|
For what it's worth, I have zero experience with heavy life sized models so my thought experiment may not work.
If you go ahead with the internal support frame so the individual pieces aren't supporting much weight, maybe you can print parts on the thickest paper that yields smoothly curved parts. Then harden the parts on the unprinted side with superglue, wood hardener, fingernail hardener or similar products after construction, so that they still can support some weight while keeping the correct shape. Additional strength may be added by layering paper mache strips or v-channel paper stiffeners inside the part after hardening. The parts should probably be assembled with stronger adhesive than white glue.
Hopefully the completed model will have a mutually supporting/cantilever structure that will be stronger than the separate pieces and still look good.
|