How To Make Papercraft

Papercraft Model Making

Papercraft is the art of cutting, folding, and gluing paper to make intricate 3D models of anything from cars to boats, from people and animals, and from video game characters to model weapons. When you look at some of the models people make, it's hard to believe that they're simply made from cut, folded and glued paper. This hobby is inexpensive, extremely enjoyable, and easy for anyone to get into. If you enjoy working with you hands and seeing something that used to be on a flat sheet of paper come to life right in front of you, then papercraft might be for you. The Starcraft Seige Tank shown here is completely made of folded paper, and glue! Here, I've put together a resource for anyone who is looking to get started in papercraft. I'll go over the tools, technique, and resources you need to start making your own papercraft models in no time!

Table of Contents

1. Papercraft Models
2. Materials
3. Hobby Knives
4. Cutting Mats
5. Scoring Tools
6. Glue

Papercraft Models

Examples of excellent papercraft

Halo - Master Chief

Materials 

The stuff you'll need to get started

The nice thing about papercraft is that it really isn't a very expensive hobby. No expensive model kits to buy, no exotic materials needed. Many of the things you'll need you might already have at home. While not all of the materials below are necessary, if you get into papercraft, I would highly recommend getting a good set of the equipment below:

Hobby Knife - The most important tool in your papercraft arsenal. Get a precise knife with a fine blade.
Scoring Tool - Not always necessary, but makes scoring and folding paper 100 times easier.
Glue - White glue works fine. I prefer wood glue myself.
Paper - You'll need slightly thicker paper than what you might normally use for printing documents.
Cutting Mat - Not necessary, but they make your life much easier. No cutting into your precious wood table or shredding up stacks of newspapers.
Inkjet Printer - You can use any kind of color printer, but inkjets seem to work the best.

I'll first go over each of these pieces of equipment in more detail, and then get to finding papercraft models, printing them, and technique for actually cutting, folding and gluing the parts together.

Hobby Knives

Cut cut cut.

Picking the right hobby knife for papercraft is crucial for getting precise and clean lines, and making the work comfortable for you. The exact brand doesn't matter that much, any hobby knife will do, but you'll want to get the right kind of blades for your knife. You'll want to get blades that have a pointed tip that is at a fairly sharp angle. This lets you cut into the really sharp corners that many papercraft pieces require. The good ol' X-acto knife is what I prefer for all my hobby work, and if you go with X-acto, the type of blades you'll want are the #11 blades. These are made for precision work, and are perfect for cutting paper.

You'll have to find a knife that you're comfortable with using. Should the handle be thick or thin? Should it be metal or rubber? These aspects will depend on what you're most comfortable with, and how much precision you can get from it. When I'm doing long sessions of paper cutting, I like knives with a comfortable rubber coating. When I need to cut very intricate pieces, I like skinnier metal handles to give me the precision I need.

Cutting Mats

Protect your table.

The next thing that you might want to invest in is a good cutting mat. While these aren't completely necessary, they're cheap, and make your life much much easier. I've gone without a cutting mat for a few projects, and instead have used a stack of newspapers or a magazine instead, and while that works and is free, you end up chopping the newspaper into tons of little pieces that gets really annoying to clean up. You definitely don't want to cut directly on top any surface you care about, because those hobby knives will completely destroy whatever is underneath. So spare yourself the pain and pick up a cheap self-healing cutting mat.

The main thing you need to think about when getting a cutting mat is what size you're going to want to buy. For most papercraft projects, you'll be printing on letter sized 8.5x11" paper or A4 paper. This means that a 12" x 18" mat will be sufficient surface area to work on. I use this size mat for all my projects and haven't looked back.

Scoring Tools

Makes folding easier

This next tool really makes folding much more precise than possible with just your bare hands. A scoring tool allows you to make an indentation in the paper (or score) along the fold line. This makes the fold very sharp and precise. Without it, you will often make sloppy rounded folds which don't look great in the final papercraft model.

You don't actually need a scoring tool that's made expressly for that purpose, since you can use the tip of a mechanical pencil, or even a thumbtack to score your paper. I've used both other methods with moderate success. Mechanical pencils often aren't pointy enough to give you the precise score you want, but if you don't have anything else, they'll work. Thumbtacks are sharp enough, but really hard to hold on to. If you're thinking of doing some serious papercrafting, I would recommend one of the scoring tools below.

Some people also recommend folding tools like bone folders. They're basically straight edges that help you fold straight lines. I've never used one and find that if you score well, you get more precise folds than by using a folding tool. Nonetheless, you might find them useful.

Glue

Sticky Icky

There's really not too much to say about glue. Some people like glue sticks (I don't, they often don't give the amount of adhesion you need), while others like white glue (this works perfectly fine for all types of papercraft), but I personally use wood glue (I've found it's extremely strong when set and is just the right amount of tackiness while still wet to make things set quickly).

Paper

The backbone of papercraft

Now comes picking your paper. It is important to know that regular printer paper is often too light for papercraft. Paper comes in many different weights and brightnesses. What's important for papercraft is the weight. I would recommend 32lb paper (120gm/m^2) for any papercraft project you do. I have used this weight of paper for big projects and small projects and it has served me well. You can always go lighter if you're doing a very small very intricate piece of work. 28 or 24lb paper will work fine as well.

Printing

Okay, so now you've got your tools, you've downloaded Pepakura Viewer, you've downloaded a model you want to make and now you need to print it. You can print on any color printer, but there are a few caveats. For the best results, I would recommend printing on an inkjet printer. Laser printers work too, but often when you get to the folding stage, the color of paper pieces printed from a laser printer will "crack" wherever you fold it. That's because laser printers deposit a layer of toner on top of the paper that cracks when you fold it. It's not a huge deal, since I've used laser printers many times for these projects, and it's often not noticeable. In fact, the papercraft maker you see here used a laserjet printer to make the papercraft Audi you see there. But if you want the best results, use an inkjet printer!

Cutting Technique 

The first step in making a papercraft model is to cut out your pieces. You can either cut all your pieces at once, or cut a single module, score, fold and glue it, and then move onto the next module. I prefer to go one module at a time, so that I actually see things being built. It motivates me the best. Some people use a ruler to cut straight lines. I've found that while the lines will be really straight with a ruler, the accuracy is often an issue since it's difficult to line up a ruler exactly with your cutting line. Therefore, I tend to avoid rulers. Here are some tips on cutting out your pieces accurately.

1. Don't begin by cutting the detail. Roughly cut out each part first, then trim away the edges by following the lines.
2. Rotate the paper you're trying to cut, don't try to contort/rotate your hand to get the right angle. Cut towards yourself.
3. Keep the blade not inside or outside the lines, but exactly on the lines.
4. When making cuts of outgoing corners, cut a little bit further than you need to, so that your cuts cross each other and pieces pop out easily.
5. Store all pieces in a bowl or envelope so they don't get lost.
6. Replace blades often to make sure your cuts are clean and your paper doesn't end up tearing.

Folding Technique 

The first step before folding is to score all the lines you're going to fold on. Use your scoring tool to trace along all fold lines. Try to keep your scorer moving in a straight line and apply even pressure down on the paper to make a crease. This will help you fold the paper precisely.

When folding, be gentle and let the crease you made dictate how the fold will proceed. If you're using Pepakura Viewer, look at how the piece is supposed to look and fold each crease the appropriate direction. Try not to fold pieces all the way back (180 degrees) if they don't need to be at that angle. Fold to the angle the piece will need to be at for gluing.

Gluing Technique

I know gluing things together doesn't sound hard, and it isn't, but there are some tips and tricks that make gluing a little easier.

1. When starting, place a glob of glue on a sticky note to use. This will make it easier to not overuse glue and get things soggy.
2. Place glue, not on the tab you want to glue, but on the area the tab will contact.
3. Hold the two pieces together for at least 30 seconds to let the glue set before letting go.
4. Glue one tab at a time. Don't try to put glue on all the tabs at once.
5. You can use your finger for larger areas, but I like using a toothpick for the more intricate tabs and glue locations.
6. When gluing box shapes, place glue on the edges of the box and then push in the top with the tabs.
7. When gluing together two parts, place glue on the part which will less likely show excess glue.

source http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-make-papercraft-models#module153658976