Origami Elephant
I have always loved the look of low-poly and geometric designs. I was interested in the process of adapting existing 3D artistic models of objects, and any project that allows me to learn a new software and get my hands dirty is right up my alley.
​
While browsing Thingiverse, I found a very nice high-definition model of an elephant. The elephant is great for this, because it has a lot of very prominent features on it's head. I wanted to highlight the fascinating geometric patterns that make up it's ears, tusks, and trunk through low poly modeling. Using Meshmixer, I first isolated the head from the model. I had to do quite a bit of research on how to finish adapting the model, though. As it turns out, most people are focused on enhancing the resolution rather than decreasing it! I tried a few open source 3D Modeling softwares, but ultimately found that by using Meshmixer I was able to not only create low poly models, but control with great precision the exact areas I wanted to have less and more polygons.
​
Once I was satisfied with my model, I uploaded it to Pepakura. This program takes low poly models and 'flattens' them into a pattern that can be printed on paper and then creased and folded into shape. Due to the complex geometry of my part, I had to split the entire pattern into many different parts - roughly 20. I was able to manipulate the pattern to my liking so that none of the pieces were too big or too small. This helped quite a bit during assembly. I used an X-Acto knife to cut all of the pieces out, and creased them before I glued anything together.
​
With assemblies like this, I like to make the features separately first, and put them all together at the end. This was a particularly difficult model, as it only stands about 4 inches tall. The ears, trunk, and tusks are very small and hard to handle delicately. I used tweezers to ensure that these parts were assembled with more precision. The parts were glued together, and the entire piece was finished with a layer of Mod Podge, painted, and a final layer of Mod Podge to finish everything.
​
The base for this piece was cut from a tree in our backyard that I had recently chopped down. I used wood burning to decorate the base with my own design.
​
This was a fun project to work on and was a great way to develop skills in Meshmixer and Pepakura. Ideally, I would try to plan the assembly of the paper better, because putting the last few pieces together became very challenging. I did similar designs to this afterwards and by attaching any small pieces first this problem was eliminated.
