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I have a website! The one you're on right now!

Neocities and the indie web in general is another thing I came across a couple of years ago. Another thing that passively rotated in my mind (as the kids say ((I think...))) until it was properly cooked.

If you read my first entry, you know I started to make papercrafts to feel more human and have fun again since today's Internet doen't seem to encourage either of those things. Making a website and spending less time on the corporate Internet is a natural extension of that.

This is just a placeholder website (I think... I don't love coding so it might stay like this out of laziness...). I found the template here (thank you so much for making it!) and made a few changes (hey, that's what I do with my papercrafts, too!). Hopefully in the future I can make it a bit more mine, and do all sorts of cool things I've seen other people do with theirs.

What I can say for sure, is that I will at the very least complete this version of the website at some point. I'd love to add more links, a proper "about me" section, maybe even a manifesto (oooohh!~).

For now, I'm just happy I finally have one! I hope you enjoy your stay here, as little as there is to see at this time!

I have no idea how to start this to be honest!

I think I'll have to make multiple entries today, since there's so much to go over. But I suppose I should start from the beginning.

I don't exactly recall when I first came across papercrafts. It must have been a couple of years ago or so. I think it was a Youtube video of a guy making a huge Mario papercraft (the video was in Spanish, I think?). I thought it was cool that you could make something like that out of a material so simple, cheap and accessible as paper, but other than that I moved on with my life.

It wasn't until this year that I revisited the idea. I was having some sort of meltdown. A lot of it was due to all the AI BS going on. And it wasn't just the art. I felt like (and still feel like) the Internet had lost most of its humanity. It wasn't fun anymore. Making things wasn't fun. Sharing them wasn't fun. All the algorythms would show me was outrage, anger, and misery, no matter how many times I tried to "teach" it otherwise. The Internet, which had been my home for most of my life, became almost unliveable. I wanted to feel human again. I needed to make something with my hands, in the physical world.

I don't know why papercrafts were what came to mind. Maybe it was the simplicity of them that really stuck with me. When I looked them up, I was once again met with mostly Spanish speaking makers. Some were Japanese, some were Russian. What a random assortment of a community haha.

The things they were making... again, out of paper!! Just paper!! Were incredible! I had no idea you could get so skilled at this hobby!

Source

Source

Just looking at images or videos of papercrafts filled me with motivation to finally try one. I, stupidly, picked a really difficult one. On top of that, I didn't have the recommended materials. So... the result...

<(Help.)

Yeah.

I didn't bother finishing it, and swiftly moved on to searching for a more beginner friendly papercraft. I came across this video, that convinced me to try my hand at making Sakura Miku. I confess, I had already seen it around before, but didn't bother trying to make it because I didn't really like how the face looked. But! This was a blessing in disguise! I made my first modification to a papercraft by pasting in a different face. Even a simple change like this showed me that making modifications was something achieveable, which I kept going with.

I made Miku, and she didn't end up looking too bad! Even with my regular print paper, even in grayscale, she was pretty cute.

So of course, I went on to make more modifications! I liked the idea of turning her into a basic, customizable papercraft. I made some minor adjustments to her proportions, changed her arms, simplified a couple of steps and got rid of any "Miku" features.

(I since lost one of her arms, oops...)

I don't claim that this is a masterpiece, but it came out well enough that it gave me the confidence to continue making changes, even bolder ones!

I had just finished playing Deltarune chapters 3 and 4, so you can see where this is going. I figured (mistakenly) that Tenna would be a nice and simple character to make. His head is just a box, after all! (it's not). His proportions aren't all that different from this papercraft I already have (ehh...). If I just make the shoes bigger by resizing the ones I have, that should pretty much be it! (wrong). Plus, that way I can have my own "merch" of him! Made by me! How exciting! (at least this part isn't wrong).

As you can imagine, making Tenna was a much bigger challenge than I expected. I won't detail every change I had to make, or every step it took (I don't even remember most of them to be completely honest), but here's an indication of how the progression went.

(Went to an actual print shop for the middle one!)

(And here's the final version!)

Mostly, I'm just glad it's over haha. I am a little proud of myself, too. Hopefully I can figure out how to link to the papercraft so you can make it, too, if you want!

Oh, and, inspired by the video I saw of the Miku papercraft that started it all, I also decided to film myself while building Tenna (it was a lot trickier than I expected... seems to be a common thread) and start a Youtube channel. I don't know if this is a good idea yet. But I do want to make many more papercrafts! So... maybe I can have fun sharing things on the Internet again.

I should probably point out that none of this would have been possible if it wasn't for the person who made the original Miku. Their papercraft was just the right amount of simple and pretty. Thank you for jumpstarting my new passion! Every papercraft I make in the future is sure to be somewhat based on this one.

That's all I have for today! Thank you for reading this entry!