Recently, thanks to Adam Savage, I’ve started lurking around the Replica Prop forum (TheRPF). It has been inspiring to see all the amazing work they are doing.
So while on TheRPF I discovered Fierfek’s Star Wars Pepakura File Development. My first thought was “what the hell is pepakura?”
I must have this!
That was shortly followed by “WANT!”
For anyone that, like me up until a week ago, doesn’t know what Pepakura is, it’s a nifty piece of software that lets you take a 3D model of an object a flatten it out, or “unwrap it” in the parlance of the community. It then lays the pieces out on a sheet of paper with numbered tabs and corresponding edges. You just cut it out and glue it together.
What could be simpler?
So I rapidly downloaded the Pepakura file for the ANH Stormtrooper helmet, then went hunting for Pepakura Designer 3 (I know probably should have done it the other way round).
I popped down to Office Works and got the Pepakura file (which i had converted to PDF) printed on 300gsm card stock, 25 pages at $0.30 per page. Then I set about reading other people’s experiences of building this particular prop. I saw horror stories of misshapen helmets and anguish. So much anguish. It has a tab count in the thousands!
So I thought, maybe I need a gentler introduction to this scene. I went looking for something easier, to start me off. I didn’t know what I was looking for until I found it.
A Judge Dredd helmet, based on the DREDD 3D helmet!
So back off to Office Works, I trotted, and printed the file. This time it was only nine pages and a tab count in the hundreds. This looks doable!
Only eight more to go
So last night, after I had put the spawnling to bed, I sat down and I managed to cut out four pages. I hope to get the rest cut tonight and maybe even start gluing it together!
No responses yet