This little toy—which I googled to learn is called a “thumb push puppet” or “push button puppet”, with a brief history
described here—is my source of inspiration.
I want to create a pattern that can mimic the same movement of objects laced together in compression but also
released to separate.
Sketch:
Looking for reference images in an old coloring book, started by sketching a few tessellations,
much simpler geometric designs then the one I designed for the molding and
casting week. Thinking about how the pieces could be
simply laced together.
Tessellation Design:
I moved my sketch into Illustrator to increase the scale and start to understand
how the pieces would separate.
Model Process:
To understand how the pieces would move together, I used foam core to build a model,
lacing it together with string and adding small pieces of foam between the segments that touch.
Model:
This model demonstrations that when the shapes are interlaced they can be pulled together and
then push away from one another when the string is released. I want to use this concept to
demonstrate an active compression around a form using a tessellation shape.