Tron Recognizer Papercraft

In the 1982 movie Tron ominous hovering vehicles called "recognizers" are used by the army of the villainous Master Control Program to capture programs and guard the game grid. The designer of this papercraft has attempted an accurate recreation of an recognizer even going as far as using clear acrylic rods to give the illusion that the individual parts of the recognizer are hovering separate from one another just as they appear in the movie. Downloads of both color and un-colored templates are available here. A template for a display stand is also available. This model is the work of Marco Scheloske, Germany, 2003.

Tron Bit Papercraft - Alternate Templates

Based on some comments I received after posting my Tron Bit papercraft design, I have created some alternate templates.

First, I have re-colored templates of the Yes Bit. For the original Yes Bit template I had sampled the color from a digital image of the Bit which gave me a dark orange color. Some Tron fans feel the Yes Bit's true color is closer to yellow than orange, so I searched through other digital images from the movie until I found a more yellow image and then sampled it for the re-colored template. The image and the resulting model are shown on the left. It is still a little orange in my opinion, but much closer to yellow than the original model.

Secondly, I have created versions of the original temples with all fold lines eliminated except for the fold lines at the gluing flaps. This will allow more experienced papercrafters to build cleaner looking, lineless models if they desire.

A zip file of the re-colored Yes Bit templates (with and without fold lines) may be downloaded here. A zip file of the three original templates without fold lines may be downloaded here. If you missed the original post for the lined templates of the Bit, you can see it here.

Tron Papercraft - Bit

"Bit" is a character from the 1982 Disney movie, Tron. Considered by some to be the first CGI character in a movie, Bit communicates by speaking only "yes" or "no". The orange shape above is the form Bit takes when answering "yes". The spiky red shape is the form when answering "no" and the blue shape is Bit's "neutral" form when not speaking. Here is a film clip showing Bit in action...

Even though this is the fifth papercraft design I have released, it was actually one of my first designs. Development of the design took a little longer partially because it is actually three models, but also because it took some time to create simplified templates for the complex geometry. For those out there who care about such things, the "yes" Bit is a octahedron, the "neutral" Bit is a compound of a icosahedron and a dodecahedron, and the "no" Bit is a second stellation of a icosahedron. Template information for each of the models is as follows:

Bit - "Yes" Configuration
Finished Size (with base): 7" (17.8 cm)
Number of Sheets: 2
Number of Parts: 4
Difficulty: 1/5
Download: Here

Bit - "Neutral" Configuration
Finished Size (with base): 7" (17.8 cm)
Number of Sheets: 4
Number of Parts: 26
Difficulty: 2/5
Download: Here

Bit - "No" Configuration
Finished Size (with base): 8" (20.3 cm)
Number of Sheets: 4
Number of Parts: 34
Difficulty: 5/5!
Download: Here

UPDATE: Lineless templates and a re-colored template of the Yes Bit are available now here.

Other Tron Papercraft:
Sam Flynn's Identity Disc
Full Size Tron Helmet
Lightcyclist Bust
Sark's Identity Disc

Tron Light Cycle Scene Recreated in Paper

Due to my interest in all things paper, I have become aware of the phenomenon of “sweded” movies. The term “sweded” was coined in the 2008 comedy film, Be Kind Rewind, in which two friends create abbreviated, amateur, ultra-low budget versions of classic movies. The resulting films are invariably amusing. What sweded movies have to do with papercraft is that often the props in these movies are made out of paper and cardboard. Below is one of my favorite sweded films, a recreation of the light cycle scene from the 1982 movie, Tron, complete with cardboard light cycles. This also gives me the opportunity to mention that I will be posting my own original Tron papercraft design soon! Stay tuned…