Dropping the first papercraft of the year, and the first full papercraft I've personally done in 4 years (if you exclude commissions and standees). I was grateful to catch one of the limited theatrical screenings of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein (2025) at the end of last year and I think we can all agree this scene was the stand-out moment in the film. But there were also several themes that hit me with such a powerful resonation, I felt like my soul was sucked into the film and split between the mind of Victor and the heart of the Creature.
Firstly, how could I have not captured this scene in papercraft? Assembling the Creature from scraps of paper, moments before he's meant to become scraps himself. It allowed me to step into Victor's shoes, and relive the obsessive pursuit he describes in the film, only to suddenly meet his goal and aimlessly fumble with what he's created, chaining it in the dungeon, out of sight and mind. I find myself, after tireless nights of dedicated crafting, throwing my completed papercrafts into my closet, documented, abandoned, eager to start the next one.
My Cake Tier Patreon members can download a digital papercraft kit of this when I drop the files later tonight!
Read on further if interested in how this papercraft marks a personal health milestone for me. Otherwise, have a wonderful day!
Why this papercraft marks a personal health milestone for me.
March 2023 is when my health suddenly took a left turn (see Facedown Fate and Night-Glimmer posts). Out of nowhere, I began to have what I call 'low heart rate sessions', where my heart rate for any activity was running 10-15 points lower than normal. I felt like I was walking underwater, my chest felt heavy, I felt cold, and would have to breathe heavy to keep up with the activity I was doing (whether that be walking, or even sitting). Then after several hours, it would suddenly disappear. My HR would rise to normal levels, my breathing would ease, my temperature would rise. No explanation or trigger.
I went to the ER 7 times over the next two months, and with the onset of my second now-chronic symptom, what I refer to as a PVC, I checked into the hospital for evaluation. People who have PVCs describe them as heart flutters, but mine are heart 'kicks'. Like a miniaturized version of the wind being knocked out of you. It's a scary, uncomfortable heart rate hiccup, invoking a short cough, and there's a feeling of dread lasting moments after it happens.
Over the next two years, I went to gastrologists, pulmonary specialists, allergists, 3 different cardiologists, tested so many medications, had multiple CT scans, MRIs, Echos, holter monitors, stress tests, all coming back with 'you're healthy as a horse, it's just stress'. In the end, the only solution my cardiologists could offer were anti-depressants for the stress or beta-blockers for the PVCs (which, hah, lower the heart rate….hello???), which I declined both. I felt if it was stress causing these mystery symptoms, medications interfering with my productivity would just make me more stressed.
During the height of my symptoms I would experience a PVC every 20 minutes, invoked by sudden HR changes (even something like eating shaved ice, which triggers a hypothermic response through your tongue) or random stress events. Eventually, I cut out unnecessary stress in my life (like the news) and I saw my PVCs start to recede to a handful of times per day, months later.
Now, almost three years later, I'm only experiencing them a couple of times a week, if at all, after significant lifestyle changes and rigorous stress deterrents that I invoked at the start of 2025.
I sat through the Frankenstein film marveling at how bosom buddies I was with Victor's ambitions, only to realize I was experiencing my second self through the Creature. A being who was confused in his body, and clashing with his creator, desperate for answers on how to continue living as he is.
Him holding onto the dynamite stick was a taunted retribution toward Victor, but there's a moment of desperate hope in his eyes that this could be the way to unmake himself, perhaps into something Victor would realize he has to accept.
Last year I had to unmake myself to put everything back together with where I'm at now. With those tools in my pocket, I have a better outlook for 2026 and beyond. Rather than the closet, I've hung this frame in my hallway to remind me of this milestone, my Creature, everyday.
Stories often use their characters as mouthpieces for the narrative and/or the writer, and I am fascinated by the Terror's take on this, because the characters are so often wrong.
For example, consider the conversation between Blanky and Francis in episode 7, when they are about to abandon the ships. Blanky tells a story about the time the Terror almost sank only to come thru in the end and concludes about the present day "she may well triumph" with perfect sincerity of belief. In another show, one can imagine the Terror coming thru for the walking men just when all hope seemed lost, following a thaw. And yet, we know even as Blanky says those words, that the ship is doomed--it will never sail again.
And this keeps happening through out the show. Bridgens tells Peglar about the men who found themselves in hostile country in Persia, who "walked for hundreds and hundreds of miles through desert and snow, with no food," and survived, when we know they very much so will not. Lady Jane speaks with utmost conviction about being able to feel Sir John calling to her when we know that Sir John is long dead. The examples go on and on.
The most interesting thing this does is that it makes statements that would otherwise be read as the writer's ultimate verdict on the topic into these beautifully nuanced and ambivalent things. For example, Bridgens tells a dying Fitzjames that he was a good man. Was he? He who is being poetically killed by the ghost of a Chinese sniper whose worth he once equated to a roasted duck? Is self-awareness and remorse enough to make up for that when it makes no tangible difference in the real world?
Francis tells Goodsir that "even if God is seeing every last thing we do here, you have nothing to fear. Not you. You're clean, Goodsir. Clean--even if your hand is forced by swine." Such a resounding statement which in any other context would have absolved Goodsir of everything he has done. But does it? Goodsir certainly does not accept the absolution himself, and his suicide is...something.
I could go on, and I am not saying that as a result Goodsir is damned and James an awful man--rather that I love the way we are invited to interrogate these verdicts and decide for ourselves.
(smoking a cigarette) the average american is afraid of what is new and what is foreign, and especially of what is adult. they are trapped forever in daycares of their own design, reading books and watching shows made for children. And while there are interesting things made for children, by and large, they tend to stick to inoffensive, intensely juvenile things that won't challenge them much. And worst of all, if you suggest to your Average American that they should try to step outside of their narrow box, especially if they're trying to become artists, animators, film makers, novelists, etc, everyone acts as if you've just bombed the daycare. Wow.
Wanted to draw smth out of my comfort zone and to experiment with techniques more, (struggled a lot due to it) but really I just really liked looking and drawing Isabelle adjani :)
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