My papercraft tutorial pt.3 - Ball joints

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This is a continuation of a series of personal paper craft tutorials where I talk in detail about making paper figures in a special way.
Tutorial 1 and Tutorial 2 for beginning


How to make ball joints


- Besides the obvious things: paper, glue, scissors, you will still need, oddly enough, balls ... and preferably different sizes! They can be: plastic, glass and metal.

- We select the balls based on the size of the figure. One ball should be slightly larger than the second. Both balls are wrapped with a piece of paper, which would be easier, make cuts along the edges of the paper, and then wrap the ball and moisten it well with glue.
IMPORTANT! We apply glue only on the outside of the paper so that it minimally gets on the ball itself and after that it is easier to remove it from the form.
 Cover the completely wrapped ball with glue, roll it up and three between the hands to smooth out all the bumps and make the ball denser, give time to dry (if there is a table lamp with a metal casing, put it on top or use a hairdryer to speed up the process).

 After using scissors with a sharp edge we poke the paper and make a cut along the ball, in my case I had to completely cut the ball. If the paper stuck to the ball, you can use a needle or the same scissors to draw between the ball and the paper so that you can unhook it without damaging it again.

 To glue the halves, just thickly apply glue along the edge of the cut of one of the halves and connect them. If this ball is not the basis for another, then before gluing, you need to insert a tube between the halves, making round cuts under it, the tube itself is glued with the edge to the inside of the half of the ball, but its end should have cuts in the form of petals, which would be easier and more reliable than it stick on.


 The blue ball (yes, this is not visible in the photo, but it is larger) is the base, immediately cropped under the second, black (smaller) - the ball in which there will be a rod (tube) on which any other part of the body will already be attached. What we should get:


As an alternative option:

-  cut off the top (1/3 of the ball) and make cuts along the edges, remove the ball (you can push it with the needle from the other side), if there is a second ball already prepared, then it will easily fit into it, and after pieces of paper you can glue the cuts.

How useful are these joints? / How and where to apply ball joints?

- The main advantages are that they are simple to make and universal. If the balls fit tightly, then the figure will stand firm and hold the given position, if not, it is easy to fix (more on this below).


- And even, thanks to ball joints, it is possible to make replaceable parts of the body!

 Let's look at one of my old figures as an example before I discovered the ball joints. I tried to make her hand as mobile as possible: she leans up and down, there are tilts to the sides and she rotates. To do this, I had to make three separate joints, but the arm turned out to be too mobile and just "hangs in the wind". Аll this is easy to fix and replace with this one hinge (in fact: two balls and a tube). It holds firmly and performs all the same functions, even a little more.


 The same example for the neck on which the head rests. Instead of a complex “cross” joint and “rivets” on which it rotates freely, one can notice with two hinges for stable rotation and tilting of the head.

Alternatives and Tips

 Since not everyone can have the right ball size on hand, or even only one, you can resort to this method:


 Using two halves of the ball, of the same size, but simply cut along the edges, pinch the ball between them and get the same effect, only in this case, it will not hold so tight, but it's better than nothing.


If the smaller ball is jammed or just did not calculate the size, there are several options for how to fix it:
  • Cover with layers of glue the outer part of the hinge or its inner base, covering layer by layer until the desired effect; 
  • Stick on top / inside a piece of paper; 
  • If the base was larger at the manufacturing stage, insert a smaller ball into it, cut the edge of the base (halfway) and close around the smaller ball and glue the sides of base. The problem is resolved.
  • If you properly cut the edges of the base, you can artificially limit or expand the angles of inclination or stick pieces of paper around the edges, they will guide the inclination.
This little tutorial is finished, but that’s not all.
© 2020 - 2022 JakoHun
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ZombieGarou's avatar
Damn thats really cool!
I would never have the idea of making ball joints tbh :O