Lincoln Bicentennial Architecture Paper Models

In honor of the 2009 Bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency has released five HO (1:87) scale paper models of historic Illinois buildings associated with Abraham Lincoln. Five more buildings in the series are expected to be released before the end of the year. In addition to the Lincoln Bicentennial series there are also ten "Main Street" papercraft buildings available for download, eight of which are Victorian style architecture, with the remaining two building being Art Deco and Prairie Style. The templates for all the architectural models are free and may be downloaded here.

3D Frankenstein Monster Mask Papercraft

Apparently the real life Frankenstein Castle near Darmstadt, Germany now houses a restaurant and dinner theater! As part of the restaurant's 2009 Halloween festivities they are offering on their website a nicely done, printable 3D Frankenstein monster mask (kind of looks like Boris Karloff doesn't it?). The link for the PDF papercraft template may be found here. Instructions for assembling the mask are in German only.

Barbie Scale Guillotine Papercraft

Here is my contribution to the collection of free Halloween papercraft on the Internet this year: a guillotine! I had downloaded a 3D model of a bloody guillotine by designer "Smirnoffka" earlier this year thinking I might do a papercraft of it sometime and finally decided it would work best as a Halloween papercraft. I chose to scale the guillotine to the size of a Barbie doll because there was something just so ironic and disturbing about associating smiling Barbie with a gruesome instrument of death. :) Here are the details of the template:

Scale: 1:6
Finished Size: 12.5" (31.8 cm) height
Number of sheets: 3
Number of parts: 18
Difficulty: 3/5
Download

Note: No Barbies were harmed in the making of this papercraft. :)

Tyrannosaurus Skeleton Papercraft

The tyrannosaurus rex is in the top ten of most everyone's list of favorite dinosaurs, so it is no surprise that natural history museums like to have fossilized t-rex skeletons as a draw. Now thanks to the Paper Museum website operated by the Sanwa Paper Company you can have your own miniature tyrannosaurus skeleton at home. Look for the download at the bottom of the page here. (After following the link, click on the pink bars near bottom of the page for the PDF template and instructions)

1934 British Airplane Papercraft

The first thing you probably will notice about this airplane papercraft is that there is no color. The reason for the lack of color is the template was printed from a microfilm of an old newspaper. The original template was published on June 30, 1934 in “Boys and Girls”, the weekly children’s supplement to the Daily Mail, a British newspaper. The instructions claim the model will glide nicely if the nose is properly weighted. Look for a link to the template here in Brett Holman's article on the toy aeroplane at Airminded.org.

Harry Potter Papercraft: Death Eater Mask #5

Five masks down and two more to go. Like Death Eater masks number one and two, this mask is based on a drawing rather than a photograph. The picture above really doesn't do justice to the intricate detail that can be seen in the PDF template of the mask. The drawing this papercraft is based on may have been done as a preliminary design by whoever built the metal mask that Death Eater mask #3 was based on. As usual, there are full size and half size templates available for download here.

Related mask papercraft:
Death Eater Mask #4
Death Eater Mask #3
Death Eater Mask #2
Death Eater Mask #1

Cartoon Dog Papercraft

Every once in a while I like to do a quick and simple build just for fun, so this cartoon dog was a welcome find. Officially titled "Doggy Woggy", this papercraft was created by budding cartoonist Trey Chavez as a Father's Day present in 2008. It has only four pieces but it did take a little longer than I expected because I had to improvise my own gluing flaps. The template for this doggy can be found here. (Oh, by the way, I think I attached the dog's ears a little different than Trey may have intended ^^)

Digimon Papercraft: Guilmon and Pegasusmon

With all the Pokemon papercraft around I have always wondered why there wasn't more Digimon papercraft. Things are looking up for Digimon fans though now that POdragon (one of the Paperpokes team) has ventured into creating some papercraft of Digimon characters. Finished so far (from left to right) are Guilmon and Pegasusmon. The Guilmon model is nice in that it comes in a optional black version and is also designed in such a way that the finished pose of the model is customisable. Template downloads of each of these are available from POdragon's deviantART site here and here.

Harry Potter Papercraft: Death Eater Mask #4

Another papercraft Death Eater mask is finished! This one is based on what appears to be a photograph of a painted ceramic mask. My goal is to complete a total of seven different masks, so this one puts me just over halfway through the series. Download the template for mask #4 here.

Related mask papercraft:
Death Eater Mask #3
Death Eater Mask #2
Death Eater Mask #1
Kaonashi (No Face) Mask

World War 1 Tank Papercraft

Tanks were considered high tech weaponry during World War 1. However, to modern eyes the tanks developed during "the War to End All Wars" have an odd, almost Steampunk look. These papercraft are two of several 1:72 scale WW1 models created in 2006 by Clifton W. McCullough. Pictured on top is a British Mark IV heavy tank. Below is a German A7V heavy tank. Templates for a total of seven different WW1 tank models as well as a model of a German Halberstadt CLII fighter-bomber are available at McCullough's web page here.

Marvel Comics Papercraft: X-Men

I stumbled onto a fledgling papercraft blog called My Paper Heroes (run by UK papercrafter Xavier Leo Gale-Sides) and I was delighted to find numerous X-Men papercraft. Pictured above are Rogue, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Professor Xavier, Beast, and Havok. Other X-Men characters available for download include Angel, Cyclops, Colossus, Archangel, Wolverine, Iceman, Cannonball, and Jamie Madrox. And as if that wasn't enough, there are also models of the Incredible Hulk and the Silver Surfer. Look for more Marvel Comics papercraft in the future from Gale-Sides.

UPDATE 12/14/24: The My Paper Heroes blog has become unreliable for downloads. The six X-Men paper models shown above may be downloaded at Mediafire.

Hellraiser Papercraft: Metallic Lament Configuration

I usually don't consider printing papercraft on anything other than white cardstock but, as you can see from these papercraft Lament Configurations, other materials can give you great results. The two smaller cubes on the left were printed on colored construction paper using a black and white template. However, the cube that interests me the most is the one on the right in which the same black and white template was printed on gold metallic paper. I can see lots of possibilities for using this technique, everything from Christmas ornaments to shiny metal weapons. These Hellraiser papercrafts are the work of Ulrich Schreitmueller of Germany. Information on how he built the puzzle boxes may be found here.

Related Posts
Arcane Cubes Papercraft
All Spark Cubes Papercraft
Jedi Holocron Papercraft

Harry Potter Papercraft: Death Eater Mask #3

Another papercraft Harry Potter Death Eater mask is complete. This one is a little different than the previous two Death Eater masks in that the image used to make the model is a photograph of an actual metal mask rather than a line drawing. The ornate patterns on the original metal mask were very nicely done by whoever the craftsman was. A download of the template is here.

Related mask papercraft:
Death Eater Mask #2
Death Eater Mask #1
Kaonashi (No Face) Mask

Polyhedral Playing Card Construction

If you have an extra deck of playing cards on hand and feel like building something cool, here is just the thing. This 30 sided, slide-together playing card construction is the creation of Francesco De Comité. I think it would be interesting to see one of these constructed out of other types of cards or even a standard deck of cards with the backs facing outward instead. Now if I can just find the time...^^ De Comité's template may be found here.

1960's Science Fiction Television Papercraft

In the early 60's, long before British television producer Gerry Anderson produced TV shows like Space:1999 and Thunderbirds, he created two shows, Supercar and Fireball XL5. Each of the productions was a science fiction children's show that featured Anderson's signature marionettes which later became so well known on the Thunderbirds show. These two papercraft were created in 2001 by Pierre Fontaine as an homage to the shows which are now largely forgotten. Free template downloads of the retro spacecraft are available here along with a template for a papercraft Queen Anne style house.