Papercraft birds (and a hatching dinosaur) by Johan Scherft
May 6, 2013 6:01 PM   Subscribe

Johan Scherft is a Dutch artist who makes realistic papercraft birds (and a hatching Deinonychus), which he makes from printed temples that he then paints with watercolor or gouache. He shares some of his papercraft creations as free, colored templates to download and print, and others he offers for sale. He has also made video tutorials for assembly of some models.
posted by filthy light thief (14 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
Love this.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:16 PM on May 6, 2013


Wow, these models are gorgeous! Thank you for posting.
posted by tuesdayschild at 6:36 PM on May 6, 2013


See also previously.
posted by 23 at 6:44 PM on May 6, 2013 [1 favorite]


23, that "vegan taxidermy" by Aimée Baldwin is neat, and one thing that purely papercraft birds lack are the glassy eyes. You could solve that with a bit of post-production touch-up with resin or a glossy finish of some sort.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:49 PM on May 6, 2013


These are amazing. I love the birdies.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:41 PM on May 6, 2013


The winter wren is superb.
posted by rtha at 9:45 PM on May 6, 2013


Very nice! If I didn't have such clumsy fingers, I'd download and try to assemble one of the free models, but I'm hopeless at stuff like that. Still fun to see, though...
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 1:35 AM on May 7, 2013


Wow! I watched the kingfisher video and am both impressed at how clear, succinct and thorough it is and how impressive the results. I see a series of projects in my future.
posted by mightshould at 2:41 AM on May 7, 2013


Wonderful post! I can see how my next rainy weekend will be spent. Thanks!
posted by kinnakeet at 5:19 AM on May 7, 2013


I ran across this a few days ago and built the two free bird models (wren and firecrest) he has on his site over the weekend. Just printed them out on normal 8.5 x 11 printer paper and went to work. The hardest part is cutting out all the tiny fiddly papery bits, but once you've got them out the assembly and gluing part is actually pretty easy and really fun once your paper starts becoming 3D bird parts. Satisfaction. Maybe I'll purchase some of the more exciting models, the dinosaurs and boats don't really do anything for me though.

Also, how on earth does someone go about designing one of these? Could you just make a 3D model of the project and then slice the surface of it into shapes and add some tabs for gluin'?
posted by cirrostratus at 12:40 PM on May 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


cirrostratus, that's the impression I get. Here's a tutorial for how to turn game models into papercraft that is probably the same kind of idea, and there's even a program specifically designed to turn digital 3D models into papercraft models.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:20 PM on May 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think I can confidently say that this is witchcraft.
posted by cthuljew at 5:08 PM on May 7, 2013


Thanks for those links filthy light thief! It would be funny if this was the thing that finally convinced me to learn 3D modeling. Although, I'd imagine the learning curve required to get to the point of making these realistically shaped models instead of the typical cartoony/polygonish papercrafts out there would be akin to a brick wall.
posted by cirrostratus at 7:48 AM on May 8, 2013


The thing is, there are a TON of 3D models out there, or you could rip them from games. You just need to figure out how split the models on seams (or buy the program that does it automagically).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:51 AM on May 8, 2013


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