Papercraft Models & Textures

[jappomania]

more....

http://www.akafuku.co.jp/papercraft/index.html

http://rail.hobidas.com/blog/rmm/archives/2008/07/post_255.html

 

Ciao

Massimo

[Lawrence]

more....

http://www.akafuku.co.jp/papercraft/index.html

http://rail.hobidas.com/blog/rmm/archives/2008/07/post_255.html

 

Ciao

Massimo

 

Do you know what scale these are Massimo?

[bill937ca]

Hiroshima Electric Railway  rail papercraft

 

http://www.geocities.jp/kawakei5382/trainkurahuto.html

 

bus railcraft

 

http://www.geocities.jp/kawakei5382/buskurahuto.html

[bikkuri bahn]

more....

http://www.akafuku.co.jp/papercraft/index.html

http://rail.hobidas.com/blog/rmm/archives/2008/07/post_255.html

 

Ciao

Massimo

 

Do you know what scale these are Massimo?

 

The akafuku examples don't indicate a scale, but one blogger estimated approx 1/200.  With n scale, and background models, you can get away with something being slightly out of scale, I suppose.

[The_Ghan]

Call me stupid if I'm wrong, but can't it just be reprinted at a different scale?  Eg: if it is about 1:200 then reprinting at a scale of (200 over N scale, 200/150 = 133% and 200/160 = 125%) ... ?

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[Martijn Meerts]

The images are low dpi, and it looks like most of the lines aren't anti-aliased. Scaling them up might start looking pretty bad pretty fast. 125 or 133% should be doable though..

 

(Would've been much better if they were vector graphics ;))

[The_Ghan]

Martijn,

 

I agree ... should be doable.

 

I was half expecting you to start your reply with, "Hey Stupid, " ... 

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[Martijn Meerts]

Nah, I don't dare go insulting Aussies.. Before I know it I'll have 2 crocodiles, a snake, some poisonous spiders, and a seriously pissed of koala at my door :)

 

 

That, or get whacked on the head with a didgeridoo 

[The_Ghan]

All that fire power for a single Dutchman?  I think not ...  ... besides, you know koalas!  The damn thing would get distracted by the dope cafe and forget why it came to the Netherlands in the first place !!!

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[Martijn Meerts]

Not where I live, foreigners are no longer welcome in coffee shops .. They actually introduced a little card you need to apply for in order to buy weed, and you only get a pass if you live in The Netherlands =)

 

 

I guess the Koala would die of old age trying to get through customs here though 

[bill937ca]

This looks like one of the old Meitetsu interurban terminals outside of Gifu. 591 was the number of one the old tram cars.

 

http://papermau.blogspot.ca/2012/02/japanese-bus-terminal-by-motor-city.html

 

http://www.geocities.co.jp/MotorCity-Rally/5388/paper-photo.html

 

http://www.geocities.co.jp/MotorCity-Rally/5388/paper.html

[marknewton]

You're right Bill, it is.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Densha]

Why have I missed this topic until now?

What way of printing and sort of the paper do you recommend for papercraft?

[cteno4]

Densha,

 

you can either print out on paper and then paste that to some chipboard or print out on cardstock (if your printer can handle that and if using a laser printer you need to set your fuser roller temp up higher to make sure the toner fixes to the paper).

 

its best to always back cardstock with some heavier chipboard or styrene and or some wood or styrene strip bracing for the long run. with time even chipboard will warp and sag depending on humidity and gravity. folks will use popsicle sticks etc to do internal wall bracing as well as just backing with styrene or heavier chipboard.

 

some folks also do a clear coat when done to help with moisture issues later.

 

also when printing on white paper you need to think about the cut edge being white. you can come back with colored pencils or markers (watch the bleed though) to make these edges the color of what they may be next to. do this before gluing things as harder to clean up once glued and glue can sometimes prevent easy coloring of the joint then. markers can help in this case but again you have to watch for ink bleed and some markers will fade or change color with time compared to the printing ink/toner

 

with using inkjet you want to use better archival ink as cheap inks can fade with time and lots of light exposure. clear coating can help this some. laser printer toner is a bit more resistant to fading, but again clear coating can help. also protecting the layout from UV is a really good safe guard. putting UV screen film on windows in the train areas is an easy thing.

 

then you just need to make sure to print out to scale. some come at a certain scale, others you have to print out and use something to judge the scale from door or floor heights to then reprint out at another printer scaling up or down to get it to where you want it.

 

another trick to give things some more depth is to print out the walls twice and cut out the windows to the outer sill and the inner one to the inner sill to give you a little relief around windows and doorways. sankei does this a lot in their laser cut paper buildings. also makes the walls thicker and stronger by layering them up like this. does mean a lot more detailed cutting. many just have windows printed in. this is fine as if you look at most building from a 100 or more feet away you will notice that in daytime the windows sort of go gray and you really dont see inside them. most of the time on layouts you are looking over 100' away from most structures.

 

also adding some more details on the surface can help the 2D look some, but this can be more tricky with the printed papercraft to do.

 

n scale is right at the size where papercraft really works, if you go much larger things start to really be noticeable that the detail has gone to 2D. its wonderful for T scale where you will never see any building detail in relief and never see in a window at that scale even a few inches a way. its wonderful that Eishindo did clear windows and interiors but you never see them, but is nice to light them up at night!

 

these usually work best in the background as if up close you can see more of the 2D feel printed buildings will give along with joints and such. not to say you cant make fabulous cardstock models like this, ive seen some amazing ones, it can just be a lot of tedious work! they also can give a slightly different over all look than the regular plastic buildings so blending them in with other types of structures is important as well with some foliage or other scenery bits to blend everything together.

 

its also a great way to plan things out visually. just print out various buildings sort of like what you may want to use in papercraft or plastic buildings and just cut and assemble them quickly with tape to get an idea of the space/shape/textures of some buildings in a scene. you can also do fast kitbashing modeling this way to see if a kitbashing idea will give you the effect you want in a scene. cost: paper, some ink, tape and a just a little time!

 

contact me off line if you want some certain types of these ive collected a lot from the web over the years.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[ToniBabelony]

Somewhere in the future I'd also like to start designing papercraft models (buildings in particular) for a fair price and set up a small webshop when I have a two or three models that I'm satisfied with. Just for fun really, so there is no hurry in it.

[Densha]

Jeff,

Thanks a lot for the huge explanation!

Is printing out on ordinary white printing paper (as used for text printouts and such too) sufficient or will photo paper for example look better?

A few weeks ago I tried some vending machines, but after I attached the card board it was very difficult to get it in the right size and the result could be thrown away. In N scale vending machines are very small, but I don't think you can avoid even smaller details with other buildings.

I want to use them as temporary scenery, because I don't have money to buy real kits at the moment and the layout is still in the planning phase.

[bill937ca]

A few weeks ago I tried some vending machines, but after I attached the card board it was very difficult to get it in the right size and the result could be thrown away. In N scale vending machines are very small, but I don't think you can avoid even smaller details with other buildings.

I want to use them as temporary scenery, because I don't have money to buy real kits at the moment and the layout is still in the planning phase.

 

Densha, Tomytec Visual Scene Accessory 068 Automatic Vending Machine A - Modernistic - includes 6 individual vending machines and a table and bench set.  I'm also on a tight budget and I recently ordered a single set from HS with SAL shipping.  I find it hard to produce comparable small details using cardstock.  These also look much better than the plastic vending machines included in the Tomix 4008 small shops.

[Densha]

Bill,

Of course that's true, but since I don't have a permanent layout yet and even more since I was just experimenting, I was trying it with vending machines since they're easy to make.

[Mr Frosty]

Is printing out on ordinary white printing paper (as used for text printouts and such too) sufficient or will photo paper for example look better?

 

150gsm matt finish paper is very good and quite cheap.

photo paper can be a bit too heavy.

[cteno4]

Densha

 

On the paper it depends on the printer and how nice you want it and how long it is to last.

 

If its inkjet then non photo paper will work, but the ink will tend to bleed more on regular paper than on nice photo paper and thus be more fuzzy looking. Also regular paper may not be very acid stabilized so with time the paper can yellow and also fade the ink faster.

 

Of course this may take years to happen and be accelerated by exposure to lots of light. So if you just want something for a short time to play with ideas then plain paper will be simple, easy and cheap. One nice thing about photo paper is that it has binders in it that usually make it stiffer and also easier to cut and gives a cleaner cut edge so that is nicer.

 

Regular inkjet ink is pretty good lasting up to a few decades if not exposed to light and heat. Of course you can get archival inks that will last a lot longer or put up with more abuse.

 

With a laser printer the toner binds and looks the same to most papers. Some papers are not god in laser printers that have some binders as they may melt when they go through the fuser roller that binds the toner to the paper. Toner has a good life span for model use in decades. It can fade with lots of light.

 

So if you just want to fiddle with some ideas while you are planning the you can print it just about anyway that's cheap and easy. If you want something that is for final use on the layout for years then I think using better ink and papers will be worth it in the long run.

 

Jeff

[cteno4]

Well I think it's all in your experience and patience to work with little things like this. For vending machines making the whole thing out of paper is doable, but frustrating in practice. I put together a couple of the free ones listed in Thais thread and it's diddly to do well. I ALS assembled one of the sankei laser cut chipboard models and the went together pretty well but again fiddly. For tiny things like this I am much more inclined to do a hybrid of using a chunk of styrene or wood stock to make the machine out of and just make the face on the face on the computer and print it out and glue it on.

 

Paper craft models have their place, but don't do everything well and easy.

 

Jeff

 

A few weeks ago I tried some vending machines, but after I attached the card board it was very difficult to get it in the right size and the result could be thrown away. In N scale vending machines are very small, but I don't think you can avoid even smaller details with other buildings.

I want to use them as temporary scenery, because I don't have money to buy real kits at the moment and the layout is still in the planning phase.

 

Densha, Tomytec Visual Scene Accessory 068 Automatic Vending Machine A - Modernistic - includes 6 individual vending machines and a table and bench set.  I'm also on a tight budget and I recently ordered a single set from HS with SAL shipping.  I find it hard to produce comparable small details using cardstock.  These also look much better than the plastic vending machines included in the Tomix 4008 small shops.

[Densha]

All right. Thanks for the help.

But I still have to put some card behind it when it's 150gsm right?

When I was doing those vending machines I noticed that the main problem was that the parts you have to glue together (those white parts) was too thick, is it recommended to have them in card board too or just with paper to make them easier to glue? Or should I just try that myself?

[KenS]

I don't think it's quite "papercraft" if you glue a photo to a plastic model, but I suppose you could see it that way. And that's what I've done for vending machines.

 

Kato makes a nice model of two vending machines side-by-side as one of the details on their platforms.  I have a lot of platforms, and thus a lot of vending machines.  Kato provides stick-ons for the front of these, but I didn't like them.  So I took some front-on photos found on Flicker (here's a sample, click on the thumbnails for the original) with authentic Japanese products and advertising, printed them on glossy photo paper on my inkjet (a Canon 5-ink photo-quality one) and glued them in place.  I use the same process for signs, and wrote it up on my site.

 

I think the results speak from themselves.  Even though the originals are sharp, reducing them to this size tends to make them a little blurry, but from a distance that doesn't really matter.

 

And if you don't have Kato machines, a simple box of strip plastic would work, since it's really just providing flat sides/top/back and a place to mount the front photo.

[cteno4]

ken yes its a hybrid, im rarely a purist! ive collected a wide range of vending machine shots for the same reason. reducing them does end up usually blurring out quite a bit, but you only see this if you take a very close up photo, the eye will almost never be close enough to see the blur.

 

other option is to do what kato and tomytec did and thats mock up the face with simpler shapes so they come out sharper at the tiny print size.

 

another thing in the reducing its best to only go down by 1/3 of the resolution at max at a time. doing a huge res reduction in one step will really fuzz things out with all the interpolation going on. i did see in the past when fooling with res up photo software there were some that had some res down features as well to do better pixel interpolation than photoshop does.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Denisha,

 

another trick is to print the kits out on sticker paper then stick that to chipboard or styrene sheet and cut it out. bit tougher cutting but gives you one nicely laminated piece to work with.

 

jeff