Today is Papertoy Monster Day - the official release day for Brian Castleforte's highly-anticipated Papertoy Monsters book - published by Workman Publishing Company.
You might remember that I mentioned this book last year as one of the Papertoy books to Watch Out For. If you're a regular reader/follower on Paperkraft.net I'm sure you know who Castleforte is, but if you're new and you don't know him yet, check out his personal site to learn more and be acquainted (you can also go to NiceBunny.com or NicePaperToys.com).
If you want to partake in the activities start by visiting Workman's Facebook or Tumblr page, there's also a Papertoy Monster Quiz that you can answer to find out which monster you are :) And to those who just want to build, check out the free Papertoy Monsters available on Workman's Scribd page:
SuperBowl Ghouls Papertoys
Lil Vamp papertoy
Valentine's Day Cupid Paper Toy
The Review
Now let's get to the review, the book is three quarters of an inch thick and chock full of Papertoy Monsters (literallly), 50 fully-designed characters from 24 of the top papertoy designers in the world plus 10 blank templates that you can customized (create your own monster).
Very nice glossy print on the front (see top pic) and back cover of the book, the pages inside are no different - high-quality prints all throughout. The templates are printed on good cardstock, is pre-scored and perforated. All you have to do is punch-out the pieces, fold the tabs, glue them together and you're done.
Cardstock (Front)
Cardstock (Back)
Carstock (Punched-out)
I'll skip the usual stuff (Acknowledgments, Content page, Introduction, How-to Guide) since you're going to be reading it anyways and head on over to the meat ^^.
The 50 unique Papertoy Monsters are subdivided into 4 groups:
1. Monster Legends
2. Earth, Ocean, and Space Monsters
3. Mutant, Food, and Thing Monsters
4. Human Monsters
Each Monster is given its own picture page and toe tag, well, in this case we'll call it an archival tag (see picture below). The archival tag tells you the basic info. for each monster, it includes:
1. Type (scientific name)
2. Variant Names
3. Place of Origin
4. Description
5. Abilities
"Archival Tag"
For those of you who like stories (this would be perfect if you've got kids), each Papertoy Monster comes with a backstory! you'll learn how the monster came to be or why it is what it is ^^. Along with the backstory is the assembly instruction to help guide you in putting the papertoy together and the name of the person who "discovered" the monster.
I thumb-flipped through the pages to see which ones I can randomly sample, I ended up making Zumolla (Tetsuya Watabe), Evil Icy (Nick Knite), and Lord Leonard (Horrorwood). Putting them together was a breeze, I didn't encounter any issues whatsoever and I'm pretty confident you'll experience the same and have a blast making them.
Zumolla
Evil Icy
Lord Leonard
The overall verdict is a definite "Must Buy", the quality is top-notch and the pricing is very good. I couldn't find any problems or issues with it so kudos to Brian Castleforte and Workman Publishing for putting together a wonderful book. This is how you do a papertoy book (so take note future book authors).
Papertoy Monsters: 50 Cool Papertoys You Can Make Yourself! by Brian Castleforte and published by Workman Publishing. ISBN: 9780761158820 (0761158820). Retails for $16.95 US and can be purchased from the following stores:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Borders
IndieBound
Powell's Books
A copy of the book was sent to me by the publisher for reviewing purposes.