What is a paper model?

Paper modeling became popular in America during the material scarce war years- with airplanes printed on the backs of cereal boxes, and dime cutout doll books with an array of wardrobes and accessories. And that was yesterday, and this is today. Papermodel kits now range from simple cut & put together in an hour, to intricate masterpieces similar in depth to the wood ship model kits I'm fond of, and the plastic kits I've built many of. Paper itself is a quite versatile medium, and the finished products are much more durable than I thought they would be the first time I saw one. Detailed paintjobs are printed right on the model eliminating the need for trying to place fragile wet decals. A few light sprays of a water clear floor polish gives them a "real car" shine, adds to their strength and durability, and makes them easier to keep dusted, like anything that lives on a shelf gets dusty!

My first papermodel was a memorable and very pleasant experience. I said to myself- How difficult can it be to work with paper? I chose the Eole, an odd 1/72 scale airplane from the turn of the century. Not the easiest model kit to start with, but not by far the most intricate either. I learned a lot! As I laminated the printed sheets that formed the top & bottom of the first wing I began to gain a little confidence- every artistic medium has it's easy point and tricky points, but paper, slightly damp with glue will bend and form and even stretch a little- and I learned to think like "It's paper, it will do whatever you want it to do."

My initial fears of trying to cut out and then put together all these tiny little bits of fragile paper, without leaving glue blotches everywhere, soon turned to amazement as the model started to take form. As usual when we start something totally new to us, the hardest part is getting started. The paper shaped nicely for me into the concave wings like what showed in the picture. The tiny areas in between the spokes of the wheels cut out nicely, and coloured pencils shaded the white papercut edges in between. I wasn't bright enough to figure out that the white back of the pilot's housing would show white if you looked in the little windows I cut out, so I spent a very delicate half hour with a tiny artist brush and an acrylic tube of sepia fixing that.

I was really excited with the finished kit, I still look at it and marvel at what can be done with nothing more than paper, and I have downloaded and printed a marvelous mausoleum complete with an Angel I can't wait to get started on, and then I want to design and build the Munster Dragula..... In my view, paper kits are challenging, simple & difficult at the same time- but always just plain fun!

Building by the Numbers

The instructions here work for most papermodel kits- the cutting, folding, glueing symbols are used by almost all of the commercial designers I've seen. There are a few hobbyist designers who do not use them, but if you're even just a little familiar with the art of paper modeling, you'll do fine anyway. I do not sell any of the kits without symbols at this time, but it's not for the lack of symbols, just that the designers usually sell them either in printed form or as print-yourself PDF files on their own websites. The Eole one of these private release kits. It's an odd little airplane, but rumor says it really did fly.

The Tatra Trucks and Formula 1 kits I sell are designed in the Czech Republic, so the written instructions are beyond me, and some don't have written instructions at all- just the builder's diagram. This is not a problem. There are numbers on every part, every glue tab, and those numbers match the part you'll be glueing to. Study the plans and the parts before starting to cut & build, they make sense easy enough.

I do this on my plastic kits too, kind of build it in my mind before I actually uncap the old hobby knife, and with plastic I go over the paint scheme too, and usually try to find pix of the real thing on the web because few kits show the detail of painting diagrams I like. With paper kits, the graphics are already printed on the parts, so no need for body paint nor finishing decals. The only bodywork we're going to be painting or dusting with pastel powder are a few raw edges of a cut-out part where the white of the paper may show. And the designers have done a wonderful job of keeping such edges to a minimum.

There will be places like the inside of an F1 cockpit or certain areas on the inside of an airplane that might show- and the kit may include a printed interior part, or we may need to paint that inside area with a suitable color, probably something dark- I suggest Vallejo acrylics, and I keep a good selection here. While we're on painting, the axles and very small details like the thing that holds side view mirrors right, are made from wood cooking skewers or small diameter dowels, or wire, I cut a sewing needle into bits for the wheels of my 1/72 scale Eole, for example. These pieces will need to be painted if/where they show.

Tools

So we have studied our kit, and we have got ourselves one of those self-healing type cutting matts (I sell them in 3 sizes if you need one) or a cutting board from the kitchen section. Please do not try to cut your parts out on cardboard. The corrugations will make for a ragged cut as you go through them. Even a non-corrugated flat will give you fits, the edges raised by the last cut will rag the next cut. Cutting on a piece of scrap wood will do the same, and the soft and hard grain lines will make it worse. The #11 blade is the workhorse of the paper model, and fits Excel & Xacto type handles, and you may want a smaller or slightly curved blade for cutting circle areas, it's all a matter of personal preference.

You'll have a tough time of bending curved parts smoothly with just your fingers, I use various sizes of knitting needles, and sewing needles for the really fine parts. They're aluminum or steel so if you want to glue the part right on the mandrel, it won't stick to it like a wood dowel would be a problem there. A small metal straight-edge is a real plus, excellent for cutting, and for bending parts over the edge of it for smooth crisp lines.

There are 4 tweezers on my bench- a sharply pointed one, a very blunt one I usually use to press glue spots together with, a duck-bill looking one originally designed to apply decals but for paper kits it's nice for handling large flat pieces without marking them, and then there's a sharp nosed curved one that's handy sometimes for putting a small part into a small area. I don't use that one much, but when I do need it I really need it.

And glue- Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Glue (the yellow stuff, NOT the watery white!) is the one you'll see in action on the following pages. For really tiny parts Zap-a-Gap green label is the one and yes I keep it for sale here, along with the Elmer's. Oh, speaking of glueing things, you'll want some toothpicks and a set of sewing and upholstery needles.