Despite the unfortunate name, Etsy isn’t all popsicle-stick sculptures and kitten sweaters. Enter: Debunking Etsy, a bimonthly column profiling all the wonderfully talented craftsmen who use the site to peddle well-built, hard-wearing and handsome goods for your home and person.
Maybe you’re a hunter, maybe you’re not.
Regardless, a house with a menagerie of glassy-eyed animals hiding behind every corner can come across a bit … menacing.
But there’s a way to inject a soupçon of animalia into your home without the whole disembodied head-mount thing, and it’s called Paperwolf. The brainchild of German computer animator Wolfram Kampffmeyer, Paperwolf is an Etsy shop proferring a veritable “zoo” of 3D-printed paper animals, from hippos and chameleons to aardvarks and sabertooth tigers.
In 2010, Kampffmeyer discovered a computer program that would help him transfer visual models to papercraft kits; ever the manually inclined (he’s been disassembling vacuum cleaners and old computers since childhood), he decided to bring his idea to life. The result is a DIYer’s dream that makes for an offbeat design statement piece. The animals are brought to life with a mix of glue, elbow grease and savvy, and are equally ideal for a modern-leaning man cave or children’s bedroom.
While the design process can take Kampffmeyer up to a week (he studies Youtube videos and even visits the zoo to accurately capture an animal’s form) your assembly will settle somwhere in the five- to eight-hour range. Expect less time for the birds, and more effort for bigger animals, such as the mammals in his African trophy head collection. And keep on the look-out for new color options for each animal, or new additions to the zoo.
Below, we’ve included a few of our favorites.
Sabertooth Tiger — $70
Flight of Birds — $66
Walrus Family — $45
Brown Bear — $69
Elephant — $74
All images from Paperwolf
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