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I'm working on a dipping diplodocus. I've made the legs from tubes of card. The head drop drops down and the neck needs to fit into a cut-out at the top of the legs but working out where to put the cut out on the flat pieces is difficult. Often in this situation I will make the cut outs then unfold the piece and measure up.
In this model there were various measurements that needed that needed to be made. So I used a different technique. The wonder of card models is that they can be printed on. I printed a rule line at the top of the leg parts then assembled them. It was now easy to see where cut-outs and glue areas were needed and I could transfer these to the computer.
Here you can see the finished leg parts with the cut out. It is now easy for me to refer to the printed rule and transfer these dimensions to the template on the computer.




Paper animations by Rob Ives.