I recently finished this build of a model designed by Johan Scherft, an artist who makes incredibly life-like models of birds by creating the shape in paper, then hand painting them. This particular model is available as a free download at origami-shop.com along with another of Johann’s earlier models, the Crested Tit.
Johan has a few other models you can download from his website, others that are available for purchase and the files are emailed to you, others as printed kits, and his completed models are offered for sale as well. I quite enjoyed building this one, and will definitely build others.
Below is a shot of the finished bird on a custom wood stand I made from scraps I had in the shop. It’s not the best build in the world, but from a distance it still looks great and I’m quite pleased with it.
Completed European Robin Model
The entire model is layed out on a single A4 page, which I just printed to fit on letter sized. The only instructions are in the form of brief notes and a couple diagrams on the page, but at sixteen parts total, eight of which are toes, I found these to be sufficient.
For assembly I used joining strips rather than the tabs to get a smoother body. I’d like to go back and build it again, but next time I would edit the pattern to lighten the black cut lines. I didn’t worry about getting all of the line cut off, and in some areas the cuts are so fine it’s almost impossible, but the black of the lines show in the finished project. On the wings I did use the supplied glue tabs (with a little coloring along the borders) as this adds depth to the wing.
If you want a little more detail on the build I posted a longer version of this post in my favourite forum. Meanwhile click the image below for more pictures of the build process. Hope you enjoy the pictures, and I strongly urge you to check out the designers web site. You’ll be amazed at the work he does.
This is the parts page with the main body already cut out.
