Personal project to create a low poly meowser model with custom textures. Made for papercraft to be as few 2D pieces as possible while keeping as much 3D detail as possible.
Created in Blender and Substance Painter.
papercraft
Personal project to create a low poly meowser model with custom textures. Made for papercraft to be as few 2D pieces as possible while keeping as much 3D detail as possible.
Created in Blender and Substance Painter.
Back in 2011, when I was first learning the basics of 3D modelling to progress in my papercraft hobby, I learned that the fundamentals of creating a 3D model involved a 2D reference of a front and side view. Around the same time I was playing the Legend of Zelda for the first time as part of my attempt to go back and complete every Zelda game 100%. Lost in the mountains and unfamiliar with NES-era games, I struggled to fight off a group of lynels and succumbed after a tense battle. The moment stuck in my mind and later I made the connection. In the game, enemies (including lynels) are represented largely by sprites showing front and side views, with other angles sometimes also included. These multiple 3D views meant creating a 3D interpretation would be not only possible, but easy.
I started with the big star, Link himself, and created a 3D interpretation of his sprites for a papercraft model. The model was sloppy and unrefined, but after publishing the model the post did well and I was encouraged to create more. Link was followed by Zelda, then Mario and some of his enemies. After all this however, something big was missing from the original game that inspired it. And big was the problem - Ganon’s sprite, at twice the height and twice the width, once in 3D Ganon was significantly larger. That wasn’t the only problem - in the game Ganon always faces forward. With only a single angle to work from, creating a 3D version would be a challenge.
Six years later and I never gave up on Ganon. After completing my Twilight Princess Ganon papercraft I was determined to see the original NES trio completed and I began work on a 3D Ganon model to create a papercraft of. After a rough draft of a side view of the sprite and some sketches of the 3D facial construction I jumped into 3D software and experimented with creating a model that precisely followed the front sprite and fleshed out the curves and details that weren’t present in it.
Created for Nintendo UK’s Twilight Princess HD competition, the brief came down to making something based on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Ganon’s pig form is one of those papercraft models I always wanted to make but had to repeatedly dismiss due to its complexity. When I heard about the competition I knew it was time for Ganon to finally come into paper-based being, with no tiny details being spared. The template came out to over 400 pieces across 30 A4 pages, each lovingly cut, scored and glued together with the help of some stuffing for extra structural integrity. To my great joy, the model went on to win first place and I received a statue that 13-year old me wanted desperately enough to start creating affordable paper alternatives instead.
Valoo is a central character in the Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker. He helps Link on his journey and is the focus of his own dungeon on Dragon Roost Island.
I have a couple of confessions to make - Dragonite is my favourite pokémon and the second I saw Valoo I fell in love. I have a fondness for portly dragons and in 2012 I wanted to express it through papercraft. At first I produced a template close to his original in-game model, but at 27 pages it would be time consuming and difficult to build. What I really wanted to make was a paper incarnation of Valoo that would be quick, simple and fun to build.
The goal was to cram Valoo’s recognisable silhouette and all his features into as few paper pieces as possible. The final result features minimal 3D construction as most elements have been flattened into 2D elements.
created using Adobe Illustrator, March 2012