Fabio Santomauro (Italians) featuring some paper on paper action.

AIBO Papercraft

" AIBO (Artificial Intelligence roBOt, also means "love" or "attachment" in Japanese, can also mean "partner") is one of several types of robotic pets designed and manufactured by Sony; there have been several different models since their introduction in 1999. Able to walk, "see" its environment via camera, and recognize spoken commands, they are considered to be autonomous robots, since they are able to learn and mature based on external stimuli from their owner or environment, or from other AIBOs. Artist Hajime Sorayama created the initial designs for the AIBO. "

Source : Wikipedia

Sony has discontinued the manufacturing of Aibo as of March 07 but you can have your own paper AIBO at home with this papercraft model from Robosquare. This papercraft consists of 2 pages to cut-out and a page of instructions. The website and instructions for this papercraft is in Japanese but the graphics are very straight forward so you wont have any trouble constructing it.

AIBO is available in Black or White papercraft models in PDF format and the finished model measures around 3.5" tall and 4.5" wide. You can also find previous Robosquare posts here (PINO) and here (ifbot).

White AIBO Robot Papercraft
Black AIBO Robot Papercraft

Prison Break Origami Crane

So today is the Prison Break Season 2 Finale and fans all over the US are eagerly awaiting how this season is going to end - as with all season finales, this is going to be good and also leaves you a lot of questions to ponder upon for this summer while you wait for the next one. For those who don't know or don't watch this show, Prison Break is an American television series from the Fox Network and the story is about a man who was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit and his brother's elaborate plan to help him escape his death sentence. One of the prominent scenes in Prison Break is Michael Scofield's (Wentworth Miller) use of an origami crane/swan to hide cryptic messages and codes for his cohorts, and when paper is involved you know were going to feature it. Another thing is that this origami pattern is the "official" one that Fox released to the public, but when I displayed the crane in my office, my boss (who's addicted to it) told me that it didn't look like the one they used on the show, she said mine looked to simple. So I decided to review some of the tapes and what do you know, she was right - it's not the same. But nonetheless, here's the "Official" Prison Break Origami pattern from Fox.

Prison Break Origami Crane [Download]
Photos [Flickr]
Video thumbnails courtesy [Fox.com]

Legend of Zelda Papercraft - Wind Waker Link

We've posted the Four Sword Link before and a lot of you requested the "other" papercraft version from Chokipeta.jp, well here it is - one of the most requested and sought after papercraft model on the net (well it's not quite exactly the real thing, but close enough) from the Zelda Wind Waker papercraft collection, we present this (*cough*) rough version of the Link papercraft model in all its glory. The pattern for this model was sent to me through email yesterday and the sender didn't really leave that much info. on who made it, well if your reading this (sender), thank you very much and keep up the good work. To the readers, don't get discouraged the first time you see the pattern, as I've mentioned above, it's quite rough - my guess is that this pattern was made by blowing/magnifying the floating thumbnail pic of the original pattern and then doing some Photoshop or Illustrator action on it. For the newbs, if you need a guide on assembling it, check out the pics that I took on my Flickr page and hopefully that'll be able to guide you (I'm not saying mine is how it's suppose to be put together, but if it looks good enough then you probably did it right :) And NO, this is not an April Fool's Joke.

Legend of Zelda Papercraft - Wind Waker Link [via Mediafire]
Wind Waker Photos [Flickr]


Legend of Zelda Papercraft - Four Swords Link [Related Posts]
Legend of Zelda Papercraft - Four Swords Link - Red, Purple, and Blue

Update 03.31.07

As you might have noticed the site is a bit of a mess right now and it's not looking like it used to, I've just recently switched to the new version of Blogger and having customized my old template (Minima / 3-column) I've encountered some problems from the upgrade. Blogger has added a Layout feature which would enable the casual user to easily modify their templates without any knowledge of HTML or CSS, but in the process has made it difficult for me since I have to familiarize myself with the new custom tags and widget tags that they added to enable the easy drag-and-drop function of the layout editor. I've gotten the new 3-column template figured out and hopefully I'll be able to finish this upgrade in a day or two and post some more papercrafts for you guys.

Paper Art Friday - Dan McPharlin

Today we introduce a new segment on our site which we will call Paper Art Fridays. We'll scour the web to find both new and established artists and their works of art on which the medium has to be paper based and is not limited to the other paper crafts that we have posted here in the past.

We all know how difficult it is to do regular sized papercrafts and even harder with the smaller ones, well our first talented artist has no problems with that whatsoever, Dan McPharlin (ILLUSTRATOR/PAPERCRAFTER) and his hand-made cardboard miniatures are just magnificent - synthesizers and keyboards the size of an Ipod Shuffle and no bigger than your fist, due to Dan's amazing craftsmanship and exquisite detailing he has earned Paperkraft.net's first Paper Art Friday featured artist spot, so go check it out.



Dan McPharlin [web site] [flickr page] [blogger site]

Final Fantasy IX - Vivi papercraft

For a while I wanted to do a character nice and colorful and finally I did it Vivi from the game Final Fantasy IX. It's in a three page template and would take about 7-8 hours of work to build this 6 inch tall masterpiece. For those who don't know him that well, Vivi Orunitia is one of the most popular character from Final Fantasy IX, he is a Black Mage who gets entangled in Tantalus' plan to kidnap Princess Garnet when he travels to Alexandria. He has a black skin of unknown material, no visible facial features - except for his distinctive glowing yellow eyes, and he has the ability to cast magic without training. Vivi is just nine years old but is incredibly powerful and mature for his age.

Chamoo

Disgaea - Prinny Papercraft

From the PS2's tactical role-playing games Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, here's a papercraft model of Prinny - the pouch-wearing blue penguin with disproportionately small bat wings and two peg legs for feet. The game was released by Nippon Ichi Soft. around 2003. These small little creatures where usually under Etna's control and they explode when thrown at a target. They also follow a ranking system, which starts at Private Prinny, then Captain, General, King, God, and finally Uber Prinny. Papercraft model is in a PDF format and thanks to Kei Kusanagi for the pattern.

Prinny - [Download]
Photo Page - [Flickr]

In Love With The Riot

Accidentally found this video and thought I'd share it with you guys, it has papercrafts on it so I guess that counts as relevant, I like the papercrafts and the music is up beat. The only thing I could find about this group is that their called "Bring Me The Fucking Riot...Man", yes that's the name of the group and their a Swedish punk band. So if you like this sort of music, Rock On!

BMTFR Official Site? [bringmethefuckingriotman.se]

Pyramid Head

Hello everyone. My name is Anne-marie but on the papercraft scene im known as Chamoo232

About 3 years ago I made my first paper model. it was Metal Gear Rex that was given at some game show for the promotion of the twin snake. after that I started searching for more video game papercraft but I wasnt always able to find what I wanted so I though to myself "if it dont exist do it yourself". And that is how I started creating my own models.

For my first post I bring you Pyramid Head papercraft model from the game Silent Hill 2

This is actualy the second version of pyramid head I created. the first one was hard to build and wasnt very good looking but it still got very popular and I even found a download of it on a russian website. I hope version 2 will have as much success.

The template can be found on my website as well as most of my other templates.


Due to bandwith problems I had to make a rapidshare link. I got no donations yet to help me pay for an unlimited bandwith host.
This rapidshare contain my whole collection of templates.

Chamoo

Origami Basics

The basic folds/creases underlying all origami projects are very simple. The two major creases and their symbols (sometimes the symbols differ, but the diagram should tell you if they aren’t using the “standard” notation) are:

1.)Valley Fold (fold the paper so there is a “valley” along the crease): -----------
2.)Mountain Fold (fold the paper so there is a “mountain” along the crease): _--.._--.._--.._—

You can do a great deal with just those two creases! In fact, Pureland Origami (developed by John Smith) only uses those two creases.

-->[3 Pureland style models to try out, and a flash video of how to fold a Pureland Dracula. Also, click the “Smith’s Models” link on John’s site (link above) to get even more diagrams (including non-pureland models). Yay!]<--

The next step from there is to familiarize yourself with common origami symbols/notation, and then get a few bases under your belt. Bases are the series of creases a model is “based” on. Many of these bases date back to the early days of origami, and are used in a huge variety of origami models. The standard bases are also a good place to start if you want to try your hand at making your own models.

A great website to visit if you’re just starting out in origami (and even if you’ve been doing it for awhile) is Oriland. They have some great free diagrams available, as well as a section called ”Oriversity”, where you can access simple diagrams for practice, learn the important origami bases, brush up on your knowledge of origami symbols, and even get some helpful hints. So get folding!

(I guess what I said earlier about “less words next time” was a lie. This is a blog after all, right? :p )

Here are some photos of models I just folded (fresh for you!) from diagrams on the Oriland website:

1.) Box; 2.) Fruit(eggplant...?); 3.)Fern; 4.) Fern and Fruit; 5.) Everyone fits in the box -convenient!

P.S. Is anyone interested in seeing more Kirigami on here? It’s been an age since I’ve done any, but if there’s interest, I’ll try to chuck in some posts about that too. :)

Typical Intro Stuff

Hey everyone – my name is Jane, and I hail from the lovely state of Oregon. Ron has invited me to join the Paperkraft blog so I can share some of my paper skills with you reader types. :) Sorry for the late introduction – it figures that I’d be called out of town for work as soon as I agreed to contribute to a blog!

I’ve been doing origami since I was in pre-school, and over the years I’ve managed to become pretty good at it. Until recently it’s the only kind of “papercrafting” I was really involved in. A few years ago while trolling through the internet for more origami diagrams, I came across the Canon Papercraft page. The papercraft projects they had looked cool, but I didn’t have my own printer (or any access to a color printer, being a poor student). A few months ago I came across the Canon site again, along with the Readymech website. Finding myself in the possession of a color printer (not to mention having some cardstock lying around the house), I quickly pasted up a veritable army of Readymechs. At that point I felt ready to try something more serious, and wound up making a box and a pop-up card from the Canon website. This papercraft stuff is addicting!

Around the time Ron posted his request for another writer on the paperkraft blog, I was knee deep in constructing the Jaguar E-Type model, and decided that I’d submit an e-mail to Ron, freshly bitten by the papercraft bug as I was. So here I am – hopefully now I can get the Jaguar finished off without any more interruptions...

Now that your eyes are burning from too many words (I promise less next time), here are some soothing pictures of some of my Origami projects (better ones to come), as well as a photo of one the Readymechs I made. I’ll post the Jaguar as soon as it's done!

1.) Batboxes; 2.) Star of Peace; 3.)Unit Origami Ball; 4.)Kusudama Ball; 5.)Tentaclops Readymech

Thanks again to Ron for having me on the blog – feel free to drop me a comment if you have any questions! :)

Puma/AC-30 Papercraft

Today we've got the Puma/Ac-30 papercraft model designed by Nick Hayes, it's pretty simple and straightforward so beginners wouldn't have any problems with this one. Gitaroo-Man, was a game developed by Koei and produced in very low quantity for Sony's PlayStation 2 that garnered good reviews with limited sales, but attracted a loyal fanbase and somehow became a "cult video game". The story revolves around U-1 and his talking dog Puma, their alter-egos being Gitaroo-Man and AC-30 respectively. AC-30(Puma) was responsible for teaching U-1 about battling and throws the Gitaroo guitar to him when a challenge is presented. Nuff' said.

Puma/AC-30 Gitaroo Man Papercraft - [via Mediafire]
Puma /AC-30 Photos - [Flickr]

TechBrew/FeedBurner Contest

Just want to let you guys know I recently won a contest from TechBrew.net about showing off your creativity, my prize, a FeedBurner Total Stats Pro account for one year. Made a papercraft Feedburner Car Freshener, in case you were wondering.

Special thanks goes to:

Mark Woodman [TechBrew.net]
Jessica Graeser [Feedburner.com]

Tarutaru

You've got the Moogle, the Cactuar, Bahamut, and now here's another Final Fantasy papercraft model that you can add to your collection, the Tarutaru is from Square Enix's MMORPG - Final Fantasy XI:Online which was set on the fictional world of Vana'diel. The Tarutaru are a race of skilled mages who live alongside the Mithra in Windurst, having a racial prejudice towards magical studies, they have a higher reserve of magical power (MP) and excels at Black/White/Red Magic and the art of summoning. The only downside to their abilities as with other traditional spellcrafters is their lack of durability (HP) and strength which makes them extremely vulnerable to physical attacks.

Tarutaru Pics - [Flickr.com]

Tarutaru - Download
Bahamut - Download
Cactuar - Download
Moogle - Download