Kingdom Hearts Papercraft: Cid Highwind's Goggles

I finally got around to finishing another Kingdom Hearts papercraft. This is a 1:1 scale paper model of Cid Highwind's goggles as they appear in the Kingdom Hearts II video game. Cid Highwind first appeared as a character in Final Fantasy VII. After FFVII, Cid appeared in several more video games, including both Kingdom Hearts I and II. Although his appearance differs from game to game, one constant of his costume is a pair of goggles perched on his forehead. As the template for the goggles consists of only one page of five parts, I give this papercraft a difficulty level of a mere 1 on a scale of 5. A download of the template is available here.

Paper First Person Shooter Glasses

I thought this was at the same time amusing and thought provoking. These glasses were created by German performance artist Aram Bartholl for use in one of his projects. Bartholl describes his intent as follows:

"In the project First Person Shooter, the arm holding the weapon of the video game Counter-Strike (Valve 1999) is transferred into physical space... When a player wears the glasses, the arm holding a weapon always remains in the front, regardless of the direction in which the player moves his or her head... The First Person Shooter glasses are, of course, a provocation and a comment on violence in video games. By transferring the typical first-person (shooter) view to the real world, the player is confronted with his or her actions in the game. At the same time, the project shows how separate everyday life in the physical world is from virtual gaming space, with its own rules."

To learn more about the First Person Shooter project visit Bartholl's website at http://www.datenform.de/fpseng.html. Look for the PDF link near the top of the page to download your own pair of the glasses.

Tron 2.0 Papercraft: Hog Goggles

As if I don't have enough works in progress already with Star Trek and comic book character mask projects, I have started working on some papercraft based on 3D models ripped from Tron 2.0. Tron 2.0 is a 2003 video game which should not to be confused with Tron 2 the movie sequel scheduled to be released in 2011. For those unfamiliar, the story lines of both the original 1982 movie and the video game involve humans who are transported to an electronic realm inside a computer where programs appear as living beings. This papercraft is of goggles worn by "Resource Hogs", typical enemy programs in the video game. Template info is as follows:

Scale: 1:1 (estimated)
Finished Size: roughly 8"(20.3 cm) long
Number of sheets: 1
Number of parts: 5
Difficulty: 1/5
Download: Here

As with the Star Trek Elite Force papercraft I am doing, I will be starting simple with the Tron 2.0 models and working towards greater complexity. I think the more complex Tron models will be beautiful to behold with their brilliant colors and elaborate patterns. You can get a taste of what I am talking about from the image of the Hog above.