Blog updates and Papercut Awards

Just a quick update. A few weeks ago I started reorganizing this blog, as it is almost five years old. First I cleaned up the tags so that they would serve as subject categories for the posts, rather than keywords. I am not 100% happy with the way they are now, but I believe they work better than my previous cluttered word cloud. After that, I changed the order and configuration of some of the sections on the right side of the page, hopefully making navigation a bit easier.

Today I have added a new "Downloads" page to organize the downloads of paper figures and models that I have created along these years. These include posts made in this blog and those in the Cardboard Warriors forum. I still have to add a bunch of links. This will include some new figures in the 15mm survivors line, following some inquiries by Ivan Worthington.

Moving on to another subject, voting for the Papercut Awards 2014 has ended and so it is now possible to see the winners in each category. Participating in three categories (single figure, model and mixed media dioramas) was great, both as a challenge to different skill sets and as a contribution to the papercraft community.

Grabbing 4th place in the mixed media dioramas was a bit of a surprise for me, considering the high quality of all entries. Setting up those shots and trying to make good-looking pictures was very fun.

I had mixed feelings for a while, for landing the 3rd place in the models category. After all, we had only three entries, meaning I would grab the 3rd prize anyway. However, I got 16 votes from a total of 43 voters, meaning more than one third of them thought my model was worth 1st or 2nd place -- each voter could pick one or two models in this category. Besides, I cannot be blamed for the lack of additional entries, and mine was the first to be submitted.

It is also interesting to notice the importance of photography in the contest: three of the top five "Best in Show" were entries to the diorama categories (although one of them involved designs that were created specifically for the contest.)

This is what I had to say about this year's awards. Eric 'Squirmydad' Brown said he will compile all entries as downloads -- and there are some really awesome ones. I am particularly interested in building the townsfolk vs. undead battle set.