Urban Paper – a book of papercraft models

Urban Paper cover

Matt Hawkins from the always excellent Paper Forest has released an awesome-looking book that has 26 papercraft models to cut out and build – and even better, it includes a DVD with all the templates in a printable format, so you don’t have to take scissors to your book. This would also be useful if you want to build an army of identical papertoys.

It’s not just sheets of models though, the first section is all about the process of designing paper models, and the rest is taken up by interviews with the designers and the models.

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The Paper Bird

Thanks to Leilani for dropping me a line about this origami-based video she’s made! There’s a stop-motion animation of the bird being folded if you want to follow along.

Origami from folded plastic

Folded plastic origami

Exploring alternative mediums for origami, Polyscene has produced a range of tessellated origami folds using plastic sheets.

Pictured above is a model folded from 200 micron frosted polypropylene. You can check out her other work in her Flickr photostream and website.

If you like the tessellation concept and want to see more, check out Eric Gjerde’s Origami Tessellations.

Wonderful papercraft games consoles and more

Papercraft Nintendo DS

Jun fron FX console dropped me a line about his site, as with all the others I’ve featured recently, the models are incredible.

I thought the gadget series was really great, the models include the Nintendo DS Lite pictured above, an Apple iPhone, Sony Vaio laptop, and for console lovers the range goes from Sony’s Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (with HD-DVD drive!) to the classic Atari 2600.

Make sure you check out the tutorials too, they’re handy if you want to get started making your own papercraft models.

Are you an origami nut?

Origami sphere

Karl dropped me a line about his origami blog, Origami Nut. He’s got some great stuff on there, including some nice videos demonstrating the assembly of different models. I really liked the Sphere 94 model (pictured above), designed by Heinz Strobl. It’s a great bit of modular origami and watching it go together is great.

More free paper toys and some papercraft ideas

Nicebunny DJ

Brian dropped me a line to let me know about the free papercraft toys he’s got on the Nicebunny site.

I also had an email from Lisa who recommends the freely available book Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements. It’s scanned and searchable at The Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library

Enjoy!

Halo’s Master Chief in Papercraft

Papercraft Halo Master Chief

It looks like everyone’s turning console games into papercraft now… First was Sonic, then Mario, now we have this incredible model of Master Chief from Halo.

The final model comes out to be 13″ (33 cm) tall, has roughly 2100 faces (+ ~800 for the gun), and is made up of 42 pieces (+ 10 for the gun).

If looking at it isn’t enough for you, there are detailed instructions and a printable PDF so you can make your own if you have the patience.

Check out the finished item!

Papercraft Halo Master Chief full view

[via Make:Blog]

Easy Halloween Origami

Halloween Origami pumpkin

Here’s some simple Halloween origami that beginners can easily make. Not only are there diagrams to make a Jack O’ Lantern, a Bat, a Ghost, a Witch, Dracula, and a Church, there are animations showing you how to put them together.

Try not to get too spooked by it!

[Via Make:Blog]

Incredible Papercraft Transformer – Bumblebee

Papercraft Bumblebee Transformer

Here’s some incredible papercraft work – A chinese guy was so inspired by the new Transformers movie that he designed and built his own model of Bumblebee based on the movie robot!

This is amazingly detailed, and overwhelmingly complex – not only has he made what looks like hundreds of parts, but the model is articulated and poseable too!

As the man himself says:

“Cool”, the first word appears in my mind.

Papercraft Bumblebee Transformer - Finished

[via Paper Forest]

More paper games – Super Mario Papercraft

Super Mario Papercraft model

We’ve already covered Sonic the Hedgehog papercraft, so to even the Sega / Nintendo balance, how about this neat paper Mario stage? I like how the pixellated look hasn’t been lost, but it still has hints at natural curves. Great work from the creator!