Dr. Killdeath Paper Craft Figure

Now that I've finished my 2013 Christmas Card Slash Book I thought I'd try my hand at making a paper craft figure of one of the stars of the story, Dr. Killdeath.

I meant to have this finished and posted around Christmas, but that didn't quite work out. Stuff happens; whaddya gonna do? Besides, even though he was featured in a Christmas book, there's nothing particularly Christmassy about him, so I don't feel too badly about missing the deadline.

Feel free to download and print out the image and make your own Dr. Killdeath figure. I recommend printing it to card stock, as regular copy paper would be too flimsy. Use an X-Acto knife to cut out the pieces too; it'll be easier than trying to use scissors (even though there's a scissor icon on the sheet above!).

So is it hard to make these paper craft figures, I hear someone asking? Eh, it's not so tough. I generally start by drawing a front view of the figure in 2D, and once I've got it looking the way I want, I deconstruct it and start adding sides and backs to the various pieces. They're pretty much just boxes, so it's not all that complicated.

The hardest part is trying to fit all the pieces onto one 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. That generally requires a lot of rearranging and rejiggering and cursing. I managed to fit all the Doctor's pieces on this sheet, but it was a struggle. I wish there was some computer program out there that would arrange this stuff at the click of a button.

And before anyone asks, I'd like to make a Count Gothula figure to go along with this one, but I don't know if it'll ever happen. The Count is a much more complicated figure than the Doctor is. I've done some preliminary sketches to try and figure out how to do it, and there are some major technical problems I need to figure out. Namely his head-- I've never made a paper craft figure with a round head before, so I'm not exactly sure how best to go about that. And then there's his collar-- it works fine in 2D, but 3D is another story. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on him. 

This is a vector illustration, drawn all in InDesign.

If you assemble everything properly your Dr. Killdeath figure should look like this (except yours probably won't be standing on a cool vintage formica kitchen table like mine). Enjoy!