A Little Summer Sun

Last year, we planted some sunflowers in our garden in hopes of attracting more bees. What really ended up happening was that they grew so large that they stunted the growth of all of our veggies haha. This year we did the same thing but only planted them at the end of the garden instead of throughout and are having much better results!

Funnily enough, they also started popping up all over our yard! Last year the birds of our neighbourhood must have had a feast with all the seeds produced by the first wave of sunflowers and spread them around the yard. There were even some that appeared in the neighbour’s yards!

To me, sunflowers instill feelings of warmth and happiness, just like spending time in the summer sun with friends and family. So after being surrounded by sunflowers all summer I couldn’t help but feel inspired to re-create one out of paper.

This model ended up being much more challenging to design than I initially thought. After making the rose last year, I thought “How hard could a sunflower be? It’s such a simple, straightforward flower compared to a rose.” I ended up being pretty wrong.

The first speed bump was the petals. While they were very simple compared to the rose. The sheer amount of them took much longer model than I'd like to admit. This was mostly because I ended up tweaking and re-positioning them over and over again. At first, they looked too flat, then they’d look too curved. Then I had to adjust them so that the edges and faces didn’t overlap or intersect each other, which of course changed how they looked and started the cycle all over again.

There’s a good lesson in this that can be applied to any artform though. Eventually, you need to stop yourself and move on. With any project, you can always keep making little adjustments and improvements until you’re sick of it. What you need to realize though is that nothing is truly perfect and even if you eventually reach a point that you think is “perfect” other people might not think so. After all, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

Once I stopped the cycle of petal adjustment the rest of the model design went fairly smoothly. The sepals were pretty fun to make because they didn’t really need to look neat and tidy. The stem was fairly simple to make and my design to reinforce it was much simpler than the rose. I fretted over the size of the leaves a little bit but luckily I had a lot of reference material in my backyard to help me make up my mind haha.

The final hurdle that gave me trouble was the instructions. With over 500 parts it was quite the ordeal, mostly due to how blender seems to export svgs. They aren’t very clean and are made of more lines than necessary which roughly doubles the amount of time to make the illustrations. It got to the point that I debated making an instructional video first instead but decided it would probably be just as long or longer and kept going. I have my eye on some software dedicated to technical illustrations that should greatly reduce the time spend on them as well as increase the quality. It’s pretty pricey though so it’s probably going to be a while before I can justify getting it though.

It all came together in the end though and I am very happy with the results. After all the hard work I now have a little piece of summer that will last all year. And I get to share that little piece of summer with anyone else who builds it which is also a good feeling!

As always, it’s time to move on to the next project though. I’ve got lots of ideas and I hope to share a lot more of them!

Thanks for reading and happy crafting!

The Papercraftsman

The Last Metroid

Metroid has been one of my favourite series of games since I first played Metroid Prime back in 2002. There actually aren’t a lot of Metroid-themed papercrafts out there so I felt it was time to make one of the infamous creatures out of paper and change that. It’s actually no surprise that there aren’t too many papercrafts of Metroids specifically as there is a pretty obvious challenge: the membrane.

Metroid bodies consist of a clear membrane surrounding a central nucleus-like brain with some claws attached. This is something that is easy to accomplish in a video game but making it out of paper is obviously a whole other thing. The two main ideas I had were to make an arch to give the impression of shape or to use transparency film to make the membrane. After much testing and playing around with it I ended up focusing on the arch method as I felt the transparency tests weren’t satisfactory.

I think the arch method turned out very well though and I am very happy with the result. From head-on, the model resembles the Metroids from the original Metroid game for the NES. In addition, using the arch to create an impression of shape also fit with my “low-poly”, asymmetric style that also aims to give only an impression. So it worked very well for multiple reasons.

I didn’t entirely abandon the transparency method though as I did create an alternate version with a back shell to provide more shape. It also makes the model a little sturdier as well as a bit of a more challenging build too. I’m also going to keep experimenting with the transparency film to see if I can produce a better result so I may revisit this model again in the future.

Well, time to get back to designing more papercraft models. As always thank you for reading!

The Papercraftsman

A Model with a Function

The holidays are here and so I felt like making something appropriate. Considering that I spend a lot of this time of year hunting for the perfect gifts for my loved ones and that I have been looking into making models that move or have some sort of function, I felt that a Gift Box was a great idea for my next model. It both looks impressive and can be used to hold a present!

From the start, the main focus of the design was on the large bow on the top. I decided to use the faceted or low-poly style because I wanted it to contrast against the uniform appearance of the actual box part of the model. The ribbon on the box is faceted for the same reason, although at first it wasn’t raised up like in my final design. I felt that raising the ribbon made it “pop” that little bit more as well as give it a touch more realism.

The biggest issue I had with this model, believe it or not, was actually the name. You see, normally when I use this asymmetrical faceted look I use the term “Low-Poly” because, in my mind, low-poly describes any model where you can easily see the individual polygons. By that definition, just about every papercraft model could be described as low-poly but I tend to reserve it for this kind of asymmetric style that draws attention to and highlights the polygons.

On the technical side of things though, low-poly literally just means low polygon which is also kind of ambiguous. If you have two models of the same thing, one with 1,000 polygons and one with 5,000, even though 1,000 isn’t a “low” amount of polygons, it is in comparison to 5,000. Knowing that is why I had difficulty deciding how to name and describe my model; while it has the faceted look I usually associate with “low-poly” things, it also has some features that have more polygons than they technically need, mainly the ribbon, so it the term didn’t feel quite accurate.

It’s a small and rather silly problem I know but it’s what I found myself thinking about while designing and assembling the model. In that sense though, this is actually probably one of my favourite models because even though it’s a relatively simple and common object it still made me stop and think about something, and that’s kind of awesome.

As always, thanks for reading and happy crafting!

The Papercraftsman

A Plump Paper Pumpkin

Fall is right around the corner so I figured it was time I made one of my favourite things of the season - a pumpkin! Every year, one of my favourite things to do is carve pumpkins for Halloween. It’s something my sisters and I have been doing for about as long as I can remember and I don’t think there has been a year that we didn’t carve any.

For this model, I decided to return to the low-poly style that I used for the Kanto starters a while back. I did this because I felt it would make the pumpkin feel more organic despite being obviously artificial. After all, I don’t think I have ever seen a perfectly symmetrical pumpkin or even one that comes close. That’s also why I made it fairly lop-sided too.

During the build, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it went together actually, in the sense that I didn’t have to constantly check where each piece went as I was building it. You see when I first make the models I don’t have instructions, I make them once I am satisfied with the end result and that the assembly process is fairly smooth and not needlessly complex or difficult. Otherwise, I would spend a bunch of time making instructions that I’m just going to have to re-do ‘x’ number of times.

With this pumpkin though I didn’t really have any issues figuring out which piece went where. I think there were only two or three that gave me a little trouble but other than that it was fine. Maybe it was a fluke or maybe I’m getting better at “cutting them up” in ways that make sense. I’m probably not the best judge though and will leave that for you to decide.

As always, thanks for reading and happy crafting!

The Papercraftsman

An Angry Little Mushroom

Completing my series of basic enemies: the Goomba has finally arrived! I think these grumpy little guys are in every main series Mario game. Easily defeated with just one jump, it kind of makes you wonder why Bowser keeps using them as minions…

This was a pretty fun model design and make. It was my second model designed using Blender and I feel like I have shown some significant improvement over the Octorok, which was my first Blender model.

In the early stages of development, I debated on keeping it symmetrical or making it asymmetrical like some of the Pokemon models I have made. Obviously, I ended up leaving it symmetrical and I am very happy with this decision!

For this model, I ended up using the sculpting tools in Blender to make a base version and then re-created the topology using that as a guide. It was actually easier to do than I thought it would be and I am very satisfied with the result. I will likely use this method going forward.

I feel like an area I still need to improve is the relative “smoothness” of the model. While I feel that I managed to learn a little bit more about how to use the smoothing and vertex alignment tools in Blender, I think I still have some more learning to do in that regard. Ultimately I just need more practice so I’m not going to beat myself up too hard.

On to positives though; I’m actually extremely please with the eyebrows of this piece! I think they make this model as good as it is. I thought about making them a thin strip of paper you glue on but I’m glad I didn’t because that would have made them stick out in a bad way. I was so worried that they would be too fragile though and that no matter how hard I tried they’d end up bent or wrecked as the rest of the model is put together, but they survived! That’s not to say they are indestructible though, I’m sure you could still wreck them if you tried haha

Anyway, with another model done means it’s time to start another! With fall right around the corner, I’ve got a few ideas rattling around my head about what to do next. You’ll just have to wait and see what comes next!

Thanks and Happy Crafting!

The PaperCraftsman

An Octorok that wont hit you with rocks

My latest model is the second in my basic enemies series. It’s an Octorok! From the Legend of Zelda series, it’s been in almost every game since the beginning. Twilight Princess was actually the first game where they didn’t appear.

I mostly based my model on the in-game designs of the Original Legend of Zelda for the NES and the Minish Cap for the GBA. The laters influence is probably the most prominent. There have been a lot of varied and interesting Octorok designs over the years but I chose those games over the others mostly because I wanted to keep things simple this time.

The main reason I tried to keep things simple was that last month I spent roughly three weeks solely on learning Blender. This model was me giving the software a good test to see what it could do and test myself and see where my skills are at. There is still more to learn and I could use some more practice but overall I think the final result turned out pretty good.

All of my previous models were designed with AutoCAD which is a program that I have years of experience with but I have been wanting to move away from it due to the cost and the fact that it’s not very good with organic shapes. Blender doesn’t seem to give you as much control over some aspects of the modelling process though so there is a bit of a trade-off but I would still say it’s a better tool for my purposes.

There are still some things I need to improve on such as the “smoothness” of the vertices. Blender has a tool to help you with that but I don’t think I used it as much or as well as I could have. I say this because I noticed some areas of the model that were a little rougher than they needed to be when I was assembling it. If I had used AutoCAD to make the same model I wouldn’t have had to worry about this as I would have started with a smooth surface and aligned my vertices to it, essentially the opposite of how you would make it in Blender. Some of the shapes, like the tentacles, might not have turned out as nice though so again there’s a bit of a trade-off.

In the end, I am very happy with this model though. I think it turned out great and it was a lot of fun to make at every step of the way and ultimately that’s what’s important; enjoying your hobbies :)

Thanks for reading and happy crafting!

The Papercraftsman

Zooming around planet Zebes

The first model of 2021 is here! It took much longer than I had anticipated but it’s finally here!

I decided to go with something from my favourite game series: Metroid. At some point, I want to do a Samus model or a Metroid or a Ridley but I don’t feel my skills are quite there yet so I decided to settle on a zoomer. It’s not the most imposing or fearsome enemy but I figured if anyone has ever even tried Metroid or Super Metroid they should recognize what it is haha.

Overall I am quite happy with how this model turned out. I probably had the most fun during the initial design process because I took a little creative license with it. When playing the original Metroid I always pictured zoomers looking very bug and crab-like than anything else and I tried to work that into my interpretation. Because of that I probably drew the most inspiration from the Metroid Prime concept art because their renderings are more bug-like than the drawings of the original Metroid. The eyes were especially fun to play around with.

As mentioned before this model took a lot longer than I had intended. Some of it was because I had to go back and re-do somethings like the eyes; they were too complex initially. Mostly though it was because with over 600 parts the instructions became a bit of a nightmare haha. Almost every day I worked on them I ended up failing to meet the progress goals I set up for myself simply because of the sheer volume of work to be done.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there is too much I can do to refine the process with my current setup as when I made my first model I approached the process of making the instructions in so many ways that I am pretty sure the way I did it is the only way I can. This means I will probably be looking at expanding my software library here to try and find a more automated way of spitting out those instructions. Until then I think I am just going to have to try and scale back the complexity of my models while I look for a solution.

With that, I think I am going to get started on my next creation. If you’re curious about what I am working on and want more regular updates then consider joining my Patreon. I tend to post more regular updates over there and even show some behind-the-scenes photos of the design and construction process.

Thanks and happy crafting,

The Papercraftsman