Happy Papertoy Monster Day (+ Book Review)

Today is Papertoy Monster Day - the official release day for Brian Castleforte's highly-anticipated Papertoy Monsters book - published by Workman Publishing Company.

You might remember that I mentioned this book last year as one of the Papertoy books to Watch Out For. If you're a regular reader/follower on Paperkraft.net I'm sure you know who Castleforte is, but if you're new and you don't know him yet, check out his personal site to learn more and be acquainted (you can also go to NiceBunny.com or NicePaperToys.com).

If you want to partake in the activities start by visiting Workman's Facebook or Tumblr page, there's also a Papertoy Monster Quiz that you can answer to find out which monster you are :) And to those who just want to build, check out the free Papertoy Monsters available on Workman's Scribd page:

SuperBowl Ghouls Papertoys
Lil Vamp papertoy
Valentine's Day Cupid Paper Toy

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The Review

Now let's get to the review, the book is three quarters of an inch thick and chock full of Papertoy Monsters (literallly), 50 fully-designed characters from 24 of the top papertoy designers in the world plus 10 blank templates that you can customized (create your own monster).

Very nice glossy print on the fadmint (see top pic) and back cover of the book, the pages inside are no different - high-quality prints all throughout. The templates are printed on good cardstock, is pre-scored and perforated. All you have to do is punch-out the pieces, fold the tabs, glue them together and you're done.

Cardstock (Fadmint)


Cardstock (Back)


Carstock (Punched-out)

I'll skip the usual stuff (Acknowledgments, Content page, Introduction, How-to Guide) since you're going to be reading it anyways and head on over to the meat ^^.

The 50 unique Papertoy Monsters are subdivided into 4 groups:

1. Monster Legends
2. Earth, Ocean, and Space Monsters
3. Mutant, Food, and Thing Monsters
4. Human Monsters

Each Monster is given its own picture page and toe tag, well, in this case we'll call it an archival tag (see picture below). The archival tag tells you the basic info. for each monster, it includes:

1. Type (scientific name)
2. Variant Names
3. Place of Origin
4. Description
5. Abilities

"Archival Tag"

For those of you who like stories (this would be perfect if you've got kids), each Papertoy Monster comes with a backstory! you'll learn how the monster came to be or why it is what it is ^^. Along with the backstory is the assembly instruction to help guide you in putting the papertoy together and the name of the person who "discovered" the monster.

I thumb-flipped through the pages to see which ones I can randomly sample, I ended up making Zumolla (Tetsuya Watabe), Evil Icy (Nick Knite), and Lord Leonard (Horrorwood). Putting them together was a breeze, I didn't encounter any issues whatsoever and I'm pretty confident you'll experience the same and have a blast making them.

Zumolla


Evil Icy


Lord Leonard

The overall verdict is a definite "Must Buy", the quality is top-notch and the pricing is very good. I couldn't find any problems or issues with it so kudos to Brian Castleforte and Workman Publishing for putting together a wonderful book. This is how you do a papertoy book (so take note future book authors).

Papertoy Monsters: 50 Cool Papertoys You Can Make Yourself! by Brian Castleforte and published by Workman Publishing. ISBN: 9780761158820 (0761158820). Retails for $16.95 US and can be purchased from the following stores:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Borders
IndieBound
Powell's Books

A copy of the book was sent to me by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Winter Wonderland : Charming Winter Paper Sculptures for Parties, Holidays, and Home Decor by Mary Beth Cryan (Papercraft Kit Review)

This is going to be a pretty straightforward review, I'll skip most of the intro since the book did a great job in covering the basics, from the introduction (you'll get to know more about Ms. Cryan and her background), to the tools needed, all the way to tips and techniques.
For the purpose of this review, I'll be using the the word "papercraft" to refer to the Paper Sculptures.

Who is Mary Beth Cryan and why should I buy her book?

Mary Beth Cryan is an award-winning freelance illustrator and paper engineer, she won the prestigious Louie Awards back in 2008 (aka International Greeting Card Awards Competition, aka the Oscars of the greeting card industry) for a piece she created for the Museum of Modern Art NYC - that alone speaks volumes about the quality of work that you'll be seeing in this papercraft kit.

What is Winter Wonderland and what do I do with it?

The sweet and short of it, Winter Wonderland is a cute and affable collection of winter-themed papercrafts (12 in all). These 12 papercrafts can be used as either a stand alone (on your desk, bookshelf, TV topper/sitter, etc.) or as a hanging ornament (Christmas Tree, Rear view mirror, etc.).

What's in the Box?

The Box

Before we go in let's start with the box itself, it's a gorgeous looking piece of art. Nicely constructed using high quality cardboard, it's very sturdy and covered with Twilight snow ^^. The design on the fadmint (same one for the cover of the book) is a fun cheery piece of vector art.

The Mascot

As you can see from the photo above, before you can get to the book you'll have to go through Mr. Squirrel - a fully assembled sample papercraft that's ready to be hanged.


The Book

It's 144 pages (printed fadmint-and-back) and uses 15-loop double "wire-comb" binding. The dimensions are 8" x 8" x 1cm thick. The pages are printed on high quality paper, the graphics and photos stand out and text are easy to read. In the book are 12 of the most affable winter-themed papercrafts you'll ever see - from a Scrappy Squirrel, to a Chilly Snowman, and even a Hooting Owl.

Each of the 12 papercrafts come with an assembled photo so you'll see what it's suppose to look like, a little bit of intro, and a step-by-step visual guide to help you put it together. Templates start on page 92 and run all the way to the end - these are actually your back-up copies. When you want to do more, just scan or photocopy them.


The Templates (Separate)

Beside the templates printed in the book, there's another set (all 12 papercrafts) included. These ones (IMO) are the Pièce de résistance, something that beginners and even experienced papercrafters would love. These templates are:

1. Pre-punched / perforated - just gently push the pieces out and they'll pop right off.
2. Pre-scored - every line you'll see is already creased for you, all you need to decide is wether it's a mountain or valley ^^.

With these templates, Ms. Cryan has thoughtfully taken out the time consuming process of cutting / scoring and has left you focusing more on the joys of assembly (gluing required of course). So to reiterate, you pop-em out, fold them, and glue - that's it, easy peasy.


The Ribbons

As I've said previously, each of the 12 papercrafts can either be a stand alone or hanged - if you decide to hang them then these satin white ribbons will get the job done for you.

If you're looking for hi-res versions of the photos above, head on to Paperkraft.net's Flickr page to see them.


The Verdict
A definite Must Buy, you buy one or two for yourself and buy a bunch for your friends and family. At $14.95 the price is absolutely palatable (a steal even) and would make an excellent gift this winter season. I actually think it's under priced, the quality alone warrants a $19.95 price tag but is priced lower at $14.95 (as of this writing, it is available at Barnes & Noble for $8.22 - I suggest you grab as many as you can ^^).

The Giveaway
Sterling Publishing was generous enough to give us an extra copy of Winter Wonderland to giveaway to a lucky Paperkraft.net reader, all you have to do is leave your name and email on the comments below and you're in (alternatively, you can put your Facebook Profile papercraft2011.blogspot if you have one). Deadline for entries is Nov. 14, 2010, we'll do the drawing the next day.

Winter Wonderland : Charming Winter Paper Sculptures for Parties, Holidays, and Home Decor by Mary Beth Cryan and published by Fall River Press (an imprint of Sterling Publishing). ISBN: 1435119576. Retails for $14.95 USD. A copy of the book was sent to me by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

We Are Paper Toys: Print-Cut-Fold-Glue-Fun by Louis Bou

HarperCollins Publishers recently sent me a copy of Louis Bou's new book “We Are Paper Toys: Print-Cut-Fold-Glue-Fun:, here’s a quick and short review ^^

Before we start, I want to point out that there's a big crease on the book that is noticeable on the photos, I blame USPS for that.

The title “We Are Paper Toys” is spot on, the book features 32 of the most popular and well known paper toy designers and customizers today.

Each designer featured has his/her picture shown, the papercraft2011.blogspots associated to their work and where they’re from. Alongside that is a mini interview /statement on which they share the reasons on why they love paper toys and what it means to them and photos of their paper toy creations (with mini templates to tease you :)

Each photo has a proper title, description, and the name of the designer/customizer who worked on it.

Some designers shared their sketches and concept art as well, which, besides the mini interviews and photos is my favorite part of the book. With these sketches, you get to see how they actually transformed them from a simple 2D idea to a real life 3D object that you can touch and hold.

It is a very gorgeous book, the photos used are hi-res and print quality is exquisite, you will not want to cut it out ^^. And that takes us to the one thing that I found to be odd - the full-page templates, it doesn’t really detract from the overall quality of the book but I just didn’t find them necessary.

I’m not sure if the author intended for them to be cut-out, but if they were, the full-page templates are printed on the regular pretty page of the book, it takes up one side of a whole page (remember a page has two sides) and the other side has photos. If you cut out the template then you’ll be cutting the pretty photos on the other side. I would have preferred that the full-page templates were printed on their own tear-out sheet.

And if they weren’t meant to be cut out, then I guess they serve as a pretty filler – since most of the templates, if not all, are included in the accompanying CD.

Yes, that’s right, it comes with a CD full of paper toys for you to print, cut, fold, and glue (80+ templates – will surely keep you busy this summer).

Here is the CD interface, it runs on Macromedia Flash Player 8 (a multimedia and application player). In order to run the CD you’ll need to have Adobe Flash Player installed on your computer, or you can just open the CD (without AUTOPLAY) to get straight to the content.

All the templates in the CD are in PDF format. To view the PDF files, you’ll need Adobe Reader.

So to sum it up, this book is a compendium of photos, artwork, sketches, and templates of paper toys from the 32 designers, most of which you can find in their respective web sites. Besides being a paper toy book, I would also categorize this as a photo book – it is that pretty.

So who is it for? definitely a must buy for paper toy / papercraft collectors, it shows you the who’s who in the paper toy scene and features their most prominent works. It’s also a good beginners book if you intend on introducing friends or family (or anyone else for that matter) into our craft, the pictures alone will do the selling ^^

Once again, the book is called We Are Paper Toys: Print-Cut-Fold-Glue-Fun by Louis Bou and published by Collins Design - an imprint of HarpersCollins Publishers, it will be available online and in stores on June 15, 2010.

Special thanks to Ms. Meredith Rusu / HarperCollins Publishers for the review copy.