Project 3 and 4: Papercraft! (Stage 1 is homework for Tuesday)

Papercraft are defined in many ways, by many different people.  However, the most common elements of those definitions are "3-D objects, constructed from folding 2-D paper into geometrical forms."

In this project, you will be tasked with creating your own Papercraft characters!  In the post below, I have posted a few website examples from artists who have turned the art of papercraft into a thriving business.  Once you understand the variety of possibilities in constructing different characters and objects, you will see the kind of options an artist has in applying Adobe Illustrator to real-world creations that take up space?

A mouthful?  Yep.  Simply put, Illustrator will help us make a model for our character that we can print out, and then fold to create our final design.

This projects is a combination of three things:  Illustration, Sculpture, Color theory, and Photography. The way we are going to accomplish this is in stages:

Stage 1:  (Due Tuesday, Feb 18th)

• Find a papercraft character design that interests you online.  There are millions more beyond the websites below.  Print out and construct the character you find, making note of the kind of cuts, folds, and design elements used to construct that character. The best way to understand how to make papercraft is to make it yourself first!

• Afterward, you will design a character of your own!  Please be advised to not use copyrighted designs as your base template.  Find what works in the designs you research, and apply the best elements of each into a design of your own creation!  The trick to this project is designing a layout that can fold to make a solid 3D form, or collection of 3D forms.  You will have to think spatially to see your design come to life.

• Next, you will make a few sketches of your character, selecting a color scheme from http://kuler.adobe.com.  Remember I said you are allowed a color scheme of 6 colors. 5 must adhere to a specific color scheme, and the sixth can be any color you choose.

• Your sketches must include an initial layout and design of the character you want to make as if it was unfolded onto a sheet of paper. I have shown examples in class, and will post one here.

Stage 2:  Construction (details next week)

We will spend the next week in class creating our design templates in Illustrator, testing them out by printing them using the fiery printer, and then adding in our color and surface details so we create the full design for our characters.  Depending on whether or not your character can stand, you may have to revise your character.  Once we create designs we are happy with, we will print them out on higher-grade paper, so our characters are more stable.

Stage 3: Photography:

At this stage, we will divide into groups to photograph our creations, both solo, and as a group.  You must create interesting photographic compositions using the supplied lighting and a digital camera on your end.  We will do some rudimentary editing of these photos in photoshop, to begin incorporating other techniques into our art.

Stage 4 leads into typography, which will be the start of project 4.