My building process 1: Modelart's SpaceShipOne - First Post

Just as if working, studying, training and “taking care of my girlfriend” weren’t enough to keep me busy, I decided that somehow -even if it meant spending on it just a few minutes per day- I would come back to one of my favorite hobbies ever: paper modelling!

What’s this about? Well, as you may know Japanese people make amazing things with card and paper. I’m sure everybody has heard about Origami. Well, card modelling is a little bit different from it but upholds the same basic principle: having fun with just paper (and glue). The point is that you can build real cool 3D paper models of almost anything: houses, skyscrapers, cars, airplanes, rockets and even helicopters! Not to mention Mecha and Anime characters!

Today’s plastic models are extremely beautiful, I love them, I have a couple of them at home in Colombia! They are highly detailed but the best ones often require real high expertise in, for instance, brush painting. Moreover some are expensive. Of course you can buy pre-assembled ones but it’s not the same, you miss some of the fun of having the model at all: building it!!

An alternative to plastic models is paper modelling. There are so many on-line stores that sell you, for a very convenient price, the pdf files that later on you may print on thick paper. And that’s it! The rest is up to you and in order to assemble and stick together one of them you just need a little bit of patience, some nice scissors, glue and lots of coffee! And if you just don’t want to pay for the model that's all right: there are so many free on-line models which are as beautiful as the ones you pay for. One of my favourite sources is definitively The Lower Hudson Valley Paper Model Giftshop. Another one is Currell Graphics. Please, have a look at them!

I will keep writing about this in the incoming “My building process” posts. I will tell you about my Modelart^® SpaceShipOne model. The designer of this 1/32 scale model suggests to print most of the pages on 160 g/m² paper and some pages on "normal" 80 g/m² paper (common white paper you use for your photocopies). I printed mine a few weeks ago and I’m really happy about it! But I’m also concerned about the fact that I printed pages on 170 g/m² paper instead… Hope this will not make the assembly process too difficult! So far I have been so busy that I haven’t even completed a single piece of it. But in next post about it I expect to tell you that I’m making progress on it, and will sure post some pictures and comments about it!

I also need to find time to answer my friend's e-mails... I promess I will! :)