A dutch newspaper (AD.nl) interviewed me about Papertoys. They also made a movie about it. 😀
It’s an article in Dutch: AD.nl – Cultuur en media – Liefdewerk ‘Oud Papier’.
(a rude and crude translation by Google to English: click here)
Some free publicity for the exhibit in Subwalk (Arnhem – the Netherlands).
One of my most popular post is about how to create papertoys (How to create your own papercraft).
It seems that a lot of people are interested in papertoys and how to make themselves.
But there is not a lot of information about it, so I started this series.
Do you want to know more about my reasons read this.
Because I have not a plan about writing about this, I will call this Lesson 1 – The Cube
The first shape you will run into when you start with papertoys is the cube. It’s easy to recognize: all sides (width, height, depth) are the same.
When you build one, it will look something like the one you see above. Not really impressive, yet.
Okay, you probably know how a cube looks, but how does it look flat on a piece of paper:
For the cube I see 2 methods:
1. Design a pattern/print for it.
2. Add stuff to the cube.
The thing that I do first is, print it out and build the model. It’s strange but when you can hold it, flip it, etc, you will get more ideas then when you just look for it in your head. It will get your creative juices going. Look for clues in the real world…
What is a cube in the real world? A dice
alarm-clock
table
tv
box
, …. hmmmm not a lot a stuff is really a cube….
Perhaps a little car or bus when you square them out…
A couple of rectangle shaped object can make a cube: stack of books, cds, video, …. you get the idea.
But that would only create “dead” object (there are not a lot of living objects that are square), so we need to expend our horizon to other objects.
Now we start adding stuff. This method gives you more room to create cool stuff.
Lets try a couple:
Add a beak, make the cube yellow and you have a little bird.
Add a back fin, make the cube green and you have a prehistoric beast.
Add two wings and you have a plane…. or another bird.
Add an periscope, some water and you have a submarine.
Add ears and get a head.
Sometimes it helps to rotate the object a little bit. In this case with our cube it will not help you a lot but lets try that.
Add an tail and get a whale.
Add four feet and get a turtle.
You can even add an extra cube, and make a totem pole.
You can sketch everything with a cube 3d print out like I did. Then you have a global idea how you pattern should look. Then you’ll take your favorite design program (in my case Illustrator) and open the flat template and start designing.
The only problem that you will need to know which part goes where AND and how the pattern connects to the other parts of the template.
You can also build the cube, get your drawing tools out (markers, paint, pen, pencils, whatever) and color/draw the pattern that you want. When you are finished, get a scissor and cut the cube open. Scan it and redraw it, or just draw some glue tabs on it and you are done.
The same as above: you can sketch everything. Or you start with building a cube and adding stuff as you go. This is a method I use a lot: it’s faster then thinking every thing out on a computer and you see at once if the measurements are correct. If you are satisfied with would you just added to the cube you can measure it with a ruler and rebuild it in your favorite design program. Or cut it of, scan it and then redraw it.
To get you started I have template with a blank cube for you to download. So you can try some of the technique described here in this tutorial. The zip also contains some of the stuff you can add to a cube to make it more fun.
Happy cut’n & fold’n
[download of a cube/with extra’s like hands]
I’m trying to write a book about papertoys and how you can design it. It’s not for me, I already know what I’m doing, it’s for you.
So if you have some questions, use the comments to say it to me.
No questions for me? Just let me know what you think a cube also can be?
Or perhaps examples that you have seen based on a cube.
Use the comments!
I’ve been working/experimenting with a curvy papermodel
Because I thought it could be curvier I made an evolution version:
I’m not totally happy with the second model, but I’ve been working to long on it to just throw it away.
So I’m letting you guys/girls decide:
Which one is better?
Model #1
Model #2
and why is that model better?
URBAN PAPER book launch & paper toy art show
This is probably something for the dutchies reading my blog, but everybody is invited!
Urban Paper
Book launch & Paper Toy Art Show
Expo: 01.08.09 – 30.08.09
Opening: Saturday 01.08.09
Lecture: Friday 21.08.09
Address:
Hommelstraat 65
6828 AJ Arnhem
The Netherlands
Meet the dutch artists (Sjors Trimbach, 3EyedBear, E440, Marshall Alexander, LouLou, Illectronics and me) and …. perhaps an visitor from the USA?
The lecture will be given by Sjors Trimbach.
There are more shows coming up:
1-30 August – Subwalk, Arnhem, The Netherlands.
September – Pause, Tokyo, Japan.
No date known – Rivet, Ohio, USA.
October – Scion Lab, Kansas City, USA
And perhaps: Italy – Rome/Milan/Bergamo/Lucca???
My favorite open source project ever, FlashDevelop has released: FlashDevelop 3.0.0 RTM (English, 4MB) .
I started with coding in the Flash IDE, when I realized that there are better programs to code in I started working with SE|PY (ActionScript 2 only). I really loved that program, but it never made it to ActionScript 3 and so I tried FlashDevelop. I have never regretted it, it a beautiful piece of work and I can’t work without it.
So if your pockets aren’t deep, and want to become a better AS2/AS3 programmer. you should try this program.
The only sad thing is that it’s Windows only.
The latest issue of the German family magazine Luna features some great shots of papertoys by some great papertoy designers and me 🙂
I need to make a photo/scan of the pages I’m in, but for now a image made by Marshall Alexander
There are models and customs by Sal Azad, 3EyedBear, SaltnPaper, JustUs, Nick Knite, Matt Hawkins, Marshall Alexander and me 😀
By accident… well Methuup da Funky One a NPT member found the MOD:1 CTRL and build it. I love this model as a vinyl, how can you not like it as a papertoy!
So that’s what I want to share:
http://www.supermodifiedstudios.com/MODiGAMI_Profiles.zip
Visit SuperModifiedstudios and click on MODiGAMI and there they are!
I need to share one part of the pdf series with you:
To bad I missed the competition 🙁
Scott Schaller blew me away with a custom for Grumm
Do you see the Grumm in there?
Lets try again:
No? nothing. Nether did I:
But it’s true, it started as a Grumm
What can I say, Scott is amazing
He should stop calling it a Grumm custom and give it his own name.
Perhaps this started as a Grumm, but this is completely different DNA.
Grumm evolution
Sometimes I open ActionScript files in another editor then FlashDevelop. And in my case this is Notepad++.
Notepad++ has ActionScript syntax highlighting but it seems that it doesn’t detect it.
When I open an AS file it uses the Haskell syntax highlighting, and that is very annoying especially when you open a couple of files and you need to set them one by one to ActionScript.
Google (who else) provided the answer: here.
This is what you do:
find and open the langs.xml file
you can find it in the install folder of Notepad++, in my case
C:\Program Files\Notepad++
find the haskell language
< Language name="haskell" ext="hs lhs as las" commentLine="--" >
and remove “as” from the ext and save the file.
Next time you open an AS file with notepad++ it will be highlighted in the correct syntax
🙂
A little change I made to the new updated plugin:
find the plugin-folder “syntaxhighlighter” and add the next line to “syntaxhighlighter.php”
[as highlight=”1,3″]
‘as’ => ‘as3’,
‘as3’ => ‘as3’,
‘actionscript’ => ‘as3’,
‘actionscript3’ => ‘as3’,
[/as]
and find in the plugin-folder “syntaxhighlighter”, the folder “scripts” and change the next line to “shBrushAS3.js”
[as wrapper=”true”]
// SyntaxHighlighter.brushes.AS3.aliases = [‘actionscript3’, ‘as3’]; // old line and the bottom of the .js file
SyntaxHighlighter.brushes.AS3.aliases = [‘actionscript3′,’actionscript’, ‘as3’, ‘as’]; // new line
[/as]
the new syntaxhighlighter only uses “as3” and “actionscript3“, and I just changed all my post to “as”
code { font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: 1.2em; /*white-space: pre;*/ color: Gray; }
Today I updated my SyntaxHighlighter JavaScript package by Alex Gorbatchev and it was not easy…
I have a syntax highlighter installed on my blog to show my ActionScript source code in a nice way.
But the first time I installed it, I choose a WordPress plugin which isn’t add to WordPress Plugin Directoryand doesn’t appear to be update.
And if I remember correctly, it didn’t work as it should and I had to add ActionScript. Read my previous decision here.
So I had to upgrade to SyntaxHighlighter Evolved which of course came with some upgrading issues created by my previous install.
First problem: write ActionScript.
ActionScript is not default included in the Syntaxhighter, and you will be advised to use [ javascript ] tag, which is a good advice since AS is almost javascript. It would make your live easier if you choose this option.
But as in my last installment of syntaxhighlighter I want to use Actionscript highlighting.
So there we go:
To do that you need an Actionscript brush. I found two of them: cptloadtest.com has one but it looks like its more for AS2,
and yourpalmark.com which is also the one I choose, because I used his version also with my previous installment and it’s for AS3.
This is what you need to do: install SyntaxHighlighter and if you choose to use [ javascript ]
your done. I was not done yet, so lets continue… Download the shBrushAS3.zip, extract and place the shBrushAS3.js in the correct folder on the server (in my case .../wp-content/plugins/syntaxhighlighter/syntaxhighlighter/scripts). Now you need to change some code in the WordPress plugin:
You can do this in WordPress itself if you have writing permission set, or you can edit the php file on your desktop…
you need to add the highlighted code
// Register brush scripts
wp_register_script( 'syntaxhighlighter-core', plugins_url('syntaxhighlighter/syntaxhighlighter/scripts/shCore.js'), array(), $this->agshver );
wp_register_script( 'syntaxhighlighter-brush-actionscript3', plugins_url('syntaxhighlighter/syntaxhighlighter/scripts/shBrushAS3.js'), array('syntaxhighlighter-core'), $this->agshver);
and
// Create list of brush aliases and map them to their real brushes $this->brushes = apply_filters( 'syntaxhighlighter_brushes', array( 'as' => 'actionscript3', 'as2' => 'actionscript3', 'as3' => 'actionscript3', 'actionscript' => 'actionscript3', 'bash' => 'bash',
and now you are ready to go.
I had to change some other stuff ([ source:as ]...[ /source ] into [ as ]...[ /as ] ) and it seems that my css is not playing nice with syntaxhighlighter. hmmmm this is more work then I thought it would be.
I had to deactivate one plugin: autoescape , it didn’t play nice with SyntaxHightlighter. I didn’t use it anymore, and the combination generated gibberish.