Crayfish & red bee shrimp

[Viator]

The lifesize model of the crayfish was one of my first attempts to make a 3D model from the 2D print with no glue. It cannot be called origami however, because of the use of scissors.

I found the final result to be rather appealing though of multiple imperfections, but maybe describing of my errors will be of use for the beginners, so I will focus on the minuses.

To be honest, I looked and thought of the directions of folding and bending for some hour or so before I begun to cut. I found few errors in the net (for example, valley folds and mountain folds of part of the thorax, shown in the manual, are reversed, while others are okay), and I found the method of connecting antennae and eyes to the head foil tricky, which resulted in necessity to cut of part of the net and glue it to the more convenient location.

I used relatively thick paper (some 300 g per sqm) and I slightly overdone, something around 200 g would have matched better. For example, the folding of the tabs and then rounding them in the perpendicular direction resulted with the damages of the surface (cracks in the surface). And these damages were highly visible (my second fault: I used the paper colored on both sides instead of dyed in the mass, so all the cut edges must be colored by hand after cutting and all the random cracks and scratches were noticeable). Making legs, which should be bended (shaped into the mountain fold) along all their length was tricky too and after this operation all the longitudinal edges of the legs became slightly unwantedly bent/waving.

Well, building the model of the particular object is the same as building a house: You're building your first house for your enemy, your second one for your friend and your third one for yourself.

[Erik Zwaan]

Amazing model!

Erik

[Viator]

The second crustacean to be modelled was a shrimp (I found a free model of a red bee shrimp on the zaroz page). The idea of making the model was similar, although there were three parts to be glued together.

This time I printed the net on the 80 g per sqm sheet of white paper and it fitted perfectly. Folding of the tabs and foils on the edge of the knife and bending the antennae (which are flat) by pressing them to the edge of the scissors blade and pulling (drawing) them in the direction perpendicular to this edge was easy and effective. The only problem is with the legs which are very fragile, though V-shaped. Perhaps varnishing would have solved it but I finally left the shrimp unvarnished. The work was lightning fast and I enjoyed it a lot.

As for me it looks invitingly (red bee shrimps are edible)!

[rmks2000]

The crayfish looks very realistic. Amazing for a model consisting of just two pieces.

[Vermin_King]

Very similar to the old Furukawa models. Always liked them.
クラフトクラブに使用しているファイバークラフト紙です【白】 | 株式会社古河

Nicely done

[birder]

Those are very creative! Good work

[croden]

As a marine biology major, Ive kept my fair share of freshwater invertebrates and these look FANTASTIC!!!

[Revell-Fan]

How beautiful! Very well done. Thank you very much for sharing them with us.