what the professional papertoy maker use for create????

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Permalink Reply by cult'n'cute on December 26, 2009 at 7:35am

ok i read my text and i see i 've forgotten material things scisors or cutter ? what kind of glue ?how much time from zero to finish? inspiration??? thank you...

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Permalink Reply by Alex Gwynne on December 26, 2009 at 1:00pm

well i use powerpoint 2004 to design them, poundland scissors and tesco double sided tape!

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Permalink Reply by James Ronald Lo on December 27, 2009 at 6:13pm

Powerpoint!?! Wow!

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Permalink Reply by Neurogami on December 27, 2009 at 6:50pm

That was my first thought, but it seems really clever.

I haven't used it in a while, but it recall it has vector drawing tools.

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Permalink Reply by Neurogami on December 26, 2009 at 9:08pm

I use Google Sketch-up to work out 3-D shapes, and export them as kmz files for Pepakura Designer to open.

In Pepakura Designer I do some adjusting of how the faces are attached and where the tabs have been placed.

If what I see in Pepakura Designer is way complex, I re-do the model in Sketch-up to make it simpler, and re-import into Pepakura Designer.

Some additonal info on this process:
http://www.matthijskamstra.nl/blog/index.php/2007/03/21/how-to-crea...

However, there are all sorts of issues and quirks when using these tools and this kind of design process.

A nice feature of Sketch-up is that you can overlay or project images onto the 3D shapes, getting something of a preview of what you might end up with; that's handy for trying things out in 3D.

And you can save alternate versions as you play around. But a real downside is that it can be hard to get things just a certain way, and the software has no smarts about what makes a model hard or easy to build. Plus I'm thinking that these tools encourage making the shapes too complex.

So, I've added an additional step, which is to export an image file from Pepakura that I then load into Illustrator.

I use Illustrator to clean things up, make tabs nicer, and so on, and manually simply the template

Then I print out numerous copies and build them and draw on them or whatever as I try out different ideas.

I've been using some card stock; I can't find the package so I don't know the name or weight. (It's less heavy than your typical business card, more or less.) I use an X-Acto knife (#1 or #11 blades) to cut the paper (using plain scissors for large areas) and Elmer's Glue to glue stuff together. Tooth picks come in handy for that.

If you grab a copy of the book Urban Paper the intro explains much of this, and more.

I recently came across a site where a Belgium artist showed off his drawings and paper crafts; turns out he's on this site as well: http://www.nicepapertoys.com/profile/Nsaloquin?xg_source=activity

N. Saloquin does some amazing work. Modern, yet not like most of what I see in the Urban Paper realm. What was especially interesting to see were the mockups:

http://www.nicepapertoys.com/photo/patron1-1?context=user

http://www.nicepapertoys.com/photo/patron2-1?context=user

So, yet another approach to toy design is to grab some paper and pencils, cut some shapes, and start bending, folding, drawing, and gluing. Much like traditional sculpting.

Saloquin make great use of some interesting shapes, which inspired me to spend some time just trying to concoct various objects to see how hard it is produce certain effects, or see if some new shape lent itself to a character or something.

Some other info: Make sure you have a good self-healing cutting board. They are rubber mats that close up when you cut into them. There are some good things listed here:

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/dh_paper.htm

and here:

http://paperkraft.blogspot.com/2006/02/paper-craft-tools.html

And be sure you have a good work light and plenty of space.

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Permalink Reply by James Ronald Lo on December 27, 2009 at 6:10pm

Nice reply Neurogami!, cool links too.

Me, I have a similar process but I use blender instead of Sketchup.
Everything else is just about the same.

Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Fath Fauz on February 2, 2010 at 8:17am

Wow, I really admire someone who can use 3D software. I try to learn it but sadly, I'm so dumb. I grab a copy of pepakura software months ago thinking on making my own design but there goes my dream. I can not even make a simple 3D character or object. *sigh* The only paper toy I can make is cubee shape, hehe.
Anyway thanks for the links. May be I should take my time to study them bit by bit later.

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Permalink Reply by cult'n'cute on December 28, 2009 at 1:25pm

ok i have to try once a 3d software.... need time...

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Permalink Reply by Greenelf on December 28, 2009 at 4:15pm

I use adobe illustrator cs4,photoshop cs4 and also corel painter 11 then put them all together with acrobat.
sometimes I just do scratch builds and them scan them into the computer ready for editing.

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Permalink Reply by Steo on December 31, 2009 at 3:49pm

Woah... I haven't outted my first toy yet, but i simply use paint.net, and build a couple editions of the model fixing flaws from the drawing to the original, to the 3d, so on... I haven't finished designing the final template for my first, but i am so close. I tried to put a time limit down, and it rushed me too much so i simply destroyed all my time limit's and continued work... Hoping it comes along quickly though.

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Permalink Reply by Luke 'Glood' on January 1, 2010 at 2:20am

i use power pritt stick and some fairly small scirrors. scalpels work really well too

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Permalink Reply by Rob Ives on January 7, 2010 at 3:49am

I use Adobe Illustrator for the model design. I tend to start by producing an outline model using ruler and pencil then, after I'm happy with the prototype. I cut it apart and scan the parts. From there I'll import them into Illustrator to finish them off.

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