Paper models, also known as card models or paper craft are figures constructed usually from sheets of thick and heavy paper, such as card stock. Paper model is an umbrella term, and includes within it many categories of paper crafts such as origami and card modelling. Origami is a paper craft that uses paper in different folding patterns, to create paper models without the use of any adhesive. Origami can be summed up as the usage of 4 different folding patterns to obtain the final paper model. The 4 types of folding patterns are glueless origami, the no-tab method, the one-tab method and the two-tab method.

Card modelling requires printed sheets of paper from which scale models can be constructed. The different parts are usually printed on the stock card and they are then cut out, folded and glued together to create paper models. The latest addition to this category is 3d paper craft, from which toys could be made out of paper.

Printed card models were a huge hit in the magazines during the early part of the 20^th century. Microscopically sized paper models were also created from the year 1914, primarily in England and it boasted of a variety choice of more than a 100 different models.

With the use of plastic as a replacement to everything natural, it was no exception that paper modelling also had to meet with the same fate. Plastic models were sturdier to build with and did not easily collapse, as they were not fragile as paper models were.

But the availability of readily printable paper model designs on the internet has once again caused the creation of paper models to be making a major comeback. Scaling, color adjustments, etc are now easily rectifiable.

3d paper models are constructed using printed card stock. Unlike Japanese origami, 3d card modelling required cutting and gluing together the cut pieces. The most popular paper models in this category are the fictious cartoon characters and video game characters.

Due to the entry of 3d paper models, softwares are made use of to design and create new characters to convert into paper models. Some of the softwares used are Adobe Illustrator, CAD (Computer Aided Design), and CG (Computer Graphics) software such as Rhino 3D, 3DS Max etc. Softwares such as Waybe are also available that enable the conversion of 3D computerised models onto a 2D plane to be printed. Due to this liberty of creating any 3D figurine, there are limitless things that could be constructed from just plain paper. The latest additions to the paper models are the anime and Gundam figures which are Japanese in origin.

The major types of paper used to create paper models are cardstock and decorative paper.

Card stock is defined as 80lb or greater paper. Due to its sturdiness, single layered paper models are created using card stock. They are however, not suitable for layering as it adds unwanted bulk and heaviness to the paper model.

Decorative papers are normal to heavy weighted. They are usually used for detailing work, as they can be stamped on and later the detail could be cut out from it.