Papercraft! It's quite the hobby, there are so many templates out there of pretty much anything - gundams, tables, dolls, weapons, consoles... anime characters.. paperweights, etc. Every once in a while I frequent the /po/ board (aka, Papercraft and Origami) just to see what people have been making. At the time (around November 2007), Portal was a huge hit and this craze for the Weighted Companion Cube spread everywhere.

Every other thread on this board was asking for a Companion Cube template and Valve comes out with a Companion Cube plush toy (which by the way, is kinda ugly and lumpy, the fan made ones look better.) Even so, the cube has it's charm, so if you want it you can buy it at the Valve store here!

Official cube.

Fan cube.

Anyway, I actually tried to play the game to figure out what's so great about this companion cube. I was really expecting a lot more.... when I hit level 17. I played the whole level and the companion cube never talked to me :<

I cry.

But that's beside the point. The game itself was awesome... messing around with the talking turrets and portal gun... and then having to deal with GLADos was disconcerting. I actually played so that I could get in game screenshots of the companion cube textures. Why you ask? Well, I started off by talking about papercraft..... and that's what I set out to do. Make a Companion Cube for my companion :>  (Just in time for Christmas... sort of, I was a week late).

For any of you onlookers, the original templates are here, made by threepanelsoul.com

He originally made his as a Halloween helmet, but for my purposes, I wanted to create a gift box. I resized the templates, reskinned them and adjusted a few of the side attachments, colors, and added a couple of tabs. I'm not going to post my edited templates, I'm not that generous..... I spent time customizing and tweaking it as a special gift.

Here are some pictures of it. I made it so that the lid was removeable, it's a gift box! If you want to made the lid removable you'll have to cut all the tabs on the top lid, and then cut out/paste together four 3-corner pieces for the outside corner parts of the cube.

I used posterboard, Elmer's glue, exacto knives, scissors, scotch tape, photopaper for the heart center piece (it's glossy!) and the pink lines--- you can try using glow in the dark paper or paint if you want the lines to glow like it does in the game.

[align=center][img]http://oksunshine.net/linda/portal/comp2.jpg[/img][/align]

The entire thing was about 6x6x6" and I put in origami stuff in it.. namely crabs.... red and blue ones. He likes the red crabs. I wish I could have made better crabs....

Originally I wanted to make this hermit crab that looked like the ones in Monster Hunter..

.. but I couldn't find the origami instructions, not released yet :<

The green blob in the picture was supposed to be an iguana.

(by Ben Muller from the Origami Tandiem Convention vol. 13) But to be honest I don't think they were very good instructions.... it turned out looking more like a stegasaurus than an iguana. See? IGUANAAAAAA :D :D :D

... vs. my lettuce blob.

Well I tried... this is where he puts it. :>