PAPER MODELING IS A GOOD CHEAP TOY MAKING HOBBY
With video games, movies, video games, iPods, video games, TV, video games,text messaging and … video games. Is there anything that can drag the kids away from their techno-obsessed lives and give them a hobby that teaches principles of building, creating, and even design all while creating a fun disposable (or collectible) toy for very little to no money? Paper Modeling will. Sure, there are plastic and balsa wood models out there for anything from the Starship Enterprise to the Gigantic Saturn V rocket. Modellers can make tanks, cars, planes, ships all out from kits that cost anywhere from $12 to 200 dollars or more. Paper models? FREE. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Certainly less than ten bucks. How? Keep reading.
A great deal of paper models area available as free PDF downloads from the Internet. Forums like Zealot Hobby Forum also exist which can help anyone get into the cool, and blogs like Papercraft World, which keep fans up to date on the hobby that is paper or card modeling.
There, users can find tutorials on how to get started, learn tips and techniques, download models, and even learn to create new ones based on a very cool computer program called Pepakura Designer, which can not only take a 3D CGI model and unfold it into a paper model, but can be used to create a completely new one.
Costume designers use Pepakura to make props, costumes, armor, the sky is the limit. Users have made MASTER CHIEF Armor, IRONMAN Armor, paper models based on just about any sci-fi of real life ship imaginable. From military to real space to fantasy. They can even build paper models of characters like Iron Man, the Predator, even Kim Possible.
And sizes can range from barely an inch, to well over 6 feet depending on the modeler’s vision. Some have even used paper model designs to build their own museum quality attractions and even rocketry models. Paper modeling is a great way to teach kids concepts of model building without breaking the bank. All one needs is a printer, some card stock, some glue and a pair of scisssors or an Xacta blade.
And a little patience.
So why not make your own toys?