Poké-Crafts Made out of Paper

Papercraft is an amazing thing. To turn paper into lifelike creations is impressive and almost unreal. That is exactly what I felt when I was introduced to the craft a few years ago at a local Japanese event, and of course when it was displayed, it came with Pokémon in tow, which delighted the Pokémon fan in me. It was also this that inspired me to actually use papercraft in my cosplay efforts as the complements of my Pokémon cosplay.

At this point, I have to give credit where credit is due. The papercraft that I used then came from a site called Paperpokés, and they have lots of great Pokémon papercraft models. Interestingly, the models are not just of the Pokémon themselves, but also objects such as Poké Balls and even Poké Doll replicas. Their Pikachu v2 model is what became the basis for the old Pikachu I used and its translation into a doll form. As for their other models, I've tried building Pichu, and it's real nice; I also built Jolteon for an online friend, who appreciated the gesture. I already have Charmander printed out and ready to build anytime, though it is waiting for time and space. It seems those two things hinder me from making their models, for which otherwise I would have a lineup of paper models by now.

It wouldn't be a craft if I didn't apply my own spin, my modifications to their models. That is what I did when I worked with their Pikachu v2 model. After trying a test build at the original size, I doubled the size for my old paper Pikachu, and quadrupled it for the translation into a doll. An interesting thing happened when I printed out the parts for my old Pikachu; the print shop made an error and accidentally printed the parts on translucent paper before they printed the parts correctly; I took the mistake prints and built the model anyway, which resulted in a purely translucent Pikachu. Additionally, for the paper models for cosplay, I strengthened them with a foam backing on the inside. For my paper models, I also asked for the parts to be printed on art paper, which made for a glossy appearance. In the future, I could foresee experimenting further with their models.

I have to thank papercraft (and more specifically, the Paperpokés team) for taking my Pokémon attraction in a wildly different direction. This is really an area where I could express some creativity in changing up existing models to suit my purposes, as I did for both cosplay and display. Papercraft may appear seemingly unreal in realizing fantasies, but when Pokémon is involved, it might as well be the most accessible way to make things real.