Julio Romero: Week 13 Pepakura

For my pepakura assignment I used a low-poly version of my laser scan project. I chose to not use the spiked model to make it more unique. The total dimensions are about xxin.

I used the same starting file as my spiked turtle, which I then reduced in Maya by using mesh> reduce. For some reason it created some holes and disjointed geometry, so I used some of the editing tools to fill holes or merge vertices together. The original file had triangles and I wanted to use quads instead, so when I was happy with the amount of faces I then deleted some of the edges that didn't really follow an edge loop. For some parts I had to use the multi-cut tool to move edges around to where I wanted them. To cut down the amount of work I had to do, I cut off one half of the model and then mirrored it back so that I would only have to tweak one side.

After finishing the model I brought it into pepakura to make the different parts. I tried to make it as symmetrical as possible to avoid any confusion, and also tried to follow edge loops for the most part. I put all of the flaps on only one or two sides of each pieces, and not on each opposing side, so that I could easily attach each part to each other and "move down the line". I started with the bottom first, and then moved upwards to the sides and top, then attached the back legs, and finally ended on the front legs and head. After I finished putting everything together I covered the lines with masking tape to cover any badly attached areas.

For my keyshot images I wanted to make my model look similar to the actual turtle as well as my spiked turtle, so I used a red background and green color scheme. Instead of making it very translucent, I decided to make it more opaque. This gives it a more jewel look, instead of looking like plastic or glass.

I really enjoyed working on this assignment. I had never done pepakura before, and found it to be kind of like making a puzzle, trying to figure out what would be the best way to lay out each piece to fit on the sheets and connect to each other. The main body and head were fairly easy, but I had a much harder time connecting the legs. Whenever I was trying to glue the feet closed after folding it around itself it would detach from the body, so I had to keep reattaching it. I put the head together with just a little bit of difficulty, but I had a hard time actually attaching it to the body because it was the last part I was going to attach it. It would have definitely been much easier if I had removed less geometry on the feet and attached the head pieces going around the neck instead of making them individual strips.