So I am sure that all of you savy papercraft-ers are familiar with Ninjatoes, the modeler of the Legend Lara, Lara on her ATV, and MANY others. He is now working on the Extreme Depth Suit from Tomb Raider: Chronicles and if you like ANY of the things here, then you will go nuts for the quality and quantity of ninjatoes's work.
Not only is he a fantastic model designer, but I owe him everything I've done papercraft-wise so far. He put up with my total lack of modeling knowledge and gave me everything I needed to start my own stuff and deserves all of the thanks for how I got where I am today. His work is well known for its buildability, its clear and helpful instructions, and its fantastic final result. He was and is a big inspiration for doing my own stuff, and if you haven't checked him out yet, then what are you waiting for?! GO!
So I was browsing through the object files of the first tomb Raider game, looking for interesting things to bring to life in paper when I stumbled upon a Lara Croft torn to shreds complete with a dying animation. It seems that some of Lara's unfortunate demises in the first Tomb Raider were so great that the warranted their own model of a bloody and beating Lara Croft. While I'm not entirely sure where this animation/model came into play in the Tomb Raider game, it's certainly significant considering the ENDLESS number of times that videogames' favorite heroine has died on screen.
Finally I am able to release a model from the third Tomb Raider: The Dart Tribesman. As Lara explores the South Pacific, searching for the Ora Dagger, she encounters native tribesman in teh Coastal Village. The Dart Tribesman, one of the two types encountered along with the Axe Tribesman, fires poison darts at Lara, forcing her to use a medipack, unless of course she wants to die. The Tribesman are easily visible when lara crosses into their village here:
Next up is the Panther from the first Tomb Raider in the Greece levels. The panther continued appearing in later titles, including Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, and Tomb Raider: Underworld.
Apologies for the time is took to finish this, it has been a bit crazy on my end and I really appreciate you patience and loyalty! You guys are the best!
Here's a quick release to tide everyone over while I continue work on my extractions from Angel of Darkness (yes, Kurtis too) and Legend. I'll be posting some models to vote on later, but I'll try to keep models flowing as much as possible :)
So here's the Gold Artifact from Tomb Raider: Legend's Peru level. Lara receives a telephone call from an old friend, Anaya Imanu, informing Lara of a stone dais she found in Tiwanaku. After Lara explores the site for herself, with some objection by the "local" mercenaries", Lara meets Anaya in a small town square in Paraiso, Peru, where she is ambushed and must fight her way out of the town and escape on motorcycle. Lara meets up with Anaya at an old dig site from Lara's school days, and Lara must re-explore her past.
Here's the Seraph artifact from Tomb Raider 2's Maria Doria Level. Lara takes a minisub to the ship wrekc on the bottom of the ocean floor and finds the Seraph deep within. After escaping the wreck, Lara's unfortunate plane crash lands her deep in the Tibetan foothills where she uncovers a hidden temple and a monastery. In the temple, she uses the Seraph and progresses towards the dagger. Also, I know the image shows gray wings, but they're really gold. Pepakura Designer refused to show them in the image.
Thanks to paperkraft.net for correcting the name for me :)
Next up on the release list is Lara's PDA from Tomb Raider: Legend. The seventh installment in the Tomb Raider series sees Lara with a new gadget to help her navigate the all-too-familiar treacherous tombs and jungles: the PDA.
On a complete tangent, the PDA got me thinking about phones, which got me thinking about my friend Kelly, from The Way I see It. She actually names all of here phones and gives them names, creating a bond before inevitably losing the phone or getting a new one. Kelly is a fantastic friend of mine and we promised to talk about each other in each other's blogs (yes, I'm human, I'm allowed to occasionally blog about things other than papercraft, especially when they're as cool as Kelly). We constantly check the grammar of each other's text messages, act like we dislike each other to make others think we aren't friends (just for fun) and frequently discuss philosophical rhetorical questions such as Civil War reenactments contain blue jeans and why the History channel is such a fascinating portal of unintentional amusement. I frequently consider publishing our conversations, including such statements as "I just saw an alien take out a purse snatcher from 400 yards with an avocado!" and "I love that in your wildest death fantasy, you'll be buried with a five dollar bill. I'd say I'll be there to be sad, but it doesn't sound like you'll be having a funeral". She is fantastic and well deserving of mention in my fledgling portal to the paper world of Lara Croft. So now I've muddled my nice professional-ish blog with personal ramblings and sullied my good name. Congratulations...to me. (Look at all the text you had to read to get to the download link, wow)
Adding to the wide collection of artifacts from Tomb Raider: Legend is the pendant of Lara's mother, Amelia Croft. As Lara's makes her way through a passage in a secret structure hidden behind a waterfall in Ghana, Africa, a glint catches her eye:
While the cut scene tells us that the pendant is Amelia's, the actual pendant tells quite a different story. the inscription on the back of the pendant actually reads:
To my dearest Lara, I shall always have you no matter where you are. Keep dreaming.
-Your mother
I guess that the designers originally intended for the pendant to be to Lara from her mother, but changed what it meant later in development. Cool huh?
Next up is the Giant Spider from Tomb Raider 2. Throughout all of Tomb Raider 2, Lara encountered normal smaller spiders, until she entered the caves levels of Tomb Raider 2 and found their larger counterparts.
This is the first in what i hope will be many models from Tomb Raider: Underworld. In Tomb Raider: Underworld, the artifact/treasure system was altered from that of Legend/Anniversary, wherein the game contained 179 of these small artifactsscattered throughout the world, and 6 treasures, as opposed to increasingly hidden categories of level-themed artifacts.
The complexity, intricacy, and detail of the models from Tomb Raider: Underworld make the models very difficult to simplify into buildable formats, but I'm still working on it as much as possible. An Underworld Lara is probably pretty far away, but I'll have plety to keep you occupied until then :)
The poll is quite clear in that you all want completed photos with the models to make things clearer, and I will get on that as soon as possible.
Here's (Wow, how many of my posts start with "Here's"?) the mining machine from the Natla's Mines section of Tomb Raider. In the first Tomb Raider, Lara sneaks aboard Natla's yacht after diving off Egyptian cliffs to avoid escape and launching herself off of her trademark motorcycle into the ocean. As a reslt of a previous conflict with Natla's goons, Lara has been stripped of her weapons and equipment and must search Natla's mines to re-equip herself, wherin the mining machine serves as a useful tool for blasing through some barriers. The mining machine plays a much greater role in the remake, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, as it carries Lara through confrontations and reveals new sections to explore
Here's a video of the Natla's Mines level in the first Tomb Raider
Here's another of the artifacts from tomb Raider: Legend, the Nepal Artifact! When Lara travel to Nepal to track down her mother's pendant to reassemble Excalibur and return to the site of her mother's disappearance, Lara seeks this artifact in addition to her main quest
Now I'm not sure, but I believe that this is Chinese, as I have seen someone very similar to this in my Chinese class, but regardless, here's the link:
I am an aspiring papercraft designer/builder with a love for all things Tomb Raider. I didn't actually design any of the models, but ripped them and made them into papercraft. Everything is free to download and I'll try to keep updating as often as possible!
