Tray's Giraffe

This was a project that I did out of the blue for a good friend of mine's 25th birthday. It started with the idea of making a papercraft giraffe, and ended up being a little more like this:

This is not my first papercraft project, but its been a long time since I have made one completely from scratch and this seemed like a really fun project to do. Here is a little bit of the WIP:

Like everything it starts with a sketch. Usually these are done on a post-it or what ever is laying around, although I prefer post-its cause I don't feel like they have to be anything more than notes. These are to get what I want the final shape to look like.

After the notes comes the hard part, making it work. The left side version is literally a block out stage. Just to make sure that I can remotely hit the mark. Like most of these little projects I try to limit the model it self to one page, and In a lot of cases on piece.

However this one was a first for me. Usually the math is done by hand, the angles figured out and the way they connect battled with left and right. For this I used google sketchup 6 + pepakura (unfolds 3d models that you can export from sketchup 6). This got the hard part done.

The third is sketchup + manual additions, putting all the right parts in their place and making sure it has enough character to sell as reading like the original sketch.

Fourth is literally a spot check to make sure the details that need to overlap read correctly.... and the little blue piece to the right... thats a missile launcher [^-^].

After some simple colors and some extra tweaks. The model is covered on every side IE none of the insides are visible, the textures wrap around and meet up correctly, and the rocket launcher pack is removable. Here is what the finished product looked like. :

There was also a simple box made with a version of the giraffe taken and cleaned up. In the end it was a really fun project, I just wish that I thought of it before the last minute. Later on I may post a cleaned up version of the pattern and distribute it on here so that people can make their own.

-my apologies about the quality of the pics i will find a better solution soon.