Free Ukraine Flag Paper Model

 

New! We have created a easy to build Paper Model of the Ukraine Flag. If you support the Ukraine, please download and display proudly. We also have a paper model American flag as well. Enjoy!

A Few of Our Favorite Christmas Paper Crafts and Paper Models

With everyone pinching pennies, what's better than free Christmas paper model decorations and paper craft projects for the kids and grown-ups! Fun to build and display, Enjoy!!

Go see our "A Christmas Story House" paper model. Enjoy building one for your own Christmas display!

Here is a  very simple Christmas tree. Complete with a star on top.

More Christmas models and paper crafts.






Here are a few of my other favorite Christmas paper models:

Bildrums Julmodeller has some really interesting unique historical Christmas paper models. All hand drawn and colored. Santa is featured in different modes of transportation: a VW Bug, a row boat, glider, rail car. There is also Santa climbing a light house, Santa and a printing press. Along with these and more delightful paper models are fun historical stories as well.

For whimsical Christmas paper models check out Delta 7 Studios. They have a smiling Santa and a too short elf on a train hand car. Rudolph the reindeer driving a red runabout. Santa in space tethered to an Apollo space module. Santa in various flying contraptions as well. Well done.

For the religious side of Christmas, Crechemania has beautiful detailed paper creches, nativity scenes, mangers. They also have nice Christmas cards to print out.

Canon, HP and Epson has many excellent Christmas paper models and papercraft projects.

Have a Merry Christmas!

9/11 Tribute American Flag Paper Model

We wanted to take a moment to reflect back years ago on that tragic day of 9/11/2001 that changed all of our lives forever. At this time we would like to re-introduce you to our free American Flag Paper Model.

We had designed this paper model flag soon after the 9/11 tragedy. We felt so frustrated not being able to help in a tangible way. We thought of this idea of a simple to build, one page paper model designed to be printed out on just plain paper, in color or in black and white.

We wanted to make sure that school children and anyone with access to a printer can build and display their own standing American flag paper model in memory of those who lost their lives on that fateful day, and to honor the first responders: firemen, EMT workers, police officers and all who risked their lives to save lives on that day. We salute you.

The 9/11 Memorial

Cutting it close for Halloween

For as long as I can remember there have always been 4 classic horror monsters, Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy and the Wolf Man (I wonder if I should have said Ware Wolf?). So far I have built busts and of Frankenstein and Dracula. I have also included masks of each as well. I plan to design both the Mummy and the Wolf Man, one this year and one next year. I believe that the die hard modelers want busts of both as soon as possible. But the busts take longer to design and test. Production is very slow and time consuming. The masks on the other hand, are quicker to prototype and that means that I can find the flaws faster. Which means I can make adjustments to the software version sooner and then build a new prototype sooner. And so the process continues until you have a new model to print. The masks are easier to build than the busts and so they are more popular with my fans who are less dedicated to modeling full time.

As I have said in a previous post, I have switched from Imagine to SketchUp just this year, so I have quite a learning curve to beat in order to produce a new model in time for Halloween. SketchUp has one great advantage over Imagine. (OK, it has LOTS of advantages but that is off topic.) In Imagine if I needed to make any change to the shape of the model, no mater how small, I had to do every step of the design over again. That means converting the model to .obj format, wrapping the texture map, and tweaking the texture map to fit the new model, before taking it to Pepakura, first to see if the texture fits correctly, then to unfold it. Now with SketchUp I adjust the model with the texture already attached, tweak in real time, then take it straight to Pepakura for unfolding.

My life in the real world is extremely busy this year but, I am still going to try my best to have a new model out in time for Halloween. Although it pains me to say it, I expect that I will only try for mask and not a full bust. But you will have to wait to see weather it will be a Ware wolf or the Mummy.

Free Paper Models from Printer Companies

Paper modelers use a lot of printer paper and printer ink! So, I for one am appreciative of printer companies that give something back via free paper models. It's not 100 percent altruistic on behalf of the printer companies, they know that giving away free paper toys will inspire us to use more printer ink and therefore purchase more ink. But, I am OK with that, since my family loves paper models. Bring em on, the more the merrier!

Canon is my favorite, they offer many different categories of free paper models: Animals, Buildings, Science, Toys, Seasons and Holidays, Origami, Lucky Items, Craftown. That's just their 3D Papercraft, they also have Greetings, Scrapbook, Artcraft, Calenders and more. Canon has their own very talented paper model designers that create their paper models and they also feature independent model designers. I love their site design, easy to navigate, colorful, lots of images and information.

Epson is my next favorite. They have some great paper models of animals, buildings, seasonal and more. Also Epson, Japan has some amazing race cars.

Kudos to these printer companies for giving free fun!

Easter Paper Crafts

It's time again for the Easter bunny to come visit and leave eggs for hunting! Here are free paper toys and paper crafts that will make Easter even more fun. Cute Bunnies, Easter baskets, adorable baby chicks and ducks. These free paper projects are great projects that not only delight children but exercise hand eye coordination. Have fun and enjoy! Happy Easter!

Free Halloween Paper Crafts

We love Halloween! Here are some Halloween paper crafts and also some highlights of some of my favorite sites out there that feature free Halloween paper crafts and paper models:

Spider Web Pie Halloween Treat Boxes
Simple Halloween treat boxes to print and build. Display on your Halloween party table, each one filled with treats. or hand out to Trick or Treaters at the door. Full color and a color-me versions.

Our Models From Halloweens past: Halloween Pumpkin Box, Pumpkin Hat and FrankenPaper and Dracula Paper Models

The Printer Companies that I featured in my previous post have lots of very nice free Halloween paper crafts and models of all kinds.

Haunted Dimensions has some amazing Halloween paper models! They feature very detailed Disney Haunted Mansions, crypts, animated coffin and tombstones. Also, ScreamHouse and Psychoscareapy paper models from Univeral Studios Halloween horror nights. The paper models and site are designed by Ray Keim, a very talented artist and media designer. Besides the great models he offers there is an interesting article on how he created the Haunted Mansions. He also has instructions on how to make your own ginger bread Haunted Mansion!

Ravensblight Another great site that offers incredible Halloween paper toys! They offer Ghost House, a classic haunted house with very nice detailed artwork. Many scary Halloween paper masks. medieval helmets, coffin boxes, a mechanical bat, monster figures, clever pocket monsters, games, Ravensbight manor, a gothic chapel and lots more. There are lots of paper crafts that are ideal for Halloween party favors and activities. Besides paper toys there is Halloween stories, even audio stories, Music and short films all by Ray O'Bannon a very talented artist.

Halloween Canon Paper Craft has added some new free Halloween paper crafts this year.  You will find some very cute animated Halloween paper toys and Halloween paper craft decor to decorate your home, office or school.

There is a new animated "Jack and the Halloween Dancers" that is a Jack O Lantern that opens it's mouth and inside are  a Halloween ghosts black cat and skull dancing! Very clever and cute. They are also offering free Halloween masks, decor, Halloween totes, a Halloween banners and a wreath all free for the taking and making!

These are just two of my favorite places to go for Halloween paper crafts and free paper toys, you can find these and more here: Free Halloween Paper Crafts and Paper Toys

Paper Toys on Stage at the Kennedy Center

I love to see paper toys in the News:

Shin Tanaka artist and designer of T-Boy, Spiky Baby, Boxy and Sneaker paper toys presented the art of paper toy making in Paper Toy Live! at the Kennedy Center's Japan! Culture and Hyper-culture Festival, a two week event February 5-17. He created his paper toys live on stage with children and parents from the audience who were asked to come up on stage and create their own paper toys using his templates.

Shin Tanaka's free paper toys are here

Favorite Instructables

Like a lot of paper modelers I started by building regular polygons. Some of my earliest constructions were based on simple equilateral triangles: the Regular Tetrahedron, the simplest 3D object made of 4 triangles, the Regular Octahedron, made with 8 triangles. And of course the Icosahedron, the pinnacle of basic constructions using the humble equilateral triangle.

These basic models whetted my appetite for many delightful and complex models to come. Well apparently there is another modeler out there who yearned to create his own treat and turned the humble triangle into a humble pie. A Pie-Cosahedron that is. Based on a paper model of an icosahedron, he (or perhaps they), created a 20 sided pecan pie. If you don't believe it you can read his post yourself: Modular Pie-Cosahedron

I have been a fan of the Instructables site for some time now. I like the idea that if you can explain something you can post it. And the public gets to give your post a rating. This is a single place you can go to look through many ideas on a wide variety of subjects. You don't have to manage your own website to post a single idea. CD case: The Spiral Data Tato Origami CD Case

And I spotted a few others that I like:
Flower Design Paper CD Case
CD Case from Normal Printer Paper

Here is a couple of quick clever toys made of paper and tape:
Crazy Paper Cylinder
Crazy Paper Cube

HT Racers Wrap Up

I know it has been a few months now, but I wanted to wrap up the "HT Racers" American Inventor post. I have been so busy lately that I had forgotten.

Ricky made it to the top three which was an amazing accomplishment considering the competition! But he unfortunately did not win :( However he did win a contract with Spinmaster toys to further develop and distribute his "HT Racers". So congratulations to Ricky! We hope to see his remote control paper toy "HT Racers" for sale soon!

RC Paper Model Kit Inventor Wins $50,000 on American Inventor!

We just finished watching the ABC American Inventor show from last Wednesday, June 13 (we TiVo). We were surprised to see that one of the entrants was a paper modeler, Ricky DeRennaux, teacher from Oklahoma! His invention was a radio controlled paper model kit with design software! He demonstrated a paper toy car and he pointed out to the judges that the wheels were 100% paper as well. The judges were very impressed so much that he actually won the LosAngeles leg of the contest! He won 50,000 dollars with the chance to go on to the next phase and the chance to win One Million dollars! The 50,000 is given to finalists to further develop their inventions. He was up against some good inventions: lightweight fold-able wheel chair, clamp for children's hearing aids and more. One of the criteria for the judges selections is that the invention has mass market appeal.

His idea is actually not 100% new as I seem to recall a paper model site that did have the idea of RC paper models, but the wheels were not paper. But, he may be the first to market the idea.

Regardless if he is eventually the One million dollar winner he is getting the idea of paper modeling out there to a broader audience!
American inventor is on Wednesdays 9/8 central on ABC.

Here is the clip featuring Ricky and his RC paper toys on YouTube

The Tail of the Missing Mummy

I tried and I failed. I thought I could make it in time, but my results to date are not worth publishing. As my son pointed out, it would be faster and easier to wrap your own head in bandages (not to mention better looking) than to print and assemble my Mummy Mask. As for the Were Wolf Mask... If I had been going for a FrankenWolf I might have been closer to the mark. I guess I am just not skilled enough with Sketchup to make publishable paper models just yet. So for now please enjoy the pumpkin hat instead.

What? Freepapertoys.com is a Blog now?!!

Hello to all paper model lovers that have enjoyed our free paper toys we created and our free paper toys directory. Don't panic those pages still do exist, we are just adding a blog. We figured that it is time for a change. The internet is changing and we basically have remained pretty much the same since we first started back in the late 90's. My hopes are this blog will create a better user experience. We want to encourage you as paper model hobbiests and paper model creators to add your ideas, questions, comments, suggestions, experiences, stories about paper model building and creating. It may take time to for us to get used to this new blog experience so be patient with us and feel free to make suggestions about ways to better it.