Wednesday, October 5, 2016

thank you card, pop-up prototype

This is a Lem's Levity exclusive. You won't see anything like this anywhere.

This is the rough draft that experiments with which type of mechanism to use, the placement of things, their size, they way they work, how they move, the directions they move, the best angles to use, how they interfere with each other, how they fold back, types of tabs, their size and their placement, the placement of dialog and how the mechanisms stack and bulge when folded, how they all open.

It's all very rough and worked out on inexpensive card stock.

cover




The roof is a particular challenge. There are still a couple more options. I might decide to change this to standard origami box and glue it inside with these same tabs. There are several of those, see here, most have lids, or a drawer like a box for matches, or dividers, most do not fold flat. This one might work

Something similar to the table used for the Meerkat Thanksgiving dinner will work. 


I like this for showing what a mess things appear when the card is first opened. 

Here, the square box and the lid are two separate mechanisms. A three-legged table inside the box that shoves the lid up and spreads it , and another is the square box that slams down around it around the spreading tabletop lid. The two are not attached to each other.

A band mechanism creates a bridge across the central fold creating two new creases that behave the same way at the line were the band is glued. 

In pop-uppery the central fold of the card is the workhorse that creates all the rest of the movement. Most simple cards have everything happen directly on the central fold. More elaborate cards build out from that using creases as if they are the central fold of a new card attached to the content. Some constructors are particularly clever with this. 

Both mechanism for the box work directly on the central fold. The band gets content off the central fold, doubling the work area to both sides.  Although it would work for all three figures to pop up on opposite sides of the central fold  using one mechanism that spans it, using a band as a bridge merely separates them. 


Top view of the lid still folded tucked inside the box with the figures still not popped up around them. The band peaks on the right. When the card is opened flat, the band/bridge is flat with card with the band's crease directly over the card's central fold. 


The figures placed on the band do not pop up↑ until the card is almost fully opened  ↓. 




Come on, that's funny!


Because it's just so stupid. 


All that for just that. It's what makes it so hilarious. 


And the figures are just dumb.


Who wouldn't get a laugh out of that? 


This is the back. 





7 comments:

The Dude said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rw-rp0BAo8

Way OT, but cool.

Rabel said...

Enthusiasm

I would be interested in Chip's take on the sign language guy in the Nikki Haley Hurricane press conference above. This guy is really, really into his job.

Rabel said...

We have a house near Daytona. We're not there, but if you want to know exactly where it is just look at the latest track forecast for Matthew. That exact point where the hurricane intersects with the mainland - that's it.

The Dude said...

Beaufort in SC is pronounced "Bew-fert". In NC, Bow-fert.

The more you know.

Hey, I wonder if that would sign differently.

Chip Ahoy said...

The soy tub video IS interesting. Love the little kid right there with no child labor laws interfering with the family apprenticeship. And the bamboo copse too me back to 9 years old outside of Tachikawa AFB grabbed two reasonably close and climbed both like a little monkey, thinking, "this isn't so easy as I thought." And I stayed permanently fascinated. Great video.

The signing guy is great too. I love the way he completely strips all the Shakespearian nonsense, all the vocalized serifs, all the absurd clauses, especially the ones I hate like "going forward" that mean nothing whatsoever except, "boy I sure am official!" I like the map he draws in the air. I like his facial expressions that are appropriate and what you see, and I like his appropriate dark colored clothes so that his hands stick well out. He is perfect. He takes all that is so annoyingly superfluous about English, strips it, and shows its essence. Perfect. Bravo.

Bow-fert.

Jeff like to travel to Texas. He punned "Houston" as "house-t-o-n." (And he showed the word Texas as a very clear "X" drawn across the front of his body then sharply down, the shape of a "7" indicating a very large area of "X." So, "house-t-o-n-X covering the entire area of his chest.

The real "Houston" is signed as "U" tapped at the corner of the mouth. I have no idea how that relates.

So yeah, you can pun "bow (tie)" fists crossed at the neck then two first fingers of each hand flick out. +f-e-r-t

Here are the signs for the cities in Texas.

Look at 'em, they're fun.

They mostly involve the first letter of each place.

LOOK I said!

Kidding.

El Paso is "E" strums an "L"

Ft. Worth is like "state" except with an "F" + "L"

Laredo is two "L"s like a drunken gun slinger.

Midland is like an "M" oil pump

Odessa is like an "O oil pump

Tyler is like a "T" mustache

Victoria is spelled. Ha ha ha ha ha

Amarillo has nothing to do with "Yellow" It fits the system of "state" except it looks like a little armadillo scampering away. It's the only initial letter not slapped against the palm like most the other cop out name places.

I like Jeff's idiosyncratic "house-t-o--n" best of all.

The interpreter spells "Charleston."

Is your enthusiasm comment meant as a joke? Because he's not overly enthusiastic and he's leaving out quite a lot. The stuff that is not informative. He's showing what deaf people would be interested in knowing, the things that are meaningful and actionable. Notice he says "gas" is a gas pump being shoved into a car tank, his thumb shoved into a partially opened fist.

I liked watching him.

The Dude said...

House-ton - sounds positively 4th street. William versus Sam.

I liked it when the child in the video was calling the count for the group to simultaneously pound the band downwards. Totally cool.

The grove of giant bamboo that I planted has not gotten as large as the one over there. I wanted it to. I ordered it special - I wanted 60' tall bamboo 6" in diameter. After 5 years, meh - 30' tall, 2" in diameter. But it is overtaking all of the back acreage, so that is a good thing. I had visions of a Japanese bamboo grove, heck, I wanted a grove of Cryptomeria japonica planted by the Shogun, but I don't have 300 years.

But I am doing what I can - I am actively converting my lawn into a grove of black walnut trees, and that is going well. I imagine a final showdown when the walnuts collide with the bamboo. Who will triumph in that epic battle?

Rabel said...

It was the facial expressions that impressed me.