Study in black and white IV??
Idea
This is a continuation of the high-contrast, geometric shapes series, with a `twist. I started out trying to come up with another geometric pattern. Ones with more sides didn’t offer many good possibilities. Trying to make five or six sides high-contrast just ended up with a bunch of triangles. More than six and you’re getting close to a circle.
I started playing with four-sided pyramids and came up with what I felt was a great prototype, but the shapes were squares and triangles, which I already had in the series. But what if it wasn’t just the geometric patterns? What if some 40s gangsters decided to muscle in on this series of pop-ups? So once again I fall back to the mice.
Design
The central pyramid is just a V fold off the main fold with the two lower sides of the pyramid making the V. For the other pyramids, I need to create extra folds, so I used the strap technique to create two folds parallel to the main one, right on the edge of the center pyramid. Ideally, I’d like to have four pyramids around the outside, but they would stick out quite a bit when the card is folded, so the final model only has half pyramids (aka a V fold).
Here is the first prototype I created for this card. You can see that the upper strap (green), isn’t on the edge of the center pyramid, so the upper pyramids have a gap. The lower strap (green) has its fold right on the edge of the center pyramids so the lower right one is directly against it. Notice the outer pyramids are chopped off. After closing the card, I cut off what stuck out.
This is the second try with one piece for both upper and lower straps (yellow), and a square cut out for the center pyramid to fold up as the center of the strap rises when the card folds. I so liked this design I didn’t cut off the pyramids, but you can see on the lower left one a shaded area that indicates how much sticks out when it is folded.
It’s an interesting bit of geometry that as the square hole in the yellow comes up and the center pyramid tilts down, the tip of the pyramid just barely touches the yellow as it folds up.
And the final prototype is very similar to the previous one only with half-pyramids for the outer ones. You can see some experimenting with the pattern, and some ideas of what the extortionists may do to the card.
Of course, the prototypes worked pretty well when closing them. When I did the full-size version in cardstock I found that the side pyramids would usually collide making you have to push one to the side to get it to close smoothly. By this time all the illustrations were completed and the entire card was assembled. To solve this problem I added mice to the top edge of two of the pyramids that guided one beside the other (see the mouse with the pick on the lower left pyramid, or mice carrying the flag on the upper right one.)
Aside from the two mice on the cover, there are ten on the inside, a dog, and a black cat. Much of the detail is lost in the animation at the top, so here are a few for your pleasure. First, the front view.
And from the back. The mouse inside the lower right is spray painting the obligatory “Don’t look here” message all the cards sport.
Cover
Like the other cards in this series, the cover is some of Howard the Younger’s pre-school artwork with a chunk of the inside pattern on it, and of course a couple of thugs.
Build
- 9” x 6”
- The base pattern (visible only when folding) was printed on Strathmore 300 Bristol 100lb
- The upper layer (straps) was printed on Michael’s cardstock and the square was cut out by hand.
- I used the Zig 2 way glue stick for the first time on a card to attach the upper layer to the base.
- The pyramids and speech bubbles were designed on the computer, printed on Michael’s cardstock, and cut using the Silhouette Cameo’s Print and Cut, and scoring features.
- All the illustrations were done using PrismaColor pencils and Pitt Artist Pens
- Paper and cardstock were used for attaching the mice and other decorations.