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Due to popular request, on just about every forum I post on along with Imgur, Redit, Instagram, and other social media, I have decided to start a build thread here.
Hopefully I can keep it going with regular updates! I seem to start and finish a project every couple of months with weekly progress being executed. Documentation gets tough at times, but hey, why interupt a good building flow for pictures! So, I cannot promise every detail of my paper building workflow being documented. Everything I do, I learned from someone else. So I dedicate this to the users that got me started, here and other places. Silveroxide, Armorman, VerminKing, and others from DakkaDakka, Paper Modelers, Cardboard Heroes, and Zealot forums. I stand on the shoulders of these giants!
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
So, your first step in getting into papercraft model building is to find the model, or if you have sufficent experience and tools, design one yourself.
Here I am starting on our favorite humble bi-pedal scout vehicle, the humble Imperial Guard Sentinel. This is a model created for paper by an Eli Patoroch which can found in numerous places (namely this is where Armorman has carried the torch posting links to where Patoroch releases his models). Cardboard Heroes and other of the forums I list on the first post contain A LOT of great free models that go beyond the 40K universe and are loads of fun to build. Take advantage of this! After all, "counts as" models made of paper and painted can often times beat other proxies as far as immersing ourselve in the game on the table top.
Hopefully you have a good printer that will print card stock. Shoot for 216 gsm/80# or so for paper weight. This is thicker card stock, about like index cards. After you print out your model on your paper (A4 or US Letter size depending on location), you will want to take the flat sheets to a workbench in a well ventilated area with little to no wind and lay them all out on a flat surface you can paint on. Take ome satin, matte, or flat clear coat and spray them on one side and let that dry. Flip, and repeat. Allow to dry. There you go, now you can stack them until you get around to being able to cut them out and assemble them. That spray coat, be it acrylic or enamel, should seal that paper agasinst humidty, and help reduce warping while building. Once you figure out this secret, everthing else gets pretty easy, and you'll likely kick yourself for for not getting into papercraft sooner!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Today's basic concept, and keyword, is lamination!
When I analyze the assembly drawing or instructions of my paper model, I find the parts that are flat, or only have a few minor strait folds, and appear to be thicker and I typically cut them out and use a glue stick to laminate them on top of another piece of card stock. Or maybe sometimes I take that, and glue it on top of another layer, making three layers. I have continued to do this on several occasions with the my thickest lamination ever being about 10 or so layers of card stock on the wing root of an IG Vulture attack fightercraft....
This most basic of technique gives you some amazing results that will have your friends, family, and neighbors going "ooooo-ahhhhhhh" "that's paper?!"
Lamination provides both strength, and great details for your greeblies, most especially on armor builds.
Most of these hatch greeblies are just laminated layers! Patoroch put them into the pattern, I took some liberties making them thicker. An even more motivated model builder might even go so far as to sand down the sides of some of the to fillet the edges if they desire that level of detail! Paper, is just processed wood pulp. Feel free to make use of sanding tools, just treat it like real soft wood however as a little sanding goes a long way.
Sudsy wrote:This most basic of technique gives you some amazing results that will have your friends, family, and neighbors going "ooooo-ahhhhhhh" "that's paper?!"
I went like that myself when I looked through this topic.
Great piece! This re-inspires me to start back up the big Elven Castle I was doing for my son, where I had backed the KS a number of years ago. It does all depend on the design and mechanics and some are much better than others.
We are wargame hobbiests, this is a very familiar concept for most of us, we use bark, gravel, and sticks when we create bases, boards, and dioramas after all. We know how to make those items look like trees and large rocks! It is also easier on the pocket book when we spent all our loot on the best DAKKA...errr... model of the Warboss we could find.
Paper models are the same. Just make sure to keep the CA glue handy with the PVA glue while you work. Here are a couple of my favorite found objects.
1. Paper sticks: often found with cotton swabs attached to each end, or a piece of cand on one side. They also can be purchased from DIY candy making supplies. Locally in the US where I am at the purchased DIY candy sticks are a thicker diameter than the cotton swab sticks. I use both quite a bit. These will increase the sturdiness of your models when used in lieu of rolled tubes of paper over short lengths. They make fantastic axles. I hesitate to use them for gun barrels without wrapping a tube around the end however, as they are solid core, but if that doesn't bother you about the stick, use it!
Sentinel hydraulic tubes near the feet
Tauros roll cage
2. Half spherical beads: Thanks to DAKKADAKKA's one JohnnyHell (https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/513429.page) I found out how well these work. JohnnyHell buys these by the gross from nail art suppliers, and if you spend a few minutes on his thread you'll see why (that, and every papercraft concept is in use in his work using plasitcard, again, I'm merely standing on the shoulders of giants and using what I have learned from them). I found a great little kit full of craft beads that ranged in size from 2mm through around 5mm. These allow me to make rivets like JohnnyHell does with the smallest sizes, through the ball joints below (with some lenses between).
My little friends, the grenades, are made from toothpicks (more on those in a moment) and half sphere beads glued to the tips.
My tank head and tail lights, lenses look nice and round, thanks to some larger diameter beads.
Tank searchlight, you guesed it, large half bead!
Put two fo them together, and wht do you get? A ball joint! While this is for the feet of a bipedal Sentinel, one could do this for any variety of ball and socket joint applications. I intend to use a drop of CA to glue these tot he feet when I finally get the pose figured out for my walker as I'm not going to spend too much makeing a functional articulated joint (for now....).
3. The humble toothpick! Buy a box of these, keep lots around. Nothing really new to most hobbiests about that right? We use these as tools mostly, but again, lots of found object greebly potential like that belt of grenades earlier.
Need a hinge for this hatch?!
Grenade casing layout
Grenade belt layout
4. Wooden dowels of various dimensions. Like our toothpick, these are not new to most model builders. I use them as tools to roll large round tubes and parts, and as great structural components and an occasional rod.
There was a paper tube you could roll for this, but I found dowels a bit quicker and more consistent.
Well, there go, happy greebling!
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/07/25 16:30:30
Any particular reason to choose the rolled paper sticks over similarly-sized dowel or styrene rods?
Mostly availabilty. If I don't have the correct diameter dowel, rod, or tube; I can roll one up.
That isn't to say I never use plastic rod....
Automatically Appended Next Post: I recently started our favorite bi-pedal scout... Here are some work in progress shots of the lets. Of particular note are the joints and how I intend to reinforce them. As in reality, hips, knees, and ankles on walkers are weak points in the models (and my own personally remind me of how unkind I have been to my body since my teenage years....).
Of note is the cylinder on part 26 that makes part of the hip joint. If I followed the pattern 100% as designed (and there is nothing wrong with that), this would be merely a display model without the durability to survive a few battles on my wargame table (I have a teenager that want to use my stuff, but I also have several kids under the age of 10 who will also touch this... when my back is turned for less than .5 seconds).
At the top, you will notice some doughnuts I made (for lack of a better term, but then I'm kinda hungry....). I created these by cutting a strip of paper the same width as the original part I rolled (see bottom parts, one wrapped around the drill bit I used as form, use the cheapest possible dimensionally accurate jobber drill bits for this, in the US our friends at Harbor Freight Tools sell these). When I created the doughnuts, I found a smaller drill bit, and started wrapping a strip around it with glue on one side until I got it close to the inside dimension of the pattern ring. When there was not much of a gap (you want to allow for some glue), I rolled the pattern ring on top. There you go, stronger hip! For those so inclined, this could be done around a length of paper stick or plastic rod to allow for something like a bit of articulation, pose, or just something to grasp while painting a sub-assembly later on.
Part 26 actually wraps around the above doughnuts and a small paper box you cut out and fold up:
With some lamination, the finished hip and thighs:
For the feet, I used a large sized half sphere bead, okay actually four of them (see above posts). Here they are assembled with the feet:
Notice the open end of the toes? Well, I painted them with a black acrylic ink, but you could use a black permanent marker as well. This helps keep it dark in there and avoid the paper color showing in the gaps (if any) on the assmbled and primed/painted model. It get get tricky to find these areas where it is open during assembly, but not when you get your sub-assemblies or assembly done and prime and paint. You typically find it while painting and ruin a good brush trying to get it into those gaps with your base paint trying to cover it up.
Here are the, calves I guess, put together.
I used some paper stick from a DIY candy making aisle at a craft store. Sometimes it's so much easier to use paper sticks or plastic rods on these smaller cylinders!
While I'm proud of paper crafting, it's obvious my models mix other items (see above). Here I used plastic rod and solder to create some hydraulic fittings:
(RIP Radio Shack....)
Happy greebling!
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/08/07 00:10:39
Sud'si
I went like that myself when I looked through this topic.
