My papercraft tutorial (Simple)- pt. 1

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Beginning


- By popular demand, I decided to post a tutorial on my technique. For the first tutorial, I tried to make it as simple as possible. This is not a new tutorial, I posted it on a Russian site. I will try to translate it into (bad)English, if you have questions - just ask.

To get started, we need:


 - Paper - It needs a lot, I personally used notes for notes ranging in size from 7x7 cm to 9x9 cm and always without an adhesive side, but you can use any other and preferably thick paper, if you do not have one, then glue it in several layers: 2-3 layers is enough. Otherwise, it will simply become impossible to make some details or the figure will be very fragile.

- Glue - I usually use water-based glue or clerical glue It is easier to apply on paper, the paper itself is impregnated with it and when it dries, it becomes stronger if the glued parts are dried on a table lamp and you save time on drying and the parts become only stronger.

- Pencils and other objects - a pencil is needed not only for drawing details, but also as an improvised tool for creating them. Depending on the size of the figure you decide to make, for many details you need different "axes". To do this, use:
  • handle rods (of different thicknesses, length is optional) - are used to create small joints or other tubular parts.
  • pens, pencils, felt-tip pens and even brushes - are also necessary when creating joints, limbs and more.
  • toothpicks, matches, needles, etc. - as additional improvised means for the same purposes.
And the rest:
  • Two types of scissors - Small curved for small parts and large for big parts
  • paper knife - not necessary, but it can come in handy
  • ruler - I have different types of rulers, one of them has different curly holes, and the other with round holes of different diameters. They came in handy for me at work.
  • table lamp - preferably with a metal body and a simple light bulb. Why is it needed? On it you will dry the paper parts! They will dry quickly and become stronger. 
  • a convenient workplace and, of course, free time and desire to create.

We will start with the Head


- Usually, when I start to make a figure from scratch, I can start from any part of it, even from the eyes, but in our case we will start the head:


Note: The head may be different. It can consist of one whole part or a cluster of small ones, be of any shape - everything is limited only by your imagination
  1. - Using large scissors, cut one strip of paper:
    Width - 1.5 cm
    Length - 8.5 cm
  2. At the end of the resulting strip, set aside about 5mm of glue for yourself
  3. fold the paper into a ring and glue both ends.
  4. Give the ring the desired shape - I gave this ring a shape similar to a human skull (side view). 
  5. Make a few "tongues" (small rectangular strips of paper) to secure the side walls of the head. To do this, you need parts with dimensions: 4 cm long and Width - 1 cm, also make markup on it: width of each tongue - 5 mm
  6. Cut the "tongues". It should turn out - 8 pieces. If you think that this is not enough, take a longer part length or make another such part. Bend the "tongues" in half so that their ends coincide.
  7. Bent "tongues", half stick to the outside of the head. Like in the photo. (or at your discretion, based on the selected shape of the head).
  8. Put glue on the ends of the tongues on the left or right side (not all at once!) And you can gently apply glue to the free contour of the head and attach the head itself to a piece of paper. After it dries, cut off the excess with small scissors along the edge. And repeat with the other side of the head. Congratulations, we made a head.

How to make a joint


Note: I used a pencil with a diameter of 7mm - if your pencil is thicker or thinner - the above markings may not correspond and you will get a completely different result. Keep this in mind.



  1. For a joint, first make a piece of this size: Width - 1.5 cm; Length - 4 cm. Divide it into three strips of 5mm wide (don't cut!)
  2. wrap the resulting part on a pencil (preferably round) or a pen. First, we twist it completely (without glue) giving it the necessary bend, then apply glue to the resulting “tongue” and twist it completely. Twist it not tightly and try not to overdo it with glue.
  3. Gently rotate the resulting tube so that it does not stick to the pencil. Let her dry properly. You can hold it by the lamp or put on it. to speed up the process.
  4. Without removing the tube from the pencil, in the same way we wind a strip 5 mm wide (2-4 cm long) into the ring along the top of the tube, IMPORTANT - they do not need to be glued together, this ring should rotate freely on the tube.
  5. Cut the edges of the tube with small scissors into narrow strips on both sides (as in the photo), then bend them to the sides. On the resulting “petals” we apply glue, apply pieces of paper, let it dry and cut off the excess along the edge, leave some paper so that the ring does not fall off. We got a simple “Joint”.
  6. We make a small tube for the neck, detail with dimensions: Width - 4.5 cm; Height - 2 cm (actually it took 1.5 cm, but more on that later); Select 5 mm for the "petals".
  7. just glue the tube, let it dry. On one side of the tube (where 5 mm are not highlighted), bend its edges with a pencil.
  8. It should be like in the photo above.
  9. The joint made earlier is carefully glued to the bent sides of the tube, glued to the movable ring, here also be careful so as not to glue everything together.
  10. To the edge of the joint tube glue a strip 5-7 mm wide, bend it in the form of the “П” staple and glue to the other side. Now we have the opportunity to stick the head to the joint.

Making the Body




1) For the body you will need two strips:

Width - 1cm
Length - 8.5 cm - if you use another paper or its size is slightly smaller, you need a strip in the length of 16-18 cm.
For the body you need a strip with paper in two layers! If you use note paper, you can simply draw a strip of the required width, bend and glue it; otherwise, cut a strip of the desired length and glue it on the edge of the sheet of paper. If you already use paper glued in several layers, just make sure that it is not very soft.

2) Glue the strip or strips together and give the body the desired shape.

Note: you do not have to follow the tutorial to the end, I just show one of the possible options for how to do it. You can give the body any shape.

- Just as we previously made the head, we make tongues for gluing in the same way, then use the sizes of the tongues to your liking. They turned out for me: ~ 2 cm long; Width ~ 1 cm

We glue them on the outside, apply glue to the tongues and apply the body to the paper, and on the inside you can gently press the tongues for reliability. We do the same thing on the other side.

3) And 4) Here I will not paint in detail, these points are not constant and everyone can do it in their own way or not at all.



- If you want to give the body volume, use all the same strips of paper as for the body itself earlier. Glue them across and along the body, leaving a small part convex or immediately bend in several places as you need. (depending on what body shape you have chosen and how you want to see the result). I chose the length and width of the parts to be coated on the basis of the dimensions of the "bevels" and the body itself. I cut the excess parts and stuck to the body or cut it off altogether. The end result is visible in the photo.

"Joints for arms and legs"


- To begin with, we will make four pairs of parts for the arms and legs (limbs). Take all the same pencil that was used before, here you will need a marker / felt-tip pen, which will be a little thicker than a pencil. (approx: 1cm diameter)



The first two pairs are for hands:
- Two tube tonic 3 cm, made on a pencil.
- Two thick tubes of 3 cm, are made on a felt-tip pen / marker
Two more pairs - for legs: they are made in the same way, but 4 cm long!
A thin tube will be the top, and a thick tube will be the bottom. Equally for both arms and legs.
We return to the "neck", we made markings on it to cut the "petals" and here's why:
  First draw an "envelope" (do 5 at once!). Its sizes:
- 3.6 cm length
- 1.2 cm width (and the sides of each square into which we divide it)
  For simplicity, you can take a size of 3 cm by 1 cm.



- We make a hole suitable for the diameter of the neck tube, but not too large, otherwise the joint will be too shaky. We thread the tube in it and cut the edge where the markings are under the "petals". We bend them out and glue to any piece of paper. Let’s dry, to speed up the process, you can again use a table lamp



 - We cut off the excess in a circle, leaving a few millimeters, so that it falls under the width of the threaded part. The scan itself is added to the "envelope". First, the side narrow tongues, we apply glue on them (carefully, so as not to glue the moving parts together), then we bend one wide edge, gluing it to the side tongues, and then close it with the upper one, we also glue it, but we do not apply glue to the "tongue ", and on the" envelope "itself. If everything is correctly done, you will get a joint on a rotating basis.
Sorry, I didn’t take a photo of the neck near me and used a photo of the joint for arms and legs.


We glue the head to the previously made joint and the "envelope" to the body. 
A small digression: I did not calculate a little and the neck came out longer and so that I did not have to redo everything, there is a simple way to fix this:
  We cut the tube at its center, and cut the bottom of the tube into wide petals, they can be bent inward or outward. Next, just put the upper part on the other half of the tube, after applying glue.
  The neck was made shorter - they saved paper and time. To hide and strengthen the cut, simply wrap a strip of paper around with glue.


For the joints themselves you will need: Two tubes 1.5 cm long (or four 7-8 mm each)
  •  Before making the tube itself with a pencil, mark its middle or by eye, already when we cut it into two parts. Then using a paper knife, we simply press it to its center and pressing it gently scroll the pencil, cutting it in this way.
  •  As an option, you can immediately cut with scissors or make four separate parts, as I described earlier.
  •  At one end of the tube, using small scissors, we also cut the petals and glue them to the paper, and then cut off the excess. We pass this part itself into the blank for the envelope and fold it, as described previously. We make another tube with a ring on it 5 mm wide (as described in 3 parts of the tutorial), take the upper part of the hand and make a vertical notch of about 1 cm at the edge of the tube and a transverse one where the vertical notch ends, we got two more large tongues, on we don’t apply glue! We put glue on the petals of the resulting joint and here we attach part of the hand to them. In order to fix the lower part of the hand, make the same incision in a thick tube. Making a joint, I did not cut the tube along the edges into petals, but simply inserted a 1cm wide tube into the opening (pre-sealed the holes with paper ...)


For the feet, make two strips, the sizes: 4 cm long; Width - 0.8 mm; In the middle of it, select - 0.5 mm

 - We make a tube 1 cm wide, and on top of it a ring 0.7 mm wide. We glue its sides with sheets of paper and cut off the excess around the edge. We bend the strip, glue it to the ring, glue its sides also with pieces of paper on both sides (if desired, you can make small tongues, as in the manufacture of the head). We do the same and get two foots.

We connect all the previously made parts, the "envelopes" with glue to the places for the limbs.


 As a result, we should get such a “Robot” - for many this stage may be the last, but we continue ...

Rotation of the limbs


- Reaching this stage, you will realize that many parts are made in the same way as the rest, only differ in size and shape.



- On the upper parts of the arms, legs and in the middle of them, make marks for the incision. Cut in marked areas with scissors. Just in case, make a note on which side this or that limb should be.



 - Here we need a thin rod from the pen and a long strip of paper with a width of 5 mm. We wind the tubes on the rod, you need to do 4 pieces.



In the first part of the photo you can see the stages of creating a “rotating rivet”.
  • On a piece of 1.5 x 1.5 cm in the center, mark with a circle the place of the hole for the tube (if the hole is a little narrower, use scissors or insert the sharp end of the pencil into the hole to expand it).
  •  Insert the tube so that it fits exactly halfway. 
  • With small scissors on both sides, we cut the edges of the tube into petals and bend them, and then glue them with pieces of paper and cut the excess. 
  • You should succeed in the same way as in the photo so that the “rivet” rotates in the hole of the sheet.


  • First we try to attach this "rivet" to any limb, its lower part should fit and rotate freely inside the tube, if necessary, cut it. Apply glue to the edges of the tube of the upper part of the limb, but so that there would be no drops on the inside of the tube! (they can be assembled with the handle shaft) Thus we glue it. After drying, check if it rotates. If everything is correct, then we glue the limb itself to it, after pre-gluing the hollow side with a simple sheet.
  • Again they gave time to dry, and now, so that the arm or leg would not break and its rotation would not be too loose, we apply glue to the upper part of the limb (and only there!) And wrap it with a leaf (we make a tube 2 cm high), after full turnover of the sheet, apply glue to the sheet itself ...
  • If everything was done correctly, the arms and legs will rotate and now the figure can stand in some sort of pose.



Simple Hands




- For the base of the "hands", you can measure two circles on a two-layer sheet or more. We will make another two "rivets". This time it is advisable to use a thicker shaft from the pen or use one that is available.
- We make two “rivets” that were described earlier. For the upper part, take a sheet more, after drying, cut off the excess edges to make a rotating circle.

I decided to make a claw-shaped hand. For the “fingers”, we need the necessary rings with a width of 3 mm (6 pieces) and tubes with a height of 5 mm (6 pieces).



How to make rings:
  • On the rod from the handle, first twist the tube 1 cm (immediately mark the place for the cut in the center). And we wind a strip of 5-6 mm wide on this tube. (Ideally you need to make 3 small tubes). We put the resulting tubes back on the handle rod and gently pressing the paper knife in the center and turning on the rod we cut into two rings (you can try to cut with scissors, but it's a little more difficult). We cut the centimeter tube into two 5mm pieces and make four more such rings.
  • For the finger we make 6 strips 3 mm wide and 2 cm long, in the center it will be bent along the floors and glue the edges of the strip to the ring. To make it easier, first put the ring on the handle shaft. You can give your finger the appearance of a "claw" by slightly bending it. On the sides of the "claw" we glue sheets of paper, let it dry, cut off the excess.
  • For the base of the fingers. 5 mm tubes are threaded into rings and we cut the protruding edges with small scissors into “petals”. For reliability, glue the sides with pieces of paper, let it dry, cut off the excess in a circle. The basis for fastening the finger is done as follows: glue a piece of paper about 5 mm wide to one side and bend it into the “П” shape to stick it immediately to the other (as in the neck step, only smaller).



 - On a spinning circle of a hand we glue fingers. I placed them as shown in the photo, so that when they are lowered, you get a fist.

- If you have reached this stage (or just read to this place)) I can congratulate you, this is an advanced figure, which is not a shame to show to friends!


This is the end of the first part of the tutorial.

To be continued...(link)

© 2020 - 2022 JakoHun
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Yo-Snap's avatar
Aaaahhh, this is so great!!! I love it so much, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom!!!! :love: