The Paper Bunny Project or "How to get rid of Friday night" Friday, August 27, 2004

An online friend recently pointed me to a set of research involving unwrapping of complex 3D models into strips for use in building more organic paper craft models from computer generated data. The traditional way involves connected triangles, and comes out quite facted, like a cut gemstone. The University of Tokyo site he pointed me to is down at the time of this writing, but will hopefully return soon. The research site linked to a free viewer that can be used for printing out 3D paper craft models, which worked with a bunny.zip file they had of the Stanford Bunny converted to their strip-based paper craft method. The 4 pages that make the model are above. The free Pepakura Designer File Viewer allowed me to print out the pages. It also acted as a reference while building. You can click on strips of the 3D bunny on-screen through the viewer and it shows you the corresponding strip on the laid-out sheets of paper, which you see in the right pane of the viewer. It would have been almost impossible to build without that feature, as it was very difficult even with it.

I started things off at around 9pm, with the plan being this should take no more than 2 hours, but probably more like 1. At 4am I drearily put the final piece of tape in its place. I would rate this project for children 20 years and older.

Here is where things took a turn. That ring on the right is part of the neck/head assembly. I attached this off-center from where it should've been, requiring me to cut it off entirely 2 additional times to reallign it. The tape is 3 layers thick now for this piece, due to all the corrections.

It's starting to take on an Escher quality.

I tended to work in large rings, attaching them all together first, and finally attaching the smaller rings concentrically inward. This was probably not the best approach, but it looked pretty throughout the process.

Now it just looks like a chocolate bunny, shortly after being opened on Easter morning.

Time to do the ears, but they are not going to be easy.

A view of the inside from the base.

No ears yet.

Ears! These were probably the hardest part of the whole model. I'm very surprised and pleased that they look as good as they do, considering how much painful wrestling they required. There's actually a floppy quality to them, like in a real rabbit. What made them so difficult was that they required the lining up of complex 3D curves. The easiest way was to just do what I did through the whole assembly process, which was to cut a 1/8" piece of tape from the dispenser with scissors, then tape the next 1/4" together along the curve. This ensured (usually) that the curves stayed aligned. However, as I was incapable of fitting inside the rabbit, I had to tape many parts of the ears from the outside :(

It's really starting to look like a rabbit! This is extra cool, because while building it, even though I was using the 3D viewer, and could see exactly what the piece was used for, it still had this feeling of being totally random. As I taped, structure emerged, and it just starting taking the bunny shape on its own. It was very thought-free, other than the thought required to line things up like the model.

From the back, it already looks done. I considered ending it at this point, too, somewhere around 1am, but I decided to just push on in the hope that completing it would impart some sort of sense of accomplishment.

I remember thinking as I started into this how if it came out really well, I'd make one for my mom out of a nicer material, maybe even texture it or something. Maybe I'd spray it over with a coat of fleckstone paint. After seeing how long it took to build, however, I decided to forget it. I don't want to do this ever again :)

Another inside view. The wonder that filled me as I started the process, which turned to dread long before the midway point, started to swing back around by this point in the build process, as I realized how nice it was looking.

Does it really need a face? I wondered this for a bit. I knew it was going to be very hard to get the face piece up there, since I'd kinda closed myself out from the head.

I finally put the last piece in the center of the bottom, heavily bordering it with tape on the outside, because I didn't care anymore at this point to try to keep the tape to the inside. I was one piece from victory. Here, the finished rabbit sits in its creation-nest of discarded paper rubble.

A backside view of my new paper gewgaw.

It almost seems to be looking at the camera.

The wide angle lens I was using gives a cuter look from above, enlarging the head, and shrinking the feet.

This is a more honest view of the proportions.

It was a good choice of models. It looks great from all angles, and really looks just like the Stanford Bunny. While I don't see myself making another paper strip model again for awhile, it was a rewarding experience to put the last piece in and see a structurally sound volumetric rabbit sculpture sitting on my desk. I think I'm going to take him to work, to inspire me by reminding me that work is far easier in comparison to building one of these paper rabbits.

The End.