PaperCraft Museum

Introduction

This tutorial is written to help you make near-perfect models with as much ease as possible. I’m not a professional, but I always strive to make my models as perfect as I can. The best way I learn is through example, but first let me show you the examples of my work.



I’m using two techniques on this one. I didn’t fold the pieces that belong to the face so that it’ll have a smooth look which actually produces an amazing result with less work. The secret to doing that is to glue very firmly which I’ll elaborate later. Look at the knuckles of Link’s hand and also where the glove meets the fingers. Before gluing those pieces, I colored the edges with a brown marker to conceal the white lines. Compare the hands to the boot where I didn’t color the edges.

Tools

• Paper - I use 120gsm (gram per square meter) paper. I’ve tried thicker paper and found it too rigid for detailed parts. This thickness produces sturdy models even over 40cm.
• Glue - Never tried any other glue but this one works for me: dries fast, transparent when dry, and holds well. I haven’t gone through one tube yet but already bought another one.
• Blade - This is my preference, I never use scissors, but have seen great models done with scissors so this is up to your preference. I use X-Acto #11 Blades, a pack of 100 replacement blades from ebay cost me 25$ and I haven’t even used half of them yet.
• Scissors - There are advantages to scissors. Replacement blades are unnecessary, and they make cleaner cuts than blades, but this advantage isn’t incredibly noticeable.
• Micro Tweezer - It is the most heavily-relied-upon-tool when it comes to small pieces. Since I like building tiny details, I am considering buying another micro-tweezer so I can use it with both hands at the same time.
• Sharp Object - The sharp end is used to score paper. Some examples of this type of tool is a safety pin, needle, or used and dulled blades (which is my preference).
• Paper Clip - I undo its shape and use it to press wet glue-tabs for a firm press in difficult situations. I use this only very occasionally and as a last resort to save myself in difficult situations that should’ve been avoided.

Workspace Setup

With an elevated work surface and proper lighting, your neck and eyes gets less strain. I’ve made lots of mistakes when my neck and eyes are tired, and had to re-print and re-cut the pieces again, which is not worth the time. To hold and organise the model pieces, I made boxes with cardboard and scotch tape. To avoid having small pieces trapped in the corners, I also taped the inside corners.

Cutting

I prefer using blades, so this section will include tips for just that. Blades cut in one direction and won’t stray horizontally like a pencil, therefore rulers are unnecessary.

• Pivot the paper with your left hand, cut with your right hand. See video below for demonstration.
• When cutting with your right hand, the blade must always goes towards the right. Do not cut towards the color surface.
• Instead, turn the paper so you can cut away from the color surface.

Pivot and Cut Demonstration

The left hand pivots the paper so the right hand doesn’t have to move. This allows the right arm to complete the same exact movement repeatedly. Eventually, you will develop muscle memory and a steadiness that allows you to work faster and more accurately.

• Turn the paper around so that your own blade doesn’t block where you can see the cutting line.
• Adjust the lighting so the blade’s shadow doesn’t block your cutting line.
• This is ideally how you want to see where you’re cutting.

• When cutting, don’t worry about glue tabs, they won’t be shown in the finished model. I cut my tabs short all the time.
• Place each piece next to each other like how they originally came from the printer. It’ll be easier to figure out what goes where later.

Folding

Not much to say other than to show it. I don’t stress too much on this part because when you are about to glue the pieces together, you can always re-fold it if you folded wrong.

• This indicates a valley fold, which means to fold up.
• This indicates a mountain fold, which means to fold down.
• Sometimes you won’t know which direction a piece needs to be folded, so in that case just do a mountain fold. Most papercraft models are built using mainly mountain folds, and it’s easy to fold back the other way.

Some pieces are more awkward, like in this case, I needed to score it and then bend the whole piece at once.

Scoring

I score only for awkward or difficult pieces that need to be folded accurately and/or sharply, such as tiny detail pieces or mechanical objects like swords and robots. I prefer to use a dull blade to lightly score the places that need folding because the blade is still sharper than any other object you’d find so it won’t damage the color.

• Use a sharp object and a hard surface to dent the paper. If you don’t have a dull blade, you may use a safety pin because it is sharp enough and is easy to safely put away. Unless the folded line is long, I never use a ruler.
• Do not do score at a high angle because it will damage the color and possible tear the paper.
• Go at a lower angle when scoring. Caution: Too much pressure will still tear the paper. With experience, you will find the proper amount of pressure to apply.

• Some parts will be too small for your fingers to fold, so in that case, use tweezers. Hold it at the edge where the fold will be.
• Then use your finger to push.

Planning

This comes easier with experience, but the basic idea is to anticipate difficult areas and accordingly, find the best scenario to approach it. For example, in building a model of a person, if you build the limbs and body separately then attaching them altogether at once, it is much more difficult than working from one end to the other. Here is a video to hopefully explain it better:

Here is another video to demonstrate how you can plan ahead in a smaller scale:

Gluing

Press firmly and press everywhere. Do it one at a time. As you press, you can still adjust the position of the tab before the glue dries. Here’s a video that explains it in much more detail:

Part 1

Part2

“Smooth Papercraft” Technique
The face of the Link model above demonstrates very well what effect this technique achieves. For each piece, there is a line that requires folding other than the glue tab. These folds form the polygons that the model is originally intended to have. However, if you skip that folding step, and just glue the tabs where they need to be, you will instead see a smoother model. This means you can do less work to make your model look better! The trick is to glue your glue tabs firmly and accurately. The two gluing videos above explains this in detail.