Not dead yet

Hey guys! Just a quick note that I'm still around, just had a lot of stuff going on and had not much time to work further on my papercraft. I just recently produced a high-quality print (xerox 4c laser) for the eTUI design i posted a while back and will post a few pics once i cut it. I won't have that much more time over the next two months, but I'll try to work more on the eTUI and get a few templates ready for release.

Jacque poked me on flickr and asked for a jpg of the blank eggotastic template. I uploaded one here, should anyone else need that one as a jpg.

back from the fair

I'm back from the fair... while i get settled in again, I'll point you to a simple papertoy i saw at the fair of a hydrogen fuel cell bus. Expect some updates on the eTUI during this week.

Quick Update

Just a quick update to let you know I'll be away to an industrial fair for next week, that's why no updates were posted here nor will there next week. Expect to get news & pics on the eTUI once I'm back home.

A few prototypes later...

...eTUI is born. Since the first change for the closing mechanism, i changed the system again. Without a larger faceplate at the top it just did not look right. A few of the prototypes also had some stability issues when opened/closed too often. The now final design looks like a traditional sheath and should be sturdy enough to be used quite a while.

This picture shows a template prototype i created for a friend. You can see the closing mechanism which is a flap you insert into the sheath. The whole top cover has additional flaps for stability inside. The opening at the top body part doubles as part of the closing mechanism and is used to be able to remove business cards with ease from the sheath with your thumb. There are a few other tiny things that are adding to the usability, I'll explain when i release the template.

The use for the sheath is to customize it as a gift for people, to pose as a sheath if you have to handle more then one type of card (eg. personal & company) and in addition i see a great use for them if you hand out stacks of your cards to people in your network. I don't know about you, but i keep small stacks of business cards from people i trust because of their good work and/or work together with often. So if someone asks me about someone to do a certain task, i can hand out cards from others to advertise their work. In my opinion this adds more value to the reference then just naming a website. Shouldn't it be great if you can hand out your cards in a nice sheath? Will make it even easier for others to advertise you.

business card sheath, WiP

The earlier mentioned iPod Shuffle papertoy is on hold for a while. The design is nearly done, but i lack the inspiration for the illustration at the moment. So in the meantime i went back to the business card sheath out of paper. It will be able to hold approx. 25 business cards. While not exactly a papertoy, it will be easy to customize and might be a great gift for friends or business partners. I had quite a hassle with the closing mechanism, while my initial idea of a kind of paper-hook-flap works very well with larger models, it's not really "durable" on a tiny thing like a sheath. The template design is done with the fact in mind to hold a few days on a fair and you'll open/close the damn thing quite often. The mechanism i decided on now is a bit different from what you can see on the picture - which show the evolution from the earliest models - which is a bit of a bummer, as i wanted to have a kind of larger shutter so you can use it as a part of a mouth design. But as paper itself is a bit fragile, the main priority is that it can be used for some time and won't fall apart. I did not decide yet if I'll post the empty template right away or finish a small series of designs first... I'll keep you posted.

Poseable Paper Pope

Hehe.. today i stumbled upon a DIY paper pope with a bunch of accessoires. While being more a 2D papertoy, it's funny nontheless. You can download the pope as a PDF at the link. The designer Rob Nance does also offer a paper Hasselhoff there, perfect for that colleague you never liked anyway.

Bringing the 2nd 3rd-Dimension to papertoys

There are so many great papertoys out there, you probably could take a week off and won't be able to build them all. One really cool thing is when the models use different "layers" of perspective to give an even better 3D-feeling. If you're still unsure what I'm referring to have a look at the Macula Squealer series or this work in progress from Matt Hawkins. The use of different layers for eg. the hair, the mouth or other parts of the body while done with paper and not texture really appeals to me. I definately need to use that technique more in upcoming papertoys.
And if things go wrong i can still use duct tape to fix everything. ;)

NiceBunny HedKase with gasmask

I'm invited for breakfast today and as the host has a.. hum.. interesting collection of gasmasks and stuff i figured, what better to bring then a NiceBunny HedKase with accessoire? Fitting for today Brian had his very own April fool with me: I printed out the bunny on A4 and thought the accessoires will fit then as well - who likes to read instructions anyway? Well... they did, somehow.. but apparently it was not correct like this. Ah well, i blame it on the strange measures they got on that lil' island to the west. ;) And the mask was the important part anyway.

With summer around the corner, it's best to prepare now. Did you ever heard about a Guerrilla Drive-in aka a MobMov (mobile movie)? It's a small movement of people that start their own public drive-in cinema. Sounds like fun? I think it is...
Start a Guerrilla Drive-in
Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In
MobMov outdoor cinema

World of Warcraft Papercrafts

Today i discovered a blog that's devoted entirely to papercrafts from models of the popular World of Warcraft MMORPG. Some very cool things to build over there... really nice. :)
Check it here:
World of Warcraft Papercraft.

Despite some artists don't like Pepakura, as it's easier to build some models with it, there are communities out there that build entire Formula 1 car racing teams with it or create their most favorite characters from computer games. Some of the stuff that surfaces like this is a lot of fun to buid.

I also stumbled over some mech-robots papertoys at Mechwarrior3.org.

Not exactly papercraft

...but cool stuff nontheless. Curtains with ASCII art, funny idea. Or how about a couch in pixelart? I like reading blogs about design concepts and prototypes, often gives you great ideas for other things. One really good website i read regularly is Yanko Design - great stuff!