Paper Miniature and Figure Assembly

How to Assemble your Paper Miniatures

When you have completed designing, drawing and coloring or modifying your figures and have a final printed page you are ready to assemble your figures.

All text will be in reference to the photo/picture that precedes it in the tutorial.

You need a good work surface, a hard protected surface to cut and work on. You can use a cutting matt, a piece of plywood or a couple layers of dense cardstock. Never cut directly on a marble, wooden or formica table or counter tops. Equipment - sharp scissors, hobby knife, stick glue or tube glue (made to be used on paper), a dull rounded point pencil and clear packing tape.

Using your hobby knife or scissors cut the image from the page. Remember to leave enough area around the figure to maintain at least a 1/16 inch border of white surrounding the figure.

Once the figure is cut out gently fold the figure over. Be careful not to press a crease in the seam yet. Place the figure next to a good light source. You should be able to see through the top image to the image on the reverse side. Carefully adjust the fold so that both images line up.

Once the images are aligned pinch the two halves together tightly. If they happen to move go back to the light and readjust the fold if necessary.

With both sides properly aligned, place your thumbnails on the center of the fold and press tightly.

Slowly slide and press your thumbnails outward to the outside edge of the fold line. You should now have a good crease that will help keep both sides of the images aligned.

It is time to decide how you want to present your figures. If you do not want to laminate or tape them and are not interested in inserting a filler then it is time to glue both sides together. If you decide to tape or laminate them you should place a small dab of glue in the inside to tack the two sides together. We will do one taped and one filler version for this example.

If you decide you want your figures to be sturdier or have more definition (3D effect) then you may want to insert a filler material between the two layers. Filler material can be cardstock, manila folder or thin styrofoam. We will use thin styrofoam for one sample filler. Rather than use filler you could also just print the figure on harder denser paper or cardstock itself.

Cut a flat piece of the right size of filler material and insert it between the layers. Aligning both sides with the filler material does present some problems as the density prevents you from seeing through the material against a light.

Once you have it aligned, glue both of the insides to the filler material.

Using your hobby knife carefully cut around the figure. Remember to leave a 1/16 inch border of white around the figure and leave a tab for mounting it on a base. The figure with the filler material was harder to cut and had to be rescored several times before it was completely removed.

Carefully punch out the figure. If any part continues to stick rescore the area with your hobby knife. You should have a completed figure if you just chose to glue the figure. If you chose to tape it continue on.

With the figure tacked or glued together, cut a piece of packing tape and lay it flat with the sticky side up. Place the figure with the seam to the top, upside down at the bottom of the piece of tape. If you are working with a larger figure you may have to lay out several overlapping pieces of tape to handle the width.

This is a tricky part and will take some time and practice to master. Carefully fold the tape over while pressing the two sides together. You want to keep the tape tight so no air bubbles or creases are formed. Unfortunately, if the figure is misaligned and sticks to the tape you cannot peel it off and try again. The figure will most likely be ruined. NOTE: If you do not have a steady hand or the patience, I recommend that you do not try to tape them.

Once the tape is overlapped take your stubby pencil and trace around the outside of the figure border. This will help seal the tape. Remember to do this between the legs or in any other open area of the figure.

With the figure taped and sealed, take your hobby knife and cut around the figure leaving 1/16 of an inch of tape around the 1/16 inch white border. You must leave this area so that the tape will have an area to remain stuck to the tape on the opposite side.

There you have it! We have placed the figures on a simple base to show you what the completed figures look like. You can see the difference between the basic and the filler version. It was difficult using the filler, especially the styrofoam. For our purposes we will stick with the basic taped figure. It provides a clean and slightly more durable figure than the untaped version and is less difficult and faster to assemble than the filler version. The choice is yours!

This document and all paper miniature artwork, photo's, gif's, and jpg's are Copyright © 2006 Patrick Crusiau and Historygamer2. Personal use is granted. Reposting, Redistribution or Commercial use is not authorized!