How to Easily Make Your Favorite Characters Using Paper!

Paper crafts y'all!

I'm a huge paper crafter and I'm about to show you how to easily make your favorite characters using paper.

You'll need:

-a printout of your character in the size you want to make it.

-pencil

-pen

-thin permanent marker

-scissors

-boxcutter or exacto knife

-hole punch

-craft cutting board

-Colored paper in the colors you need

I often teach this paper craft to elementary school aged students in my workshop and they love it!

What you do is breakdown your favorite characters into the shapes that make them. People usually have a hard time drawing characters that look exact, but it becomes easier if you look at the character as a bunch of individual shapes stacked on top of each other. Once my students do this craft, they're able to better sketch their favorite character with a pencil.

I got this idea from the cards I make my lovely wife Mariko. She's been getting weird construction paper love letters from me for over 15 years now.

Step 1: The Printout!

First you'll need to printout the character you want to make in the size you want to make them.

TIP!

-Using a hole punch to make eyeballs is the easiest way to get perfect eyes. Keep this in mind when you're printing.

Look at the character as a bunch of shapes stacked on top of each other.

This is Morty!

- I cut out Morty and then cut off his legs.

- I traced Morty on peach colored paper.

-I cut out Morty's shirt from the print and traced it on yellow paper.

-I cut out his yellow shirt and glued it on the peach paper.

-Continue this process with as many shapes as you can.

WARNING! Bragging in 3,2...1

I freehand my cards (everybody reading rolls their eyes) so this is also an option.

In my experience, it's better to have kids cut everything out and trace first. You should do the same thing too if you're working with them. The goal is to make a character out of paper that looks exactly like the printout. Young ones will want to cut corners if they can.

Step 2: Oh Man, Oh Jeez! I..I Don't Know Rick!

Morty coming together,

Try to make every shape a different piece of paper.

Step 3: They’re Just Robots, Morty! It’s OK to Shoot Them! They’re Robots!

Rick coming together!

Use an exacto knife to cut out small areas. I used a boxcutter just to show it can be used, but an exacto knife is much easier!

Outline all of your cutouts, before gluing them down. This will help with you not making a mistake. You can outline the cutouts in black pen or maker. I think that marker looks best.

This was for a Valentine's Day card! :)