Hidari Papercraft

I had no real idea what or who "Hidari" actually is, but this image crossed my Instagram feed, and my immediate thought was; I can make that!

Looking at the account's profile, I think it's a team making a stop-motion film, and it might be based on characters drawn by a Japanese illustrator called Hidari, but the translate function on my phone app refused to deal with the pictograms in the text. If anybody is able to enlighten me further, I'd love to know more.

Anyhoo, on with the instructable...

You'll either need paper, pencil and ruler to copy the template by hand, or you need to print out the attached PDF or SVG files that I drew in Inkscape. It has four copies of the same model. If you're working from the photo, you need to know that each square is 5mm across.

You'll also need something to cut the paper, and glue.

Simple: cut out the net of the model. I used a sharp knife on a cutting mat, but a small pair of scissors should work just as well (I deliberately laid out the net so that the mouth was two relatively simple cut-outs, rather than a hole, which can be tricky with scissors).

All the solid lines need to be cut along with scissors or a craft knife. Ignore the dashed lines for now. Don't forget to cut the tall, thin "T" shapes (arrowed) - they will form the legs.

Don't lose the arms!

You are going to be constructing the model with all the drawn/printed lines on the inside, but the mouth needs outlined with a thin black pen (I used a 0.8mm fineliner).

You also need to redraw the eyes - it might be easier put your template against a window (or a lightbox) to see the shadow of the eyes and colour it in with the black pen again.

Don't forget that part of the mouth is on the opposite side of the net to the rest of it - don't forget to line it!

The model is a lot easier to construct if you score the dashed lines - drag an open scissor-blade along the line, or press firmly along it with a ball point pen (preferably a dead one, but it's not so important when the lines are going to end up on the inside of the model).

Then pre-fold all the creases to make them as sharp and crisp as possible.

Test-fold the model, to make sure you know what goes where, then apply a smear of glue to the tabs and fold the model together. You can reach inside the model with your closed scissors to press the tabs more firmly against the other side of the join.

Don't forget to add the arms onto the sides of the model - fold the tab right over before gluing, so that the arm hangs slightly proud of the body.

Gluing Tip: my preferred glue for papercrafts is cheap PVA, but that tends to come in big squeeze-bottle that cannot dispense the small amounts I need. For small models like this, I put a big drop of glue on a non-absorbent thing, such as a small saucer (or, here, the shiny backing card off a sticker), then dip the tip of my little finger in it to smear glue just where I need it. It's easy to hold my sticky fingertip out of the way while the other fingers get on with folding and pressing parts together.

So, that's one model made, but the sketch in the source suggests that it should be part of a long row of figures. How long a row is up to you, but for now, Hidari is being made welcome by the Inch-High Guys...

You can scale the model up and down simply be drawing the net at different sizes, or printing off the template at different sizes (which is why I provided the SVG file).

Made larger, it would serve as an excellent desk-top trash can, and I'd love to see one built from plywood...

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