Another use for the stegosaurus calendar is as a telephone directory. Here are suitable cards:
Actually, the use as a directory and calendar is not mutually exclusive: You can put the calendar cards in front, and the directory cards behind them:
And here is the PDF.
You may remember the stegosaurus calendar. In addition to its use as a calendar, you can do all kinds of other things with it. In order to facilitate this ‘hacking’, I have prepared a template for blank cards:
Here is the PDF.
Here it is – the last letter of the alphabet. Congratulations if you made all 26 letters!
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
This is basically the single one animal starting with the letter ‘Y’ both in English and German. If you have made all 24 letters coming before this one in the alphabet, you will be relieved to fnd that this one is very easy to make.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
This is what it looks like when you x-ray a letter – you did know that they are made of flesh and bones, right?
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
Walrus are strange animals, when you look at them closely. Even more so when they are turned into the shape of the letter W.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
Vampires seem to be quite en vogue these days. Well, I prefer the old-school ones over their ‘new millenium’ counterparts.
I was slightly tempted to include a bit of blood tripping from one of the canines, but then I didn’t want to have to explain to my five year old daughter about the staple diet of vampires.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
Turns out there are surprisingly few concrete nouns in English starting with the letter ‘U’. And technically, UFO is not a noun but an acronym. Anyway, I think for the purpose of the papercraft alphabet, this works quite nicely:
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
The tiger is again easy to make. I realized soon after having finished the design, that he looks much more clueless and much less fierce than his relative, the lion. Sorry, tiger – you may be in for a redesign in the future.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
The snake is vaguely modelled after the Garter snake (with different colors, obviously). It is once again somewhat difficult to build, with all the curvatures. Prepare to be patient with this model and glue segment for segment, making sure that each part is solidly sticking before moving on to the next one.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
What better thing to represent the letter ‘R’ than a colorful rainbow? I have to warn you that the ‘R’ is a bit difficult to build, what with the small inner space and the many angles.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file. And here is a tutorial on how to make the letters in general, and the ‘R’ specifically.
Ok, I admit it wasn’t easy to come up with something representing the letter Q. Quetzalcoatl is the best I could do.
Quetzalcoatl is a mesoamerican god whose name means ‘feathered serpent’. He is one of the more important Aztec deities.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
The parrot is once again an easy template, except maybe for the curvature of the beak. Very importantly, don’t forget to glue a small weight into the base – such as a small coin. Otherwise, the parrot will fall over.
Here is how to make the P (the photos are a slightly updated version from the Alphabeticals book): First, glue a small weight (such as a 1 cent coin) to the back of the parrot, from the inside, near the bottom. This will allow the parrot to stand up and not fall over:
Next, glue the edge faces to one of the two P sides, following the outline:
Finally, close the shape by gluing the remaining P face to the edge.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
Making the orange ‘O’ is a bit difficult because of the inner ring. I suggest you start with gluing it to one side, then the outer ring to the same side, then cover everything with the other side.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
Congratulation: If you made all other letters in alphabetical order, you are now halfway there – this is the 14th of the 26 letters.
In typical ninja fashion, this guy is quite sneaky: If you approach him from the front, he looks just like a plain and inconspicuous letter N. Only if you look at the side, you will notice that this is a fierce ninja ready to jump at you from out of the shadows.
Having the ninja clad in the black signature clothes is actually historically pretty inaccurate. The black ‘uniform’ originates with the Japanese Kabuki theater. However, nobody would recognize a ninja if it weren’t for the black clothes – ironically, as they were supposed to make the stage hands in the Kabuki theater invisible.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
I got a request for a version without sword, suitable for small children – here it is.
Beware of the fear-inducing monster that is the letter M:
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
The animal to use for the letter L was obviously quite easy to decide: The majestic lion.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
Technically, this letter is actually two animals – mother kangaroo and her joey in the pouch.
I should warn you that cutting out and assembling this letter is a bit challenging – the parts around the faces are quite small.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
The jester is relatively easy to build, however you should take care to glue a small weight (such as a cent coint) inside the base, otherwise he will fall over on his face.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
Enjoy the easiest to build letter – the Indian. He is wearing a sherwani, in case you were wondering.
Some people are worried about the ethnic / cultural reference, so in case you need to steer clear of such issues, here is an alternative: I for Insect:
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template for the Indian as a PDF file.
And here is the Insect template.
Probably the most abstract of the papercraft letters – the handshake:
I only realized after the fact that these guys have but one hand. Well, I think the letter still works as it is, but maybe this is a good candidate for a revised version sometime in the future.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
The papercraft gorilla for the letter G:
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
Ok, I admit I had struggled a bit with the animal for the letter F. Flies are not exactly my – or, I imagine, most people’s – favourite pet:
No need to even pretend this is cute, but hey – there aren’t too many animal names starting with the letter F both in English and German.
When you build this, it is very important that glue a small weight – such as a cent coin – into the base, otherwise the center of gravity will be too far to the right and will make the fly fall over.
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
And another letter animal – the elephant:
You will find the other 25 letters of the papercraft alphabet here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
The doctor is in:
And not only does he administer absolutely painless treatments for all your health-related woes, he is also part of the papercraft alphabet.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
This colorful C-shaped chameleon is part of the papercraft alphabet.
If you are interested in a more realistic looking chameleon (well, sort of), I have a full-fledged chameleon model as well – look here.
Here is the template as a PDF file.
Obviously, this beaver has eaten its share of water lillies.
Here is the template as a PDF file. And here is the rest of the alphabet.
So, here it is – the first letter of the papercraft alphabet. The astronaut:
Here is the template as a PDF file.
This is my stab at a paper model of the Reddit logo. The rounded shapes of the logo do not lend themselves well to papercrafting, and so a paper model will either be very complicated to assemble or inaccurate. I took the easy road and made a rough approximation, which only looks good from the front. Well, at least it’s relatively easy to assemble.
If you want something more refined, look here.
Here is a glimpse at the not so elegant backbone structure:
And here are the parts:
And here is the template (see also instructions here):
Assembly should be easy: First, glue the large strip into a cylinder – this will be the “body”. The body, head, and feet are connected by sliding them into assembly slots cut into the opposing part. The head has two strips which interconnect via the same slots. They form an ‘X’ which can then be inserted into the slots in the body cylinder.
Ok, this is funy: The post was originally titled ‘A cow named Sue’. I thought I’d give the cow a name, for the sake of reinforcing the anthropomorphization. Fast forward a couple of months later, I look at my web stats and more specifically the referrers. Turns out there were two Google searches for the term ‘a cow named sue’. Hm, strange, I think to myself – rather unlikely that somebody came across the post, vaguely remembers it and looks it up in Google under the exact title.
So I did the Google search myself. Surprise, the first hit is not my post, but rather a childrens’ book. As far as I can tell, I was completely unaware of its existence, let alone its title, but somehow it must have crept into my subconscious. The other explanation, that I randomly chose the same – rather randomly picked – name for my cow as Penny Wolf, the author of ‘A cow named Sue’, seems too improbable. Or maybe, there is an archetype hardwired into the human brain… I am sure if you dig deep enough, some Phoenecian god of fertility with a bovine head had a name phonetically vaguely similar to ‘Sue’. Oh well…
Anyway, the cow formerly known as Sue is a happy cow. She really is. She may look a bit wideeyed and startled, but she is completely happy. Trust me.
Here she is standing on her template sheet:
Turn around:
Good girl!
As you can see, I messed up when I constructed the model – I got some water on her face, blotting the inkjet ink. Feel free to do better…
And here is the template (see also instructions here):
If you haven’t already stumbled upon it, Muji and Lego found a great way of combining paper and Lego® bricks. For any Lego® afficionado, that is exciting news in and of itself. However, I think that this idea can be expanded some more. If we combine Lego®-compatible punches in sheets of paper with a cutting plotter such as the Craft Robo, a whole new world of Lego® paper toy hybrids can be created.
In fact, what Lego® bricks lack – detailed illustration, ornaments and bling – can now be printed on a sheet of paper and added effortlessly. When you look at the Lego® evolution over the past 50 years, it’s clear that there is always a slight friction between the inherent abstraction in a Lego® brick and children’s love for detail. To some extent, paper can bridge that gap if it can be easily applied. All it takes are punches in the shape and size of Lego® stubs.
As a first foray into this area, I present a template for a ‘t-shirt’ for minifigures:
This is how it looks in real life, ready to be applied:
The central hole is for the ‘neck’, the four octagonal holes are for the leg stubs. This fits nicely over the torso of a minifigure, like so:
It’s automatically held in place by the ‘neck’ and the protrusions from the legs. So no adhesives (I hate stickers on Lego). By printing art onto the trapezoid front and back, you can design your own minifigure tees. Just take a look:
Here is the template:
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Who wouldn’t agree that pandas are the most adorable of all huge, vicious animals capable of killing man with one stroke of their paw? Well, and exactly for this reason I have created a panda paper model.
This model features a number of rounded shapes, and therefore is actually quite tricky to assemble. It takes some patience to create a clean version, and unfortunately you can tell from the images that I just don’t have that kind of patience.
If you achieve a better quality, I’d be pleased to see photos and put them up here. The model sure has some potential, and I’d love to see it shine.
Here is the PDF template.
Craft Robo’s aptly named control software Robo Master uses a proprietary file format ‘GSD’. I work with CorelDraw, and while CDR is perfect for cutting directly (and in my opinion much better suited for complex Craft Robo projects than Robo Master), there is no way around the GSD format if you want to pass on designs to other people.
The way I do the conversion is as follows:
First, I split the art to be printed and the cutting outlines. The art to be printed goes into a PDF file, and the cutting outlines into a GSD. The reason behind this is that complex artwork does not convert correctly to GSD – only very simple shapes do.
Now, in order for this to work we need to make sure that the registration marks are included in the PDF and that they align with the registration marks used by Robo Master.
I have prepared a Corel Draw file with registration marks at the exact same positions as the default positions in Robo Master.
Using this file, these are the steps I follow:
Well, you’ve sure come to the right place. Here is a dog you can make quickly from a sheet of paper. It’s bipedal. though, so technically it’s more a dog deity than a mere mortal dog. But hey, what’s not to like about man’s best friend taking the next evolutionary step?
Ok, this puppy is easy to assemble. Just download the template, print it out (I recommend sturdy >190g/sqm paper), and cut out the three parts. Preferrably with a sharp knife – think Xacto. Then glue them together, following the letter-code hints on the flaps.
Here is what you will get once you have cut out all three parts. These are already roughly folded into their final shape, and now need to be assembled using some glue.
Since this is made of paper and is hollow, it tends to fall over easily. To fix this, I recommend adding a weight to the base. This can be a small coin, like so:
It’s a good idea to glue the weight to the base and in addition secure it with a piece of tape:
Trust me, experience has shown that the weight gets loose all too easily, and turns your dog into a rattle where the coin bounces around inside the hollow base. Which would not be so bad, but it defeats the purpose of the weight, and a bipedal dog falling flat on its face all the time is, well, a bit sad.
Here is a close-up of our doggy:
And here is the template (see also instructions here):
