Papercrafting your characters

This post was kindly submitted by Diana Stoneman.

Design a Papercraft Model

Interested in making an inexpensive and distinctive toy for your comic? In this tutorial, I'll show you how to make a 3D model into a downloadable papercraft toy for your readers to construct at home. We'll use Google Sketchup and Flattery, a plugin my talented husband made.

First some tips for model designing:

• Watch the video tutorials for Sketchup so you'll know your way around the program.
• Set Sketchup's template preferences to work in centimeters or inches, whichever you prefer. You'll need to pay attention to the actual size of your model as you build it.
• Convex shapes are easier to flatten. You will probably need separate cutouts for concave areas.
• Work with components to stay organized and also for easier start overs.

Got a model split into components and ready to go? Let's flatten it!

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