Treknology in Paper, March 2005

Feb/Mar - Strictly speaking it started last month, but the cardmodels4fun SmartGroup is running a spaceship challenge that will continue through to the end of this month. cardmodels4fun as a group focus on the fun of making paper models rather than the challenge of constructing the more complex subjects. It is the home of Hakos for example, amongst which you can make up just about a full crew of the Original Series Enterprise. Don't get 'simple to make' mixed up with 'easy to design' as two of the early entrants in this competition prove.

First cab off the rank was Mike Haggard's Star Fleet Roustabout Pocket Starship. In keeping with the rules there are only two pages of parts and a single page of instructions. This is an innovative original design of a Phaser/Torpedo Boat - non-canon but perfectly in character, it even has a potted history attached to it. Definately not for the beginner but a rewarding detailed build for such a small model.

One of Steve Marshall's entries, the Type 17 Shuttle is an early Rick Sternbach design for the standard shuttle for the Enterprise-D. Steve's model captures it's proportions and curves with elegant simplicity. It might be a shade too hard for the outright beginner because of the curved front end but Steve has done some extremely easy to follow instructions, so it could be just the model to stretch a Newbies skills!

15/03/05 - Billy Burgess put seven new paper models on his website ...
- New Orleans Class Starship
- Nebula Class Starship
- Federation Shuttle Type 9 and 11
- Borg Cube
- Borg Tactical Cube
- Borg Sphere
- Species 8472
Billy is new to creating paper models and the more experienced designers were very supportive in their comments and advise on how to improve on his work. Diego Cortes (Enterprise 1701-A, Saladin, Miranda & Daedalus Class) pointed out that Pepakura is a good base to start from but you need more. "[It] is one of the four programs that I use to make a model ... to design a model it isn´t enough to put a 3D model into Pepakura and unfold it". Jon [Leslie?] pointed out that Pepakura can make "bad edge decisions" that can be fixed, Steve Marshall pointing Billy towards a tutorial on the subject on Rick Steffer's CardModellers.net website and Alan McGrew (on 21/03) went into considerable detail (worth bookmarking if you use Pepakura).
On the 31st Billy posted that with the help of Marc Robitaille the problems with the New Orleans Class Starship had been fixed but he was removing the Nebula class starship and the Borg Sphere for now. Good luck Billy! I look forward to seeing upgraded versions of your other models

Frank Johnston has solved that deepest mystery of what a self-sealing stembolt looks like! Checkout the alpha build photos in his Album at the paperModels SmartGroup, "Franks Models". Nice shot of his completed Workbee too.

Kosuke has created an album on the PaperModels SmartGroup which has shots of his completed Cobra style phaser (TNG) and Pistol grip Type II phaser (TOS) both by designed by Mike Haggard.