Mission aborted

While initially I thought I'd have at least a week while away to work on this project, it turns out had only a few hours a day, for three days. Despite the short amount of time spent working on the project I managed to get most of the backpack, bolter, breastplate/ cuirass and pauldrons completed.

I'm going to consider these few bit a test run and start the project again from fresh once I have done the following few things;

• figured out how to print the guidelines on the components of the model,
• bought some more 160gm paper, a decent pair of scissors, a craft knife, some glue and a bunch of wooden clothes pegs,
• and my printer cartridges arrive.

When I printed the templates there were none of the guidelines shown on my computer were visible. This gave me the idea of trying to make the armour without too many 'sharp' folds, therefore achieving rounder looking final product. This approach however made lining up bits extremely difficult, especially for the pauldron trim, which I managed to break on both occasions.

While away, I was able to borrow my families stationery. But now that I'm back in another city I don't have that privilege. A craft knife is one such example and may prevent me from wrecking the pauldron trim again.

I can't start again until my cartridges arrive due to not being able to actually print the templates out.

Several valuable skills regarding papercraft were learnt during this little foray into the hobby, and they shall all be applied during the construction of Paper Space Marine Version 2.0.

Progress Report: Day 1

About two and a half hours of today were spent cutting and gluing together bits of 160gm card. Since this is my first attempt at papercraft I decided to start with the relatively easy looking backpack. The main portion, as well as the four vents were completed and set aside to dry. I then moved on to start the spaulders/ pauldrons. Here's a look at what I have so far:

Wire frame highlighting pieces completed to date.

In the next day or so I hope to finish the nozzles of the backpack and the trim of the pauldrons. I'll upload a picture or two of the actual model too.

What the paper marine will look like

Today I finally finished customising the texture file for my paper marine. All in all there there were only eleven modifications (see picture below). Despite these being only subtle differences, it still took quite a bit of time to get right. In the end, I used portions from other textures from several other chapters provided with the original download, and made a few 'free hand' modifications too.

Default Salamander texture (left) & my custom texture (right).

I've included pictures of the wire frames generated by Papakura Viewer so that you may see the differences between my texture and the one supplied, and so that I could show you what (I hope) the final model will look like. The only additional change I intend to make now, is to swap the shoulders around.

Guess it's time to find some paper and print my marine...

Paper Space Marine

I'm still saving up to get my first box of miniatures, but have this to keep me busy for the meantime.

It's a 146 piece papercraft model of a Space Marine. That's right, a 3D model of a Space Marine made entirely of paper and glue. It even comes with plans to make a bolter and chainsword!

Since the instructions came with 170 different chapter colour schemes to choose from, I have started a little poll (on the right hand side of your screen). As the model featured on the other website is of an Ultramarine, I thought that I'd let you (and anyone else who happens upon this site) help to decide on which chapter I should build. The poll will run until 31 August 2010, which is when I leave for 'holiday'. My plan is to build a model of the winning chapter during the 3 weeks I'm away and keep you updated on the process. Depending on how that one goes I may try make a second one when I get back in late September.

So feel free to vote as many times as you like, as well as post any suggestions in the comments area below. Any suggestions I like may be added to the poll and will receive a bonus point when I tally up the votes next month.