Which of these two styles do you prefer?
 

The first and second image vary slightly, but which of the two seems more appealing to your eye?

Dear Papersmithforge:
I don't know why I like the second one better, less of the heavy black line maybe. I see I'm in a minority, hope more people vote.
Intersting,
MILES

I'm also partial to the second one myself Miles. I had refrained from describing the difference so as not to skew the results, but the basic difference is that the first picture uses the thicker black lines to denote overlap of visible borders/boundaries, and the thin lines solely describe seams on the model. The second drawing on the other hand only uses the thick black lines to describe the projected shape of the model, while all other lines are described with thin lines. I took this second style from manga technique for drawing mechanical objects. The subdued lines and bold shape are supposed to give a more 3d feel, but I suppose that's up to perception. Would it make any difference to you if the black lines in the first weren't as thick as they are? Perhaps somewhere halfway between the thick and the thin lines.

I'm curious because when I made the instructions for my anvil model I didn't really think too hard about the diagrams, as I'd never really taken a look at any other model diagrams. I honestly just couldn't find one that had decent diagrams (found plenty of models, but few assembly instructions).

At first I believed that the grey shading was some sort of light play to make the diagrams look more 3d. Finally, I realized on some other diagrams that were more consistent, grey denoted the non-printed side of parts and white denoted the printed side. That was an epiphany moment right there.

So I'm trying to update my diagrams accordingly. I'm avoiding halftone dot effects and such, because while I think it looks better visually and saves ink, it doesn't work well outside of Adobe Reader (unless you convert the halftone into vectors but that increases the file size which annoys me).

So apart from a preference for either of these two drawings, if someone has some references for good instruction diagrams it'd be great to have some sort of foundation as opposed to just stumbling about blindly (as I'm doing).

I prefer the first one because the bold lines give me a much clear view of the volumes and shapes.

I like the second because it I find having that many bold lines in one part a bit confusing to the eye. The outline being in bold helps make it easier what is considered a complete assembled part in the diagram. Once you see the part its esy enough to follow the lighter lines.

Just my two cents :)

I like the 1st cause the bold line clearly tell where the edges are and that's how we draw in animation layouts.

I'm thinking more towards the second with a hint of the first
with the hole for the head done bold

But what is it gonna be

I'm partial to the second one. If there was a midpoint between the differences I think that would be better still.

@Gary Pilsworth: This is the final diagram in the construction sequence for my Razorbank model (which I'm finally able to continue working on). Click my signature for pictures of an assembled model.

I did a longer search and came up with a couple of references.

This one shows a variety of different types of instruction diagrams:
The Art of Paper Model Instructions

These pages illustrate the work of one particular artist in a purely visual approach (his line style is also the same as the second picture I've shown, though his shading seems different):
Paper MP-5 | PostlerFerguson
Paper Uzi | PostlerFerguson
Paper M4 | PostlerFerguson
Paper Mills Bomb | PostlerFerguson
Paper AK-47 | PostlerFerguson

I've also located tutorials on the process of designing paper models. However, these gents don't particularly go into the informatics of it.

Julius Perdana - His assembly diagrams are 3d colored renderings of the parts
Tutorials

Robert Nava - Instructions are black/white renderings of 3d parts aided by portions of text
Nava Designs

If anyone else has some nice references or how you make your own diagrams feel free to contribute. Ruben actually built my first model the Anvil and he included a pic of all the pages where you can see what my first diagrams were like. Of course you can just download it yourself for a better idea. http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/o...ith-forge.html

I like the second image for the line style.
Shading is a bit confusing though, the dark for the inside of the bigger object is good, but on the ears you have the shading on the outside.
Using white for the printed side and dark for the unprinted side does look really nice.
I always assume people don't print the instructions, most people work near or at their computer, so ink costs don't really come into it. You could always do a whitened grey shading, but I like what you have done.

Been trying to do instructions in a similar style of showing the cut lines, but without the thick outline.
(it'll look better with numbering)
http://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/...al/instrs1.jpg