BYOCT

[danny_galaga]

Ya! Ya! Ya! Ya! Ya!

I downloaded a papercraft Crazy Taxi a while ago and recently i thought i'd actually try it. Of course there aren't any instructions available, so i had two copies printed, just in case. That way i could make some mistakes. Here is the end result. In a moment i'll write about the bits i found tricky in case anyone else wants to have a go because there is no there other info on the net! This is the second papercraft model i've ever built, the first being a 1/35 scale V2 rocket. I wouldn't say this is a beginners model, but if you are pretty good with an x-acto and are patient go for it! It's really quite satisfying to see these flat pieces of paper become 3 dimensional (",)

CRAZY TAXi Crazy taxi crazy taxi byoct BYOCT byoac BYOAC sega crazy taxi papercraft paper craft car model

[danny_galaga]

Ok, here's how i built my own Crazy Taxi. First, start cutting! There are 31 pieces on 4 sheets. I had it printed on 170 gsm silk something something. 2 copies. I left the most fiddly bits until later so they wouldn't disappear. First things i built were probably the easiest. The chassis and the cockpit and chairs. Good way to get the skills going, and gives a bit of a sense of achievement. Some tips i picked up from building something before- where you think it will shine through, gently colour in the score lines with a soft graphite pencil for lighter coloured things. Fold the score completely over to get in there. Sometimes a flat white 'glue here' area looks like it might shine through too, so colour that in as well.

For really dark areas, i used a black felt tipped pen. I used this on the wheels edges, chassis, and canopy parts. You can see the difference between doing or not in the first pic

[danny_galaga]

Things progressed fairly smoothly, the side panels bent into shape nicely. There is a 'sub' bonnet/hood. This has the headlights. Make sure you cut the head lights so the panel between them can be recessed. Came time to make the front bumpers, and i just stared at them for ages, making sure i got it right. Another tip. On the bumpers, and some other parts, you need to score some of the fold lines on the other side. What i do is make a tiny nick with the knife on the edge of each end. Then when you turn i over, it's very clear where you need to cut. Always use a steel straight edge for lines of any significant length.

Here you can kind of see the cross section of the front bumper. Once everything is folded, it resembles two triangles joined by a line.

[danny_galaga]

I also ended up staring at the bonnet/hood for ages. It just seemed too big, no matter HOW i bent the folds. Then I realised the outer fold is supposed to fold right underneath back on itself. There are two front tabs, they go underneath and glue onto these outer folds. Windscreen attaches at this stage too.

A lot of dry fitting on the front end. Keep lining things up until they seem right.

Second photo you can see its coming along nicely (",)

[danny_galaga]

I left the last fiddling bits until last. The mirrors are by far the fiddliest. I figured out a technique that worked for me. Basically i cut out the outline of the mirrors. But you can bet it's not going to come out cleanly. Some of the parts are so thin, it'll tear if you force it. So what i do is once the outlines are cut out, i start to cut out wedges of the waste material.

[danny_galaga]

I built the car perfectly standard to the 'kit'. The wheels though are just flat disks, part of the chassis. They actually look ok from some angles, but from most, if it was a real car it would look like it has plywood wheels! So i decided to pimp my ride a little!

Since i printed two copies, i used sections of the spare chassis as 'tyres', and cut out the bits of wheel i'd need. Initially, the tyres had a whole bunch of tabs. But that was a disaster. I came apon a neat solution, As seen in the pics. Tyres are strips 10mm x about 24mm, plus a bit of a tab on the ends.

I attached a little tab on the inside of the wheels, both the original and the inside ones. Then lining everything up, i glued the 'tyre' to the tab on the original wheel first. The tabs are inset just enough to allow the tyres to be flush. When that is dry, then i glued the tyre tabs down, tucking them in nice and neat so the tyres apparent diameter wasn't bigger than the wheel. When i did this, i used the inside wheel to make sure the tyre was spaced properly, but didnt glue them yet. If you have more than a couple of things gluing at the same time it becmes quite difficult to keep everything lined up.

[danny_galaga]

Voila!

Bitchin' 

[danny_galaga]

The other thing that irked me was the back of the drivers seat- that is to say, there isn't one! So i pimped that too using the spare seat print i had. It worked out very nicely, as the dark line that indicated the seat fold now looks like where the top half of the seat meets the bottom

[danny_galaga]

All in all, a good bit of fun. Got my brain working on some pleasant problems (",)

This is free to download, so you can't complain. But i will anyway! Unless there's some trick the pros use, i found some of the score lines (indicated by a dotted line) to be really noticable. The windscreen is the worst. They are actually black! Why they couldn't use a slightly darker blue than the windscreen colour is beyond me. Actually, that is about my only gripe! The lack of full depth wheels and back of the seat i would say are down to size constraints. All the parts fit neatly onto four pages. the extra bits would be a 5th page.

Instructions would have been nice too, but it was fun nutting it out on my own (",)

[Malenko]

Im so glad this wasnt a "build you own chad tower" thread

[danny_galaga]

Im so glad this wasnt a "build you own chad tower" thread

Or Build Your Own Connecticut...

[Havok]

Most impressive!

(And I was thinking it might be build your own cocktail)

[Fordman]

I think my 3 yr old got something similar at the Steak N Shake restaurant a few months ago. Took about 5 minutes to fold-tuck and poof.....a paper Mustang!
A huge step up from the paper chef hat they usually give the kiddo's walking through the door.



Fordman