Although the actor Mr. T has been reduced these days to doing television commercials for World of Warcraft, back in 1984 he was popular enough to have his own brand of breakfast cereal. As if that wasn't an odd enough twist of pop culture in and of itself, the cereal also went on to be immortalized on film by none other than Pee Wee Herman in the 1985 movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure...
When I came across a scan of a Mr. T cereal box in Jason Liebig's wonderful collection of retro product packaging photos on Flickr (check it out here), I couldn't resist creating a miniature papercraft version of it. So I asked, and Mr. Liebig graciously granted me permission to use his scan for my project. The template for the cereal box papercraft includes two sizes, one at 1:3 scale and the other at 1:6 scale (just the size for Barbie dolls). The one page template may be downloaded here. And just in case you were wondering, the cereal is rumored to have tasted a lot like Cap'n Crunch. ;)
I have begun experimenting with a method of creating papercraft that involves using digital photos. For my first attempt, I grabbed a Campbell's soup can from the pantry and took a few photos from which I created a 1:1 scale papercraft model. I intentionally chose a Campbell's soup can because I think it brings up some interesting questions. Is papercraft art? Most people would say that urban paper toys created by professional graphic designers are art, but what about papercraft created from 3D models ripped from video games? What about my soup can which is a life size paper replica of a real world object? I would like to believe that if Andy Warhol were still around he would say all these things are indeed art. In 2008, Warhol's 1:1 scale reproductions of a Brillo box, a Campbell's tomato juice box, a Del Monte peach halves box, and a Heinz tomato ketchup box together as a group sold for $4,750,000 at a Sotheby's auction. If only my papercraft tomato soup can would do as well. :) A download of the template is here.
Although the actor Mr. T has been reduced these days to doing television commercials for World of Warcraft, back in 1984 he was popular enough to have his own brand of breakfast cereal. As if that wasn't an odd enough twist of pop culture in and of itself, the cereal also went on to be immortalized on film by none other than Pee Wee Herman in the 1985 movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure...