Gavin Goes To Harlancore! Pt 3

Gavin here, and not only is this the end of the fun times I had with Jason Harlan, it’s also the debut of a brand new, never before seen, EXCLUSIVE haralncore.com boxpunx. You’ll find it at the end of the article. Click it. Print it. Make it. This I command you! And thanks go out to Jason Harlan for letting me into his world and talking to me. He is a great guy and an excellent artist. Find all of the models you can make and more at harlancore.com. Go there now. You’ll love the PF4 line I promise you. And keep your eyes peeled for some customs by me and a cutom design contest here soon.

Gavin Stone: i want to go back to MMO’s real quick. Do you play any now?

harlancore: No way. I am terrified.

Gavin Stone: Of what!

harlancore: I like it too much. I won’t do anything else. I am an xp addict.

Gavin Stone: Yeah, i kinda played a damn lot of City Of Heroes. I know how that went.

harlancore: I like always knowing the way to go, so I have to do everything before my friends so I can lead them thru it.

Gavin Stone: So if you wanted to go back into the mmo life, what would you want to play? Maybe Star Wars the Old Republic? I am all over that game.

harlancore: I will probably try the next Final Fantasy online when it comes out. The Star Wars game does look impressive, no doubt.

Gavin Stone: Ok, getting back into papercraft, what is it like being in the papercraft community? I notice you do designs for some of the other guys out there. Is it like a family feel to it? There doesn’t seem to be any competition among the sites which I think is awesome.

harlancore: As far as I can see, only good can come out of like minded artists having a network where their ideas can be exchanged. It’s like an artform that fits so well within the model the internet has set up for it. Being able to share my art with a community is precisely what caused my art work to be shown be others outside of my own website. I don’t advertise my papercraft anywhere but the homebase for the community, it’s the community that has advertised the work. Bless the community! Seriously, thanks to the boxpunx fans! I love how all the creators are fans. Plus there is no money anywhere causing any drama. At least not at the moment.

Gavin Stone: Of all the other papercraft designers out there, who do you really, really like? I am liking where HorrorWood is going. The Calling All Cars series is awesome.

harlancore: I love HorrorWood’s work. His models are cool looking, easy to build, and his illustration has an attractive animation quality not unlike my own. I really like it. HorrorWood and Marshall Alexander are the only two people I have made two customs for each. So, I guess they are my favorites. I also like the work Sal Azad. His models are beautiful, in a class all by themselves. I haven’t customized one of his models. The art he applied to them is already brilliant enough.

Gavin Stone: what site does Mr. Azad do his work for?

harlancore: http://salazad.com/smile/ That’s his website.

Gavin Stone: That’s funny. The one Dolly Oblong paper totem I was digging was made by Mr. Azad. Little Monsters.

harlancore: Oh yeah, that’s a great one!

Gavin Stone: well, being a he-man fan i also liked the man-e-faces paper totem too. So besides this site, are there any other ‘off the grid’ sites you think people should be fans of?

harlancore: As far as cool sites, it’s hard to pick favorites when you like so many. I have a lot of likes on my blog to many cool creators. Just check out Nice paper toys. That’s the hub for this kind of thing.

Gavin Stone: I think your style in the paper totems but as Lovecraft creatures would be epic.

harlancore: I am still working on one. It’s based on the animation, Giant Robo.

Gavin Stone: GIANT ROBO!! SWEET!!

harlancore: A three piece totem, then the boy as a boxpunx.

Gavin Stone: Oh hell yeah.

harlancore: I am almost done. I started it a couple weeks ago, then had to stop to finish a project with a deadline. That project is complete, so before I make any Superjail models, I want to finish my totem. So far, I really like it. Maybe next week I will be done. But still, a cthulu totem, the idea is cool!

Gavin Stone: I love the idea! Do your fans ever ask you to create some certain boxpunx? What was the craziest request you ever got?

harlancore: Oh my goodness, all the time. That’s the email I get the most of. Requests. I try to tell people to download the blank template and draw it! They say they can’t draw. I say, ask your cool artist friend, download the template and give it to him or her! They say they don’t know an artist and I say, you need to! But seriously, I don’t mind, because I assume they all like the models I have made, and it’s fun to communicate with other genre fans. I tell people I try to make models based on things I actually know and love, not just anything that’s popular. I have never watched Naruto. I of course have seen the orange main character, but I don’t think it is fair to fans of Naruto. Let the papercrafter who loves Naruto make Naruto. So, Naruto may not sound like a crazy request. What’s crazy to me is how many people continue to request Naruto. I think I better watch or something, I don’t know.

Gavin Stone: Naruto is awesome actually.

harlancore: I bet I would like it, you know. But I can’t watch everything. I have to pick and choose! And it’s just way down the list. No one ever requests something crazy, I wish they would! It’s more like Batman or Gundam or something already very huge and popular.

Gavin Stone: Ok, here are some of my requests for your lines- Rival Schools. The game is awesome and the characters rock. We started playing it when the machine was in a CiCi’s. I always played motorcyclist Akira and Tiffany and it was unstoppable with Tiffany’s kiss of health. Then I unlocked Akira and found out he was a she and it was even more awesome. The little kids around kept asking why two girls were kissing.

harlancore: Rival Schools, I remember it, but never played it. I dug the character designs, the only thing keeping me from doing would be the severe lack of knowledge as to what it was about.

Gavin Stone: It was rival schools united by fate. Seriously, get this game. It is just super fun.

harlancore: I will take this as a serious recommendation then and check it out!

Gavin Stone: You won’t be sorry. Ok next Speed Racer. It’s a classic and I am a die hard fan.

harlancore: I almost made a Speed Racer model for Nick Knite’s Sizza before doing the Evangelion ones! But then I saw that he already made a model called SPEED RACER soo I changed the whole idea. I even did a few sketches of Speed and Racer X as Boxpunx, so I am already half way there.

Gavin Stone: Now you know you have to finish those, right?

harlancore: I really should, they will look pretty cool I imagine!

Gavin Stone: Excel Saga. Cause every desk in the world need an emergency food supply Menchi.

harlancore: Wow, I did in fact see the first episode of Excel Saga and yes, I thought it was great. So funny. I need to see more, it’s been a while. I had forgotten about it, what a nice reminder.

Gavin Stone: Its got a great theme song. Cause I have to ask, are you planning on showing some love to DC? Me? I’m a Marvel guy, but I do dabble in the other comic giant every now and then.

harlancore: I have made one DC model, there is a boxpunx out there based on Death, from Sandman. I was sketching some Batman and Superman dollpunx the other day. Harlancore reads both Marvel and DC, definitely. It’s only a matter of time.I will make a Dream, just let me get it right first!

Gavin Stone: At least Spider-man wasn’t made with a skirt. Superman can have it cause he’s a sissy.

harlancore: lol

Gavin Stone: Last request. If you couldn’t figure it out, I am a raving star wars fan boy. Cause it’s so much better than Star Trek. Yeah you made C-3PO and R2-D2, but the rest of the characters are dying for the Harlancore touch.

harlancore: That’s certainly an ambitious request, and if I can figure out a way to present a Persona Users versus Jedi Knights concept, we just may have something that could fit into the Boxpunx universe. Although this is exactly the kind of project I made the blank model for!

Gavin Stone: Sounds like a challenge.

harlancore: So, I will just say, maybe one day. Just not today.

Gavin Stone: Did you ever think of starting a fan made section of the site for everyone to post their customs in one place?

harlancore: I did, at first, but since in all honestly, I don’t get a whole of lot of boxpunx submissions. Its only recently I discovered people make them, but don’t always send me the template. Making a page with only a few customs wasn’t very attractive, so I took it down. I started to think that Boxpunx isn’t popular because of the blank template, it’s what I put on the template. But once every 7 months someone sends me a custom, and I usually show it on my blog. I like it better that way. The more time I spend building webpages, the less time I spend drawing. I would rather be drawing. I did, at first, but since in all honesty, I don’t get a whole lot of boxpunx submissions, I decided to take it down. (that’s what the first sentence should say…doh)

Gavin Stone: Have you seen a fan made model that just blew you away? I know DeviantArt is a great place for that, but outside of the three Naruto ones you posted I haven’t seen any boxpunx customs there.

harlancore: Yeah, customizing Boxpunx is not very popular. People like the art that’s already on them. That’s fine with me! I am glad they like what I have done already.

Gavin Stone: well I hope I can wow you with my Space Channel 5 ones. PURGE!!!!

harlancore: I am looking forward!

Gavin Stone: Lastly, because I really want to touch on this because I feel it just culminates the entire PF4 epic, Explain the way the PF4 player guide came to be? I loved it. It was like a peek inside your world and I saw the things that were to be but not, like Felicia’s hair. And it alleviated my fears that the Darkstalkers line wouldn’t be complete. I think what I enjoyed the most was seeing some of the things to come, like FF7!

harlancore: I thought that people might like seeing some of the sketches I had made so the idea of scanning them in and making some kind of artbook out of them could be a new and interesting way of presenting papercraft. If we can make our own toys, we can also make our own books and magazines, we can create whatever type of media we want to advertise what we had done. So ultimately inspired by Japanese artbooks made for fans of whatever, I created this whole presentation with photos and instructions as well as drawings. Kind of like a podcast, at least in concept. I hope the idea catches on. And since I waste enough paper already, here’s a book you can download and throw away when you are done!

Gavin Stone: Any plans for exclusive models in those books later on down the line?

harlancore: Definitely. I want to make two more PF4 books, and other books too. Making an ebook about my own papercraft was very fun, and I think I only scratched the surface of what is possible. I imagine there will be exclusive models in every ebook I make from here on out.

Gavin Stone: Well I hope it catches on cause it is definitely worth it. And with that I am out of questions. This has been so much fun I can not express how glad I am we got to do this.

harlancore: Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed, thanks so much for this!

And here it is, our GiantKillerSquid.com exclusive BoxPunx – Dr. Manhattan. Just click the image to go to the original, then print it on cardstock paper and make it.