papercraft design is easier than you think!
this post was originally about the unlearnable techniques of papercraft design, but it turns out i was just being stupid and went about it in the most obtuse way possible.
previously, i had assumed that using papercraft software such as pepakura designer meant that you could only produce polyagonal models with hard edges limited to the restraints of 3D design software. that is why i handled all of the design for the ryunosuke model within maya, and i just kinda trialed and errored my way to making a decent figure IRL.
however, it's perfectly possible to make a model with soft edges with papercraft software just by not folding the edges.
it's such a simple solution, but it's not obvious when you look at pepakura designer's examples which only show the rigid models with distinct, sharp planes that i wanted to avoid (aside from looking flat, it's also too much effort to fold so much). after modelling barok's face in maya, i struggled trying to figure out how it would come together IRL until i put it through papercraft maker, which better helped me visualize the seams on the 3D figure. the benefit of this online tool is that it ensures your faces are always at the correct size, which is really difficult to handle with regular UV unwrapping alone. it's basically a free, english version of pepakura designer.
as an example of what i meant earlier, you can see that the cheek 3D model only has sharp edges ... but paper is flexible so if you just choose not to fold that part it'll stay soft (i guess you could use soft edges to visualize that in maya, but it doesn't really look good so whatever). more obvious is probably the hat; it does need to be low-poly to be able to glue the top onto the edge, but you don't actually need to fold the points that make it look low-poly.
i'm actually kinda amazed at how papercraft 3D modelling is closer to video game modelling than 3D printing modelling, even though it produces a physical product in the end. the fact that paper is flat is... it's basically just a plane!? of course there are some things you can do with paper that can't be represented in 3D software, such as 'curled paper' or 'paper going back over itself' (i use this method for the hair in my doggy figures). but it's basically the same otherwise.
i looked at a lot of dog papercraft references while creating these figures. my primary inspirations were canon creative park's miniature world series and sanrio's paper friends. paper friends is designed for kids, so it uses a slit-slot technique that makes appendages really easy to insert (even though it's a bit on the flimsy side). ryunosuke is essentially an upgrades form of the paper friend to make it less square and more similar to the shape found in the miniature world series.
i wish i hadn't been so silly and used the papercraft maker UV unwrapper earlier! that would've made things a billion times easier and also produced a simpler, more straightforward template. but knowing how much it helps now makes me feel so excited to make more papercrafts in the future (even if no one else makes them LOL).
