Paper Lara & aluminium can Batman (and lots more!) by Bob Penikas

01-01-2024: “Be careful, it’s not a toy: these things are sharp…!” In November, 2023 Bob Penikas did a presentation on How To Model Using Soda Cans for the OCIPMS (the Orange County chapter of the International Plastic Modeler’s Society). The presentation was filmed and you can watch it in three parts on Bob Penika’s own YouTube channel! (you might even see a familiar face near the end– other than Bob’s of course ;o)
part 1 | part 2 | part 3

18-08-2018: Typical Lara of course, she can’t stay put very long… So she went with Bob to yesterday evening’s IPMS Orange County chapter meeting! :o)

She looks interested in the other models, especially (typical Lara again… ;o) in the planes and tanks: picture 1| picture 2 | picture 3

07-08-2018: After Last time’s Legend Lara, this time Bob built Underworld Lara in her wetsuit: picture 1 | picture 2

But he didn’t just build her “as is”, he used the butt glueing technique (I did an old explanation video about it here: link) to avoid overlapping joints so the final paper model looks extra smooth: picture

And of course: this was the first (and so far only… ;o) model I made with not just separate fingers, but also separate toes: picture

In fact, Bob did such a good job building paper Lara, that after she was finished he thought she actually looked a bit *too* clean! So he gave her a wash of brown water colours, and finally a coat of Krylon Acrylic Clear Matte.

Bob is a member of the PaperModelers.com forum, where you can find lots of paper modeling information and tips and tricks and built examples like paper Lara: link ;o)

13-04-2018: This time Bob didn’t use aluminium cans, but just paper to build my papercraft Lara Croft: picture

(and Lara doesn’t like soda or beer, she likes something a bit stronger… picture ;o)

He used Wausau 90 LB Exact Index for the most part, but that was a bit too stiff for the hair, so for that he used a 20lb paper: picture

Bob edited parts 43 and 45 a bit to enhance Lara’s eh, chest area… ;o) And to make sure Lara wouldn’t fall over, he added some lead weights inside her boots.

Bob’s Lara stands 11 inches tall, with an additional 2 inches for the shotgun, because Bob changed the pose a bit so Lara looks ready for action!

picture 1 | picture 2 | picture 3

07-08-2013: Bob Penikas did a small paper modeling/soda can demo at the Southern California Area Historical Miniature Society (SCAHMS) meeting last march, and another visitor Steven Lloyd made a video of it and posted it on YouTube! ;o)

In it, Bob explains in detail how to go about using a paper model template to create an aluminium can model and he even mentions my Batman: picture ;o)

Bob’s demonstration is posted in 4 parts of video, here are the links:
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Have fun watching! ;o)

11-11-2012: The London 2012 Olympic Games Coca Cola can Batman that Bob made served as a prototype for this second version, made from Guiness beer cans.

With the experience he got from building the prototype Coca Cola Batman, Bob only used one layer for Batman’s cape and made this one a little bit bigger (9 5/8 inches instead of 7 3/4 inches): picture 2 | picture 3

As you can see, the black Guinness beer cans are very suitable for making an aluminium can Batman!

The gold coloured utility belt was made from a Michelob beer can, and the skin tone of his strong, masculine jaw came from an A&W Root Beer can again.

Bob had only just finished his Guinness Batman (literally!) when he took it and his Coca Cola Batman to a meeting of the Southern California Area Historical Miniatures Society (SCAHMS): picture 4

As you can see, the SCAHMS meetings are an event where you can find lots of great miniatures made from all kinds of materials, and Bob tells me got some very good comments on his aluminium can Batmen! ;o)

31-10-2012: Remember those aluminium beverage can papercraft models made by Machaon I told you about a while ago?

Well, those pictures inspired Bob Penikas to make his own aluminium can Batman: picture 1

Bob’s version is made out of London 2012 Olympic Games Coca Cola cans, an A&W root beer can for his skin tone jaw, and a Miller’s beer can for his utility belt!

Bob suggests making him a bit taller than the original to make it easier to make the small parts like the fingers out of aluminium cans instead of paper.

Some parts had to be patched more than he’d like, even though I personally think Coca Cola Batman still looks great! ;o)

Another issue that arose, was that using two layers of aluminium for the cape (front and back) resulted into it being much too heavy and Batman tumbling over: picture 2 :o(

To keep everything together, Bob used Loktite Stik’n Seal Original Waterproof adhesive, but if you know a better alternative, he’s open to suggestions! ;o)

I think Bob did a great job on his Coca Cola Batman, and it’s great to see people inspire each other like this! ;o)

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model (out of aluminium! ;o)

LEGO minifigures by Ben

2023-09-14: Ben sent me another picture of a papercraft LEGO minifigure that he built, but this time it’s an extra special one! He repainted one from my papercraft webpage to look like LEGO’s Michael “Air” Jordan minifigure!

He says he wants to make some improvements, but I think it looks really good! Besides the realistic skin colors, one of the biggest differences with my own papercraft LEGO minifigs (which are all from older LEGO set), is that the modern LEGO minifigures can have printing on the backside as well. So of course Ben did that too: picture :o)

2023-08-05: Look at the amazing papercraft LEGO minifigure collection that Ben built: picture! He has the same fun memories as I of playing with the small LEGO ones, and as you can see made almost all of the ones that I made so far. :o)

Here’s a close up look of the Pirates ones: Captain Redbeard | Governor Broadside | Imperial Soldier | Spinoza the monkey

The Castle ones: Black Knight | Ghost

the Space and Star Wars ones: Blacktron II astronaut | Darth Vader | Luke | C-3PO

And the special Christmas Toy Soldier and my own Indiana Jones (from before LEGO had an official Indiana Jones theme ;o): Toy Soldier | Indy

He even told me that  he would like to try and make some original ones himself! I’m all for that of course, but because I had to make some changes to the first one I made (Captain Redbeard) and I did that in Photoshop and NOT in the 3D model first, I can’t really give him a good 3D model to start with…!

However, everybody is definitely free to skip that step too and just download one of my existing papercrafts from my papercraft webpage and recolor them of course! (it’s actually how I start when I make a new papercraft LEGO minifigure myself now ;o)

You can use a tool like Photoshop or Gimp to open the PDF files directly, or convert them to the original image files with a website like Zamzar first and then you can chang the colors and anything else of course just like with any regular image file. And if you keep everything the same size, you can make new pieces too with a 3D program and unfold them with Pepakura Designer using the ones you already built for measurements! ;o)

The closest thing I have to a blank minifig is the LEGO Ghost (but of course, it’s even easier to use one with a base color that I already used  for another if you can ;o)

Here are some examples of great recolors from other LEGO fans:
– https://ninjatoes.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/contest-winner-lego-bane-and-captain-america-repaint-by-charles/
– https://ninjatoes.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/lego-ninjago-lloyd-zx-re-paint-by-balazs/

I think Ben did a great job on his collection so far, and who knows he can add some of his own soon! :o) Thank you for downloading and building these Ninjatoes’ papercrafts!

Half-Life Gordon Freeman by Lautaro

2023-09-11: Lautaro from Córdoba, Argentina, is a big fan of the Half-Life series and a papercraft enthusiast. That’s why he built my Gordon Freeman papercraft of course! ;o)

I always try to make my papercrafts ‘logical’ to assemble, and  I was happy to hear that Lautaro found it helpful that Gordon was made that way. :o) The hands and the head were challenging though and because Lautaro was tired he didn’t make the crowbar in the end. He also didn’t include Gordon’s glasses, bu t that was because he liked Gordon better without it. :o)

All in all he did a great job I think, and as you can see, papercraft Gordon makes a nice addition to the rest of the shelf. :o)

Thank you for downloading and building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

Tomb Raider Lara Croft vignettes by Gwendoline

2023-09-10: At some point I made a papercraft model of  young Link from The Legend of Zelda series, and a lot of people seem to think that it was the first papercraft on my website that I made using the Pepakura Designer tool.

In fact, it’s not even the first Zelda papercraft I made using Pepakura Designer (that was princess Zelda herself ;o). The real first papercraft that I ever made using the computer (before, I just used a piece of paper and a pencil ;o) was the Venetian Motorboat from Tomb Raider II: picture 2 :o)

Why am I telling you about this? Well, because it’s Gwendoline’s newest papercraft build from my webpage! :o)

She actually forgot she already printed it to build it though, and on the second print, the ink ended up a bit ‘iffy’. But I actually think it makes the original textures from the game look more like weathered wood. ;o)

She also gave the model her own personal touch adding a little papercraft ramp of her own for the motorboat to jump from – you know, because Lara has to jump it through a first floor gallery to race it through the shortcut that you spend the whole level opening up to be able to finish the level before the timed gates close!

Which reminds me, Lara: you did clear the minefield in front of the gates first, right? …right?

Gwendoline’s build looks really good with the ramp add-on, and if you look underneath, you can even see an extra hommage to Lara: picture 3 :o)

2023-07-24: Despite being busy with art school, Gwendoline still made time for another Tomb Raider papercraft! :o)

This time, it isn’t one one of my own papercraft Tomb Raider vignettes, but the “Rolling Boulder” trap (and some “Deadly Spikes” at the end of the slide for good measure) by Saschacraft: picture 1 : picture 2 | picture 3 |picture 4

She wanted to show Sascha the pictures, but unfortunately, I don’t think he’s been is active with papercrafts for many years already… :o(So she sent the pictures to me! :o)

I think it’s great that Sascha left his Tomb Raider papercraft blog up though, so that Gwendoline and other Tomb Raider fans (and papercrafters in general!) can still enjoy his papercrafts! :o)

And who knows, maybe there’s chance that Sascha still gets to see Gwendoline’s pictures this way? ;o)

2023-01-30: When Gwendoline shared her pictures of Midas Touch Lara last time, she told me she was going to art school, and I bet you can see why: she’s very talented for putting together these little scenes, and she seems to have a lot of fun making them extra special! ;o)

This time, she combined one of the first papercrafts I made using Pepakura Designer (the Tomb Raider 2 Great White shark and the 40 Fathoms vignette, also from Tomb Raider 2) and she also found a cute little key that fits the scene very nicely for those that know video games: picture

I just hope Lara doesn’t need the key for anything important though, because it doesn’t look like the shark wants give up the ‘treasure’ so easily…!

2022-10-02: I think Gwendoline is a Lara Croft fan and I’ll tell you why I think that: this is the third papercraft Tomb Raider vignette she sent me pictures of, and it’s the one of Lara standing on King Midas’ hand that I only finished a short while ago: picture 1

I really liked using special gold paper, and as you can see, Gwendoline also found some special gold paper to use for Lara: picture 2

I think the pictures show Gwendoline’s craft skills and artistic side as well: her build looks very clean (much cleaner than my own final build ;o) and I really like the dramatic shadows on the wall showing Lara in her death struggle…

And with some extra light, golden Lara shines even more like she deserves: picture 3 :o)

04-02-2022: Gwendoline from France sent me several picture of the papercraft Laras she put together using the templates from my Tomb Raider series: picture 4

So far, she made Young Lara (from Tomb Raider IV and V) and Thames Wharf Lara (from Tomb Raider III) – and a much larger Lara from somebody else (I think it’s the one you can get from the Origami by Thomas YouTube channel ;o)

I think she did a great job, and I really like the way she displayed them, on the ledge with the sand colored textured wall and the ancient looking cup; it really makes it feel lik Lara is on one of her adventures in a faraway country! :o)

picture 5 | picture 6

Thank you for buildings these Ninjatoes’ papercraft models!

Hall of Fame

Did you build one of my papercraft models? Send me your pictures at ninjatoes@home.nl and you can be in the “hall of fame” like all these people too! ;o)

If you’re looking for your own entry, you can check the alphabetical index to find your own name more easily.

Have fun building!

TIE Fighter by Valentin

24-04-2022: If you want to see something cool, have a look at the great job that Valentin did on building the papercraft TIE Fighter from the classic Star Wars movies that I made in 2012 already! (I think the black and white cutting mat looks like it is made to land papercraft TIE Fighters ;o)

He says it took him countless hours, but luckily he enjoyed it and I think that really shows on the finished model!

The TIE Fighter is one of those models I made by hand, and he says the markings I made to show where everything goed helped a lot, but in the end it is thanks to the care that Valentin put into building it that the end result looks so amazing of course:

picture 1 | picture 2

I hope you guys agree with me, and that it makes you want to try out papercraft yourself sometime like Valentin! ;o)

Thank you for buildings a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II repaints & update by blake7

12-02-2022: In the past, I always got lots of pictures from people that built one of my papercrafts, and I would always ask them if they would like me to show them in the “hall of fame” on my papercraft website.

Nowadays, almost everybody has a Twitter or Facebook or other social media account and they can just show the papercrafts they put together on there! :o)

So it’s been a while, but this week, I got an email from Blake7 again. As you can see below he remade my Battlestar Galactica Viper MkII into lots of different versions in the past already, but one thing he didn’t do yet: merge it with the insanely detailed version of papercraft creator Uhu02!

Blake7 used the cockpit, landing gear and cannons from Uhu02’s Colonial Viper to update my version. You can see he had to made some changes to the strengthening ribs to fit the cockpit:
picture 2 | picture 3

…and the result looks great:

picture 4 | picture 5 | picture 6 !

And here are some more pictures of Blake7’s updated Viper:

picture 7 | picture 8 | picture 9 | picture 10 | picture 11

And if you want to check out Uhu02’s version (trust me, you’ll want to!) just go to his website here to see it and all his other very detailed sciencefiction and fantasy papercrafts:
http://uhu02.way-nifty.com/die_eule_der_minerva/2013/08/040-viper-3a81.html

Thank you Blake7 for sharing your pictures and this cool idea!

31-07-2016: The “Red Baron” was a German fighter pilot in World War I, who was famous because he painted his airplane bright red instead of the usual camouflage pattern.

…and of course because he was a very good fighter pilot, who won almost all his aerial combats!

Although that’s not so impressive of course, when you think allof his enemies were flying in biplanes, and was apparantly piloting a futuristic Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II: picture ;o)

The original idea for the Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II‘s Red Baron paint scheme was by enc86, and blake7 and Revell Fan did a great job translating it to the papercraft templates, don’t you think?

What’s that? You want to know where you can get the parts to build one yourself? On the original post of course, where you can also find blake7’s other repaints:

• blake7 repaints download links

Have fun building!

25-06-2016: In “The Dukes of Hazzard”, there would always be a part where “them Duke boys” would escape sherriff rosco by jumping the General Lee over a ramp, high into the air!

But it looks like they took their stunt a little bit too far, and ended up in space… picture

As always, blake7 shared his repaint so you can build a “Dukes of Hazzard” General Lee version of the Battlestar Galactica Viper as well: link

16-05-2015: If you thought blake7 only made repaints, think again!

Together with Revell-Fan, he worked out how big he should make my papercraft Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II for it to be in 1:24 scale – and then he did: picture

The picture shows the bigger version next to the regular sized US Navy version. If you want to make a big version like blake7, you can get the parts he made from my original Viper Mk.II post here: link

Or, you can have a look at blake7’s resizing tutorial on the Papermodelers.com forum (note: you need to become a free member to be able to download files there!) so you can learn how to do the same with other paper models you like! ;o)

04-05-2015: During World War II, it was not always easy to see for troops on the ground whether that bomber airplane coming towards them was a friend or an enemy…

So to try and prevent a lot “friendly fire” accidents during the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, Allied airplanes got three white and two black bands painted on their wings and fuselage.

Of course a space fighter like Battlestar Galactica’s Viper Mk.II doesn’t really need such visual identifiers, but they do look good, don’t they: picture ;o)

Recoloured parts available from my original Viper Mk.II post here: link

16-03-2015: The third finished Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II repaint from blake7, a US Navy VFA-103 “Jolly Rogers” squadron version, complete with skull and crossbones emblem: picture ;o)

As before, you can get the parts to build this version from my original post here: link

22-01-2015: After the Caprica Police version, blake7 sent me a NASA repaint of my papercraft Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II too: picture

If you like this repaint, you can get the parts from the original Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II post again: link

11-01-2015 update: blake7 sent me an updated version of his Battlestar Galactica Police Viper Mk.II, with higher resolution textures: picture

Here are some comparison pictures between the two versions:
picture 1 | picture 2 | picture 3

You can get this updated version from the original Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II post again: link

Have fun building!

11-11-2014: Some time ago, blake7 asked me if he could a repaint of my papercraft Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II, and here it is: picture ! ;o)

It’s based on a drawing made by BJ-023 on DeviantArt (link) and best of all, blake7 even shared the parts he used so you can build this version yourself too! ;o)

You can either get blake7’s repainted parts from the original Viper Mk.II post on my papercraft webpage here, or on the Papermodels.com or Zealot forums if you’re a member there.

Thank you for repainting a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

U.S.S. Defiant by Tomek

17-05-2020: Tomek from Poland sent me several pictures of the papercraft U.S.S. Defiant that he built!

From the looks of it I think it is the redraw version that Bill Perry made of my original hand drawn papercraft, and it looks like Tomek added some extra details of himself too, like weathering the exhaust vents and thickening and off-setting some of the pieces for added depth! :o)

picture 2 | picture 3 | picture 4 | picture 5 | picture 6

The end result looks very good, and it’s great to hear that he had a fun time building it!

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

Link, Mario, LEGO C-3PO, Kim Possible, NES Zapper, Batman, Lulu, Barack Obama and lots more by Richard (and Kristine ;o)

23-03-2019: Richard did it again! He built another really nice papercraft, and this time it’s Cloud, in the Kingdom Hearts version!

He’s originally from the Final Fantasy series though of course, where he’s famous for his huge “buster sword” – in fact even the papercraft version is so heavy, that he decided to put it down for a little bit: picture ;o)

It’s another great build by Richard, whose only problem now he says that he “doesn’t know where to put them anymore…” ;o)

17-10-2018: Who wants to build papercrafts when it’s so warm and sunny like it was last Summer? Not Richard! ;o)

In fact, he didn’t papercraft for months, but now it’s Fall, he felt the itch to papercraft something again, and that something was Twilight Link: picture 1 | picture 2 | picture 3

07-03-2018: Richard’s friend is a big Obama fan, so Richard decided to build a papercraft LEGO Obama for her as a gift: picture ;o)

You can see that I don’t have a papercraft Obama LEGO minifig though, so he recoloured my Luke Skywalker to make it. ;o)

To save time, Richard left out all the inner parts that are quite tricky to build sometimes and take a lot of extra work. So LEGO Obama can’t move his arms and legs like my other papercraft minifigs, but he looks great for the picture of course! ;o)

06-02-2018: Normally, Richard builds papercrafts that he knows, but even though he never played Final Fantasy X, he liked my papercraft Lulu so much that he decided to try it anyway: picture

It took him four weeks of work at a regular pace. And although he says some parts like the hands were hard to build for him and that he would like to “build them as clean” as me, I think he’s a bit exaggerating because his papercraft Lulu looks amazing, especially in her photoshopped setting! (I’m half expecting a big Ragora to pop up from the background! – not that that would worry Lulu of course, since she’d just Firaga the hell out of it ;o)

02-01-2018: Well, it looks like Batman is warning us beforehand not to make any trouble on the streets of Gotham, or else… :o!

This time, Richard had the help of his sister Kristine, making this papercraft Batman as a holiday project together: picture

It was not easy, especially the head and hands, but I must say they did a good job on making him look so intimidating to any evildoers: picture ;o)

24-11-2017: Richard has been playing Super Mario 64 lately, and couldn’t resist building Paper Mario 3D: picture

He says he didn’t find it very difficuly to build, except maybe the hand. ;o) But as you can see, he managed, and Paper Mario 3D is quite as part of his growing papercraft collection: picture!

19-10-2017: How cool is that! Richard is fairly new to papercraft, but he already made not only LEGO C-3PO, but also Kim Possible and the NES Zapper:

picture | picture | picture

Some parts like C-3PO’s head and hands were tricky, but as you can see, he did an impressive job! ;o)

Thank you for building these Ninjatoes’ (and other peoples’!) papercraft models!

The Legend of Zelda Chancellor Cole by Helen

08-02-2019: This time, I received a really nice email from Helen, telling me how much she enjoys building papercrafts!

Because she considers herself still a “novice” papercrafter, she finds the step-by-step pictures I try to make to make instructions for my papercrafts very useful; for now, she likes to build cute papercrafts that are usually also a bit simpler for beginners. But as you can see, I think she managed to build my papercraft Chancellor Cole very well! ;o)

It’s extra impressive, because she actually made Chancellor Cole half the size as normal, which makes the parts even smaller…! Because Chancellor Cole has such small feet, she glued a small transparant piece of plastic so he won’t fall over.

Helen also has another tip: she stuffs her papercrafts with pieces of bubble wrap packaging she has left over (after bursting the bubbles first of course, which must be fun to do in itself as well! ;o) so that the papercrafts will be more solid and stronger when put together.

If you look closely, you will see something else special, though: Helen has decorated Chancellor Cole’s hats with some little gemstones (and apparantly he also found a really big gem which makes him very happy ;o) This way, he fits in very nicely with some of Helen’s real figurines: picture

That’s another thing Helen likes to do: creating little “fairy tale” scenes with the papercrafts she made. She sent me a picture of some of the displays with other papercrafts she made: picture

I think the little sceneries look very nice, and it’s a smart way to display and enjoy the papercrafts she made! ;o)

Thank you for your nice story and for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

The Legend of Zelda Zora armor Link & Impa by John

13-01-2019: It’s not very busy yet after the holiday season at the office where John works, and as you can see he managed to take some time to build Zora armor Link and Skyward Impa from my Legend of Zelda series! ;o)

Something you can’t really tell from the pictures but that ended up really nice, is that he printed them on A3 paper to make them a little bit bigger: Impa | Link

And as you can see from these two close-ups of ZaL, at that size they still look really good! (but that’s also because of the care taken when building them of course ;o)

close-up 1 | close-up 2

Thank you for building these Ninjatoes’ papercraft models!

Snow Queen, Wonder Woman, Batman and many other repaints by David Penso

18-04-2017: There are two reasons why you might not recognize my original Wetsuit Lara papercraft model in this new repaint made by David.

Not only did Lara go blonde, but more importantly, our familiar Tomb Raider is wearing a dress!?

And not just any dress, but a real Snow Queen dress, with icy motifs! ;o)

06-03-2016: This picture shows the newest repaint made by David: Wonder Woman, played by the actress Gal Gadot in the upcoming “Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice”!

Wonder Woman is a mix of the Underworld wetsuit and the Legend versions, but her clothes, shield, and other weapons are all brand new by David!

I hope the movie will be good too…! ;o)

29-08-2015: As you can see below, David must be a big Batman fan, because he spent a lot of time repainting my papercraft Batman several times before already!

This time, he repainted him as the Christian Bale version, from the 2005-2012 “The Dark Knight Trilogy” Batman movie series reboot by Christopher Nolan, looking very dark indeed: picture

21-04-2014: After repainting my papercraft Batman into several other comic book characters, this time David left “The Dark Knight” as he is: picture ;o)

16-03-2014: Why should the U.S.A. be the only country that has a national superhero (Captain America)? For instance here’s David’s version of Captain Mexico (based on my papercraft Batman again): picture ;o)

10-02-2014: Superman is no longer a Man of Steel, but a Man of Paper: picture ;o)

06-02-2014: David made another repaint of my papercraft Batman after a request from a friend, who as you can see wanted him to make a papercraft He-Man: picture ;o)

15-03-2013: David still wasn’t done with Batman, but this time he wasn’t making Batman, but Flash, another comic book hero: picture !

Just as he made Lara into the Black Widow earlier, he took the parts of my papercraft Batman and repainted them into the distinctive red and gold colours of Flash!

And as you can see, since Flash is just as muscular as Batman in the comic books, it looks pretty good! ;o)

13-11-2012: After a few people made my papercraft Batman out of aluminium beverage cans, David made a regular, paper one again: picture

He glued on the left arm a little crooked, but instead of changing it, he made a little Batarang and put it in Batman’s hand so it looks like he’s about to throw it! ;o)

05-06-2012: Some time ago, David contacted me about the possibility of recolouring my papercraft Tomb Raider Legend Lara to make her look like Natasha Romanova (Black Widow) from Marvel’s Avengers series.

And as you can see, he decided to pursue the idea, and now you can see the result: picture

David really did a great job! I think Lara looks great as Black Widow, with the contrasting black catsuit and the red/aubern hair, which is kinda her trademark I guess. ;o)

David even added some extra strips of orange paper to give Black Widow some more/fuller hair, and for the final finishing touch, he used the bullet bracelets and belt buckle parts from the My Paper Heroes Black Widow toy: link

15-12-2011: This time, David built my papercraft model of Indiana Jones: professor of archeology, expert on the occult, and ‘obtainer of rare antiqueties‘ (in other words, a tomb raider ;o)

You can see a picture of David’s paper Indy here: picture

Of course he has his trusty fedora and shoulder bag, his whip, his gun, and a machete to cut through the jungles of Peru.

Everything an adventurer needs to save the world from certain doom. ;o)

15-11-2011: This year, Thanksgiving falls on November 24th, and as you can see, David has already been making preparations: picture

He made a small Thanksgiving display for the office where he works with the papercraft Thanksgiving turkey from the SpaceStation42 (I think he made the turkey’s legs himself) and his Homer Simpson paper model.

But although a papercraft turkey isn’t edible of course, Homer doesn’t seem to realize that…

(or perhaps, Homer being Homer, he just doesn’t care that it’s only a paper turkey… ;o)

11-11-2011: Only a day after the last one, David sent me another picture of a papercraft model he built, this time of Homer Simpson!

David did a great job putting it together, but I’m not sure he should leave Homer alone with a pair of scissors, though; knowing Homer, that combination can’t possibly end very well…

10-11-2011: After Mario, David built another one of my papercraft models: the Great White shark from the Tomb Raider II video game: picture

It’s one of the first models I made using Pepakura Designer, because I really like the polygonal/blocky look of the classic Tomb Raider games!

And I kinda like sharks, and although I’m not sure Lara does too (to be honest, I never almost got eaten by one…) I’m glad David does! ;o)

13-07-2011: It’s always fun to welcome a new co-worker at the office, and especially if it’s Paper Mario!

This one was built by David Penso, and from the looks of it, Mario‘s already feeling at home: picture ;o)

Thank you for building these Ninjatoes’ papercraft models!

King of Red Lions by Antonio

19-02-2017: Antonio sent me this picture of his built “King of Red Lions”!

Although it is a boat, I hope he isn’t planning on taking it in the water… ;o) In fact, the nice display base is all the “water” the papercraft needs (and can handle) I think.

It was made by Josh Darrah, and the sea base can be downloaded together with King from my papercraft webpage. But if you want the little paper Link to steer the boat, you have to ask Josh first (his email address is in the sea base file).

Thank you for downloading and building a Ninjatoes’ papercraftr model!

Feature in 20 Years of Tomb Raider

28-12-2016: Some time ago, Meagan Marie (the Senior Community Manager at Crystal Dynamics) contacted me because she was working on a book celebrating “20 Years of Tomb Raider”, and she wanted to fill a big part of the book with fan art!

So she asked me if I would like to be in the book with my Tomb Raider papercrafts.

So I was like: “yes please!” ;o)

And it really turned out to be a great book for Tomb Raider fans, with lots of behind the scenes information about the games themselves, Lara’s excursions to other media, and, as Meagan promised, lots of fantastic Tomb Raider fan arts (my feature is on page 320 ;o) and it’s still only the tip of the ice berg!

If you want to have a look yourself, the book is “20 Years of Tomb Raider”, by Meagan Marie, published by Prima Games (and available at many book sellers of course), ISBN 978-0-7440-1690-1

Here’s a little promo that Prima Games made:

Thank you for making such a great book! (and for featuring me in it ;o)

Oogie Boogie by Roy

10-02-2016: Roy from Massachussets built a lot of  plastic Revell model kits in the past, but nowadays, it’s all paper for him! ;o)

The first papercraft model he built was my Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that one proved a bit difficult for a first time…

He gained a lot of experience since then though, and now his papercraft builds look really good!

(if you don’t believe me, the picture of his Oogie Boogie proves it! ;o)

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

U.S.S. Defiant & Monitor by Bones McCoy

03-01-2016: The starship in the picture above looks like the U.S.S. Defiant, but it’s not: it’s the U.S.S. Monitor, another retexture by Bones McCoy! ;o)

It’s based on the descriptions of the U.S.S. Monitor in the novels “The Return” and “Preserver” written by William Shatner.

In those novels, the U.S.S. Monitor is a modified Defiant-class starship with a dark, microdiffracted carbon coated hull for extra stealth, sent on a mission to destroy the Borg homeworld…

I haven’t read the novels myself, but I’ve always found the Defiant a very cool looking ship, and it looks great in its Monitor colours too:

picture 2 | picture 3

Like before, Bones allowed me to share his retextured parts for those that want to build this new version, you can get them from the U.S.S. Defiant download post again: link

14-11-2009: You may remember I posted Bones’ retexture of the U.S.S. Defiant NX-74205 a little while back? Well, here’s a picture of it, by Bones himself: picture

And here’s another one, of the bottom this time! You can see the extra details in the textures that Bones added, but because the parts have stayed the same, you can still use Bill Perry’s redraw instructions to build it!

Thank you for retexturing and building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

Mario, Link and other papercrafts by Ivana

14-01-2016: Ivana from Brazil doesn’t remember exactly when she made the first papercraft in the picture above, but she does remember the order she made them in:

1. the Master Sword in the pedestal, from The Legend of Zelda (by Xenonray)
2. Toad, from the Mario series (by Oli Gig I think)
3. Goku, from Dragon Ball Z (I think by Action Papercrafts)
4. Link, from the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (by me ;o)
5. the Energy tank from the Metroid series (by Zenith Designs)
6. Mario (by me again)

For Mario, she didn’t even need to use the instructions! But for Link, she was glad I made them because that one is more difficult…!

For Mario, she sent me bigger picture too: picture

I think it looks pretty good, don’t you? ;o)

She also sent some more pictures of Link, who seems to be admiring the Master Sword in the pedestal: picture

And moments later, the Master Sword has mysteriously disappeared from the pedestal: picture

I think Link took it, but it’s okay of course, since he’s a good guy. ;o)

So you can see that Ivana has taken quite a liking to making papercrafts. She told me she already printed my papercraft Lara Croft from Tomb Raider Legend, and I hope she’ll enjoy making that one too of course! ;o)

Thank you for downloading and building these Ninjatoes’ (and others’ ;o) papercraft models!

Zelda & Tomb Raider papercrafts by Noemie-in-Art

15-03-2016: Noemi-in-art took a break from building paper Laras again, to build a paper Impa! ;o)

She had the right idea that building a “smoother” papercraft is usually a bit less work than having to make all the folds on a “blocky” papercraft, but she overlooked the fact that she had to make all the separate fingers, and even the toes… ;o)

In the end, most parts took her only a day, but the tiny parts took another 2 days…!

Luckily, Noemi-in-art is pretty experienced in papercraft already, just check out her DeviantArt page with more and bigger pictures, and other artworks too! ;o)

09-01-2016: I think it’s safe to say that Noemi-in-Art is just as big a fan of the classic Tomb Raider fan as myself, because you have to be to make so many of my classic Tomb Raider papercrafts!

(and she explains she is in the comments on her DeviantArt posts ;o)

This time, she made my latest one, of Lara Croft in the Atlantean levels of the first Tomb Raider game, confronted by her… clone? picture

The clone, or Lara replica that the evil Natla seemed to have made of Lara didn’t seem quite complete yet though, as it didn’t have any skin…

Pretty gruesome if you think about it, even in a 1996 polygonal world – and the origin of the nickname that fans gave her: bacon Lara. ;o)

01-09-2015: Noemie-in-Art shows how much she likes Tomb Raider with a neat strategy-guide, the game of course, and a papercraft of Lara Croft – and two rats: picture ;o)

It’s already a pretty challenging papercraft, with quite a few thin pieces and parts, and what made it even more work for Noemie, was that her printer wasn’t really cooperating when she printed the parts…

So she had to add *every* little shadow herself afterwards, which was a lot of work, but makes it a really unique papercraft of course! ;o)

Noemie also built Cole, from the Legend of Zelda, and several other of my Tomb Raider papercrafts before, and she also does sculptures, drawings and other artworks; you can see it all in her DeviantArt’s page: link! ;o)

Thank you for building these Ninjatoes’ papercraft models!

Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk. II & Cylon Raider by paperdemon

07-12-2015: Bernd (paperdemon) from Germany runs a small computer repair shop, so you know he’s good with electronics. But as you can see from the picture, he’s also good with paper! ;o)

In 2010, a buddy of Bernd’s told him how he found a cool papercraft “Firefly” spaceship from the tv series “Serenity” that was trying to pt together, but that he run into some problems.

Being a fan of the “Serenity”/”Firefly” series too, Bernd tried out the papercraft model too, but ran into the same problems… He managed to fix the problem though, and even made a website about the papercraft Serenity: firefly-serenity.de

After that, Bernd was hooked on the new hobby, and among other papercraft sites around the web, he found mine! ;o)

He built my papercraft Battlestar Galactica Viper Mk.II before, but using only 80 gsm paper, it looked like “like Starbuck had crashed it on some planet…   ;)” (his words ;o)

So he decided to build it again, together with the Cylon Raider, and the picture shows how good the result was the second time!

And I think it’s safe to say that Bernd is quite a sci-fi fan, because after my Battlestar Galactica models, he also built the “Planet Express” ship, from the “Futuruma” cartoon, which he found more challenging than the previous ones… ;o)

I hope he can still find the time to repair computers, in between building papercrafts…! ;o)

Thank you for building these Ninjatoes’ papercraft models!

Epona & Link by SuperRetroBro

16-09-2015: SuperRetroBro built many papercrafts already, and this time he built my Epona & Link, from “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”!

And as you can see, he did a really great job too, because they look very cool from all angles! ;o)

The “SpeedCraft” in the pictures refers to the speedcraft video they made for this build, and that you can see on SuperRetroBro’s YouTube page: link

There, you can also see many other SpeedCraft videos of the other papercrafts on their DeviantArt page.

Now you don’t need to try to build your papercrafts thát fast yourself of course! ;o) Just take your time and they’ll turn out just as great as the ones from SuperRetroBro!

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

adult Link by Matthias

07-09-2015: Matthias from Germany sent me a picture of the papercraft adult Link that he built just last night!

It looks great, and it’s even more impressive if you know that he built it in just 9 hours in his first try!

And it looks like Matthias has already given Link an important job to do: guard the Nintendo Game Boys that Matthias collected! ;o)

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

9 inch LEGO man by Jeremy

20-06-2015: Jeremy sent me this picture of a 9 inch (about 23 cm) papercraft LEGO man that he built.

He says it is based on the “spaceman” LEGO pattern, and I think Jeremy did a very good job, it looks like a very clean build! ;o)

So good in fact, that I think the minifigure in the front is a bit jealous: with its extra long legs, it looks like it wished it would be bigger too…! ;o)

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

Wolf Link by Sarah

16-04-2015: Sarah from Australia sent me these two pictures (here’s the other one: picture) of my papercraft wolf Link and Midna that she built!

Wolf  link is a *very* challenging model with a lot of small parts like the teeth, so it took Sarah 2 months to build it.

And if you look at the pictures, you can see by not folding most of the parts, Sarah made her wolf Link very round and smooth.

Midna is a lot easier to build, but Sarah did have to scale her down a little bit. It didn’t cause much trouble though as you can see in the pictures! ;o)

Wolf Link and Midna weren’t the first two paper models of mine that Sarah built, and if they’re any indication, the rest must look really good too! ;o)

Thank you for building these Ninjatoes’papercraft models!

King of Red Lions by Pablo (Taiga_Tora & Light A.E. collaboration)

27-03-2015: Pablo from Mexico got the Nendoroid Wind Waker Link figurine, and he thought my papercraft King of Red Lions boat would make a great way to display it! ;o)

He had to search very hard for good paper to build the model, but eventually he found some pasteboard that worked very well as you can see.

The King of Red Lions was the first papercraft model that he built, and it was very difficult, especially the head and neck: even using pliers for the small parts didn’t make it much easier…!

Luckily, Pabo’s girlfriend has some ninja skills folding paper, and she helped him a lot figuring out how some of the pieces were supposed to fit.

In the end, it took Pablo about 4 weeks to complete, listening to a lot of old podcasts while working. But once it was finished, he was very proud of it! ;o)

His grandmother even wanted to have it to put it on her piano, but Pablo wanted to keep it himself as a diorama for his Nendoroid Link.

His friends really liked the paper boat it too, and they even wanted the printouts so they could try it as well. But Pablo hopes they know what they’re getting into with such a challenging model… ;o)

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

Fierce Deity Link by EpicMusicSoul

19-1-2015: Believe it or not, but my papercraft Fierce Deity Link was only the second attempt at building a papercraft model by EpicMusicSoul!

It took him about 4 days, and as you can see it was well worth it, because the end result looks very good:
picture 2 | picture 3

To prevent Oni Link from falling over because of the big, double helix sword, he filled the paper model with rice to make it heavier.

He used the same trick on his first papercraft model too, which was a Wind Waker Wizzrobe, made by Ultimate Papercraft that he found on the Nintendo Papercraft website.

If you look at the picture of that one on EpicMusicSoul’s DeviantArt page, you can even see a little grain of rice that managed to escape from the paper model: link… ;o)

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

Kingdom Hearts II Sora by Jan

27-12-2014: Would you believe that this papercraft Sora from the Kingdom Hearts II video game was only the first papercraft model that Jan built…?!

I had to read twice, because he did such a great job! Jan sent two more pictures, to show that it’s not a trick, and that his papercraft Sora looks good from all angles:
picture 2 | picture 3

Because papercraft models can collect a lot of dust, you should really clean them regularly; or you can do like Jan, and keep it nice and safe in a plastic box to prevent dust getting onto it in the first place! ;o)

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes’ papercraft model!

Batman, Batmobiles and Wall-E by Sunny

28-11-2013: Besides the two Batmobiles, Sunny Jain also built this papercraft Batman, together with his friends as a gift for another friend!

It’s a nice idea for any Batman fan of course, and I hope their friend liked the gift! ;o)

At one point, Sunny and his friends even thought about using real cloth for Batman’s cape, but because they couldn’t find a proper one, they stuck with paper (and it still looks really good I think! ;o)

24-11-2012: Sunny sent me a whole set of pictures of the papercraft Batmobile that he built from my papercraft webpage: picture 1

The unofficial name is the “Keaton Car“, because Michael Keaton played the role of Batman in the two movies (Batman and Batman Returns) in which this version of the Batmobile was used.

My original papercraft Batmobile was hand drawn and coloured with a black marker, and I made it so that the cockpit roof and the jet engine could be removed, as shown in this picture made by Sunny: picture 2

Because the Batmobile is all black of course, the “white lines” you often get on papercraft models from the edges of the paper, can become extra visible, as you can see in this picture: picture 3

Although Sunny didn’t mention it explicitly in his message, I think he found a great solution to that by painting over his papercraft Batmobile with black paint, because in the other pictures, you can see no more white lines and the whole model looks a single, smooth black, just like the real Batmobile! ;o)

picture 4 | picture 5 | picture 6

So that’s a great job building his very own papercraft Batmobile, and a great inventivity from Sunny!

Update: Sunny sent me some more pictures of the building process of his papercraft Batmobile!

I always find it very neat to see other people’s papercraft projects too, how a bunch of 2D paper sheets transform into a 3D paper model. ;o)

As you can see in Sunny’s pictures, you really don’t need a lot of tools to build a papercraft model:

picture 1 | picture 2 | picture 3 | picture 4 | picture 5 | picture 6

Update 17-11-2013: Sunny now also built the Lincoln Futura concept car Batmobile from the 1960’s Batman television series, made by Paper Inside!

Sunny found it very challenging because there were a lot of small parts, and to make it look even better, he touched up the white edges of the paper with black and red colours.

The most troubling parts were the famous double canopy windshields of the Lincoln Futura, because it was very difficult to get the plastic sheets to stick…

But Sunny managed to do it, and here are some of the pictures he sent me (but only a few though, because Sunny really took *a lot* of pictures of the entire build process…! ;o)

picture 1 | picture 2 | picture 3 | picture 4

Update 13-11-2014: This time Sunny didn’t build Batman or a Batmobile, but Wall-E (from the animation movie with the same name) made by Paper-Replika: link

picture 1 | picture 2

It was quite challenging says Sunny, which is not difficult to understand when you see all the different parts: picture 3

But as usual, Sunny managed to build a great paper model! ;o)

Thank you for building these Ninjatoes’ (and Paper Inside’s and Paper-Replika’s ;o) papercraft models!

Zelda, Kingdom Hearts and Mario models by Kevin

29-10-2014: Kevin built quite a few papercraft models before, but he’s extra proud of his new one: the “King of Red Lions”, from “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker”!

It’s a very challenging model to build, but Kevin spent a lot of time on it, and he even made the special “sea base” and the customized “Chokipeta Link” that Josh Darrah made (link).

And as you can see, the end result looks great! ;o)
picture 2 | picture 3 | picture 4

05-10-2014: Kevin already built quite a few papercraft models, and here are some new ones!

The first one is adult Link, from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: picture

But actually, he built two versions of Ocarina of Time’s adult Link, the other one is the one riding Epona: picture

The next one is from another Legend of Zelda game, namely Twilight Princess, and it’s Link in the Zora armor: picture!

The other two papercraft models are from the Kingdom Hearts series, and they are the main character Sora and his Keyblade and a character featured from the Final Fantasy series, Cloud Strife:

picture | picture | picture

Building so many papercraft models shows that Kevin really likes papercraft, and with the experience he gained, he’s thinking about tackling more complex papercraft models too! ;o)

05-04-2014: Kevin sent me bunch of new pictures of the new papercraft models he built since last time! One of them is another Legend of Zelda model, Fierce Deity Link: picture

But this time he also made some Mario models: in this picture, you can see the Paper Mario 3D that I made, but Kevin also built Paperlegend’s Mario 64 (picture) and PaperJuke’s Luigi (picture)!

And because paper models don’t really care who made them of course, PaperJuke’s Luigi and my Paper Mario are getting along quite well: picture ! ;o)

31-01-2014: Kevin is a big time fan of the Legend of Zelda series, and since he liked Twilight Princess, he decided to build my papercraft Twilight Link, and he did a great job too: picture ! ;o)

Where my own paper Twilight Link has his Master Sword and Hylian Shield in his hands, Kevin made it so they are on his back, and it really looks very good: picture 2

Here are two more pictures from the sides: picture 3 | picture 4

Thank you for building these Ninjatoes’ (andother people’s ;o) papercraft models!

Tomb Raider T-Rex trophy head by Katja

21-10-2014: Katja (a.k.a. merineiti) only discovered papercraft a few weeks ago, but she’s already excited to build all kinds of paper models herself! ;o)

In fact, she already build a few, and one of the first ones was actually my own papercraft T-Rex head that’s in Lara Croft’s secret trophy room in her mansion in Tomb Raider III!

And as Katja shows by the picture she sent me, it goes really well with 1/6 scale dolls made to look like Lara herself! ;o)

Thank you for building a Ninjatoes papercraft model! ;o)

Papercraft based Batman kite by Guy Reynolds

19-10-2014: Guy Reynolds is crazy about kites, making and building his own designs for fun and on commission too with his company Ursus Volans Parachute Co.!

But the way I heard about him was when Craig Harby posted a picture on Facebook of a huge Batman kite built by Guy, based on the papercraft model I made in 2012! ;o)

As you might imagine though, making a 9 meters (!) tall flying kite out of a papercraft model of only 25 ½ cm, was not so easy…

It meant that Guy had to redraw the patterns so the parts could be made to fit together using the special kite fabric:

picture 1 | picture 2 | picture 3

And after that, he still had to find a way to “bridle” it properly (attaching the lines to the kite) so it could be flown:

But in the end, it was all worth it, because as you can see in the top picture, Guy’s Batman won the Best Kite award as at the 23rd Portsmouth International Kite Festival (August 23rd – 25th 2014): link ! ;o)

Thank you for building a 9m tall Ninjatoes-based Batman kite! ;o)