Jason Nolin was an illustrator at Fat Pencil Studio from 2010-2013.
It's December 2012. The Fat Pencil team gathers around the FPS conference table. Joshua is the first to mention it: we need ideas for this year's holiday card. We hmm. We haw. We talk about last year's cards. We get sidetracked on a conversation about biking infrastructure. We hmm and haw some more. Then Joshua shares an idea: paper cutouts that fold into little figures. There's this book, he's heard, of little paper monsters. We decide to check it out.
Papertoy Monsters, it’s called. We do a few. They’re awfully amusing to build and display. We agree to make our own FPS version. (Let the fun begin!)
It takes a few iterations to get from concept to final form. We have good ideas. We realize those ideas aren’t always as good as we initially thought. We find new good ideas.
We work with the nice folks over at Perfection Custom Print to optimize our design for their new laser cutter. Sizing the slots for the tabs proves to be more challenging than expected. After finishing the outline for the laser cutter, we go to town creating each personality.
The end result: three distinct figures: an energy titan, a mustachioed yeti, and a masked superhero. Collect them all! And Happy 2013!