Paper Punk

I don't know if I've mentioned before, but I'm a huge fan of the blog Epbot. Recently Jen posted a DIY Shadowbox tutorial to display a paper figure. I really liked it, so I decided to have a go myself...

Using a template from Gus Santome, I made a little Iron Man figure (his site has some seriously cute paper templates, I made another which I'll show you tomorrow).

And then I set to work on creating a little display. Rather foolishly, I didn't take any in progress pictures at all - probably because I was having so much fun making that I forgot to document *laughs* So instead I'll give you a tour of the finished product ;)

Presenting my little steampunk(ish) Iron Man display *grins*

After attaching a little metal corner piece to his head, I decided that the box needed to match, so I customised in lots of different ways. First I sprayed a plain cream box with copper paint, then used a black ink pad to give it some more depth:

The texture on the box really helped, I think.

The background isn't too easy to see, but I stuck in some gears and some circles cut from antique book paper:

The gears are also replicated on the front of the box, as shown in the first picture. I decided the front needed something more, so I added a line of "rivets" (stick on pearls that I stained with copper ink)

I carried on the rivet theme onto Iron Man's chest, to tie him in a bit better! I followed Jen's lead and added some flames to the front of the box (I know Iron Man doesn't really have reddish coloured flames, but they fitted better into my colour scheme *laughs*)

I coloured the tops of the flames with copper, and I used spacers between them to stagger the depth.

Overall, I totally love how this came out. It took ages, but I think it's worth it *grins*