My name is Chris and I design paper models. I have been building and designing paper models since I was a kid. It started with the weekly Mickey Mouse comics which came with a different paper model included in each issue. I still remember building the Wild West Fort and the Sheriff of Nottingham Castle. I was really fascinated that I was able to produce my own toys.
Later when Star Wars came out I immediately became a huge fan, but back then there were no toys available. Hard to believe now when you have miniatures, spaceships, LEGO sets and computer games in all kind of variations. So what did I do? I built my own paper model X-Wing fighter!
I made it out of orange cardboard pages which I found at home. Building it was a messy trial and error process but it was fun and in the end it looked really special. I was so proud!
Unfortunately I had to learn an important lesson that night: paper models are not indestructible! While I was sleeping happily and soundly our dog ate my precious orange X-Wing fighter. So the next day after the appropriate time for grieving (I think it was about 10 minutes) I sat down and built a new one. And then a TIE fighter. And many more …
When the Lord of the Rings movies arrived, my son and I started to collect the tabletop miniatures and I produced my first tabletop scenery piece to be used with the game: the Rohan house. And after some hesitation (would it be good enough for the public?) I made it available on my old website papermodels.at where I would continue to release a couple of Lord of the Rings inspired buildings. The kind and encouraging feedback I received was nothing short of heartwarming and inspiring.
After that I had to take a break with paper modelling while I was working on two large business projects that took up all my time. I never stopped having ideas but I had to postpone the process of turning them into usable designs for a while. But since I finished the work I instantly went back to developing new paper models.
Recently I have been trying out new things, relearning the software tools required to make life easier and speed up the process. I also focused on making the models sturdier and robust. My new models might take a dog more time to chew 🙂
So you see, since my childhood I enjoy the process of designing new models and I hope you will have as much fun building them as I have creating them.