I first learned about it from an article by Hilber Graf in the Fall 2004 issue* of Modeler’s Resource magazine. Like many, I was at first a bit skeptical of the idea of paper models. Why would an adult glue together flimsy paper doll things? But upon searching around the web I was quickly impressed at the detail and coolness factor of models that could be downloaded and printed in just minutes. Then I glued together my first (the good ole Borg Cube) and had to do it again.
I began the Paper Hollywood link site in 2007 as pretty
much a way to make a positive contribution to the worldwide community of
paper model builders and designers. Besides that, it was a site I
wanted to see and use myself and there wasn’t one like this. Originally
hosted as a subsite on a free hosting service, the site quickly became
quite popular with very little effort on my part. I think the first two
years all I did was mention it on one forum and write one article for a
generic article site. Eventually my free hosts were shutting the site
down because it exceeded bandwidth limits and I realized I needed to
give PH some breathing room.
After that I secured a domain name and moved the site
to Dreamhost, which I had used for business purposes
for a few years. After several years there, though, I experienced problems with a PHP virus that basically rendered my hosting there useless. I've just moved Paper Hollywood and now the Paper Hollywood Blog hosting once again. Old links to the main Paper Hollywood should be OK, but the old blog pages may not link directly. If you want to see them, though, the entire old version of the PH Blog is stored at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
My intent for this blog was to go beyond the usual
scope of card model blogs and talk about movies, TV and so forth. I've come to realized, though, that I am not very good at consistently contributing to a blog such as this. I tend to blog in spurts of activity for short periods, than go long periods of doing other things, so I'll apologize in advance for any lengthy periods without blog updates.
When I moved the PH blog to this new host this month I did go through and eliminate all the bad links. In the next weeks I intend to fold a great deal of new models into the Paper Hollywood link list, too.
One final thing I'd like to say is that this site and all of us who love these downloadable models owe considerable appreciation to the many talented model designers who have spent untold hours in the design of these models. I ask you to respect the wishes of any model designer who's work you download. That usually means only using the model for personal use and not for sale for profit.
Happy paper modeling!
Wade Watson
