Paper Monster WIP

[Witchblade]

Okay, for something to do post-grad school and pre-job I decided to start building again, beginning with the legendary paper monster. I also decided to document the entire process in a thread so anyone trying this in the future can learn from the mistakes I'll invariably make, and maybe benefit from advice from more experienced hands.

Tools & materials:

Instructions and sheets

I downloaded this from Berttt. I suggest these be added to the site's download section, if possible, since they seem to be requested pretty regularly. My only complaint with the sheets is they're all JPEG images, and the effects of compression are evident. The Monster is amazingly detailed, and more of it could have been saved in a PDF. But it still looks great, overall.

Paper

I'm going to use 90 lbs card stock. I got 250 sheets for $9 at my local OfficeMax. I was worried it would be too heavy, but after handling it I think even 110 lbs would have been okay. We'll wait and see what happens when I actually begin folding.

Glue

Krazyglue would probably be best, but I'm going to play it safe and use regular ol' Elmers. It'll give me plenty of time to make adjustments, and it was only $0.20 for a bottle.

Hobby knife

I bought a new one with several different blades for $3.

Tweezers

I'm not sure if I'll need these, but I had a pair lying around.

Paper clips

Just leftovers from my desk. I have a few different sizes, and plan to use them as clamps

The sheets were printed on an HP Laserjet 4600 color printer. When printing photographs on normal paper using the glossy finish option makes a tremendous difference. I tried it both ways on Sheet A and saw no difference whatsoever. All the other sheets then were printed plain. The only option specified was that the paper was card stock.

Since I haven't done this since I was a kid I realized that I might want to practice different techniques like scoring tabs and such before I started. So I printed out a test sheet on my HP Deskjet 970. A comparison with the laser printed sheet shows some interesting things. First off the color from the inkjet is much more even abd a definite green. The laser jet made a brownish green with noticeably browner areas on the parts. It's actually a nice 'weathered' effect, but I think I would have preferred the more uniform green. However, the smaller lettering, especially the white, is nearly lost in the inkjet copy. Also the thin black lines are more defined on the lasered sheet. If you have several different printers available you might want to test a sheet on all of them and see which you prefer. For now I'm going to stick with the rusted look of the Laserjet.

Okay, that's all for now. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to actually start assembling this beast.

[Witchblade]

Hm, odd. I had made a post updating on my progress so far, but apparently I never actually posted it... :/

To summarize I've glued together all the individual pieces that make up the hips and pelvis. All the pieces fit together beautifully, but I'm waiting until later to glue things in place.

The biggets discovery so far has been that the tweezers are far more useful as clamps than the paper clips - lots of hard to reach tabs.

The picture of the first few pieces will wait until the next update.

Now let's hope I post this one correctly.

[Mule]

I used 90 lbs paper too. I found it useful to slap a reinforcement layer under some of the larger areas in the main body and the feet.

Can't wait to see pictures.

[kanata67]

plexiglass and pvc with the main cannons functional potato guns...

I can just upscale the file print out to be as big as I want it mwa-ha-ha

[Witchblade]

plexiglass and pvc with the main cannons functional potato guns...

  I can just upscale the file print out to be as big as I want it mwa-ha-ha

320474[/snapback]

Now THAT I've got to see!

I did a little more work yesterday, but just the first of the circular pieces took as much time as all the rest up to this point. I'm going to be busy with research and stuff for the new job the next day or so, so the next update might be on hold for awhile.

Here's the pic that was included in the "phantom post" from Saturday of the first few pieces:

[mojacko]

nicely made....looking forward to see te finish producto?? cheers

Edited August 16, 2005 by mojacko

[Witchblade]

Okay, I had a few free minutes tonight, so I put the first few pieces together.

[Witchblade]

A little more work on the legs tonight.

I also discovered I made my first mistake. I left the central beam in the pelis pieces to make sure it would fit after they dried together. Unfortunately it looks like a bit of glue leaked out while it was drying, and the beam is now irremovable- and sticking out a few millimeters too far on one side. When I finish with both legs I'm going to have to cut the end off and use a scrap piece to reinforce it before I finally mount them.