1:50 Paper Protagonist

[Tirick]

I've been off the hobby design-shelf for a few months, but one of the primary projects I was working on before my hiatus was an extension of my 1:50 Scale Star Wars miniatures (if there are enough of you who are curious, I can post a separate thread showcasing those). I have long considered the limitations of the original design and made several prototypes in an attempt to design a poseable and interchangeable miniature made of paper.

The original concept was to make this a marketable print, with several options and kits, allowing the maker to assemble nearly any 'hero' of soldier-type miniature they desired, and allow it to be both repeatable, and poseable, so that several copies could be made at need (say, for example driving, or in an action pose, or whatnot).

I'm still muddling over the design, but I think I have close to a final concept. Sadly, it is only male, I have not yet figured a way around the curves of a female model at this scale. Obviously these were prototypes, so only printed in B/W. I am not happy with the shoulders mostly, a ball-joint is a serious pain to replicate.

Anyway, comments are appreciated, I hope to pick this up in the coming weeks/months.

Tirick

[marksolo]

I knew it!

I expected you to pull out more bunnies from your hat.

I can see a lot of potentials in this model.

I can visualize how you can easily customize this into any character you want.

female is easy to do, just make the shoulder narrower, and waist narrower still. and a single triangular tent can house the boobs, they dont even have to be done separately

all in all, this opens up infinite possibilities, awesome!

[57townsman]

Wow, nice!

These would definitely add a new dimension to dioramas. Please show us more!

SteveK

[hawkman67]

Tirick;
I am really glad you are picking up where you left off on these! I had been following the thread over on the SWM site. Happy to see your work again.
Regards, Jeff

[FAKEnameguy]

you may feel these shoulders are a bit lacking, but most people will (if given the option) give their characters jackets, capes, pauldrons and other add-ons that will hide them. and if they came in 1:72 or 1:100 they'd be negligible. that said I love how versatile and poseable they seem, perfect for dioramas and such

[Tirick]

You have the idea exactly! I will be designing jackets, vests and capes to help accentuate the figures. My intent will be that the most of the 'gear', holsters, guns, belts, etc, all be additional components, rather than textures, which will help give better 3d quality to the figures.

I will likely try to tweak the shoulder a little bit in the next few weeks, then get started on the first texturing set.

I will design them for 1:50, but scaling down (to 1:72 or even 1:100 (althought that might make assembly a challenge) should be no problem. I had some previous requests to make a 1:35 scale as well, so I am toying with the idea of having multiple .pdf scales in each release, ensuring the texture detail is clean at 1:35 (and thus equally clean at smaller scales).

I seem to have placed this thread in the wrong area too, I did not notice the design thread area when I first posted...

[marksolo]

1:35 figures is probably the last unchallenged territory in the plastic modeling world.

if we can make passable world war II helmets at this scale for your figures, it will turn the modeling world upside down.

i feel a rush of adreneline just thinking about it

[bigfan321]

man, this is such an AWESOME, versatile, idea and I would DL if it were released for letter sized printers. Man, I could just see putting one of these figures (a well-armed one at that) next to my Soon to be completed Aliens APC.

[Tirick]

I would hazard a guess that it will be a few months before the first release my available time is not what I would call excessive. That said, I will try to layout the print to accommodate both A4 and letter sizes, although being North American, letter would be my default.

[bigfan321]

LOL, didn't realize you were from the states. In any case, Good luck.