Meerkat prototype page 6
heavy armor division


heavy armor division meerkat po-up card



Meerkat prototype page 1 here
Meerkat prototype page 2 here
Meerkat prototype page 3 here
Meerkat prototype page 4 here     
Meerkat prototype page 5 here
Meerkat prototype page 6 here     ← you are here


This is the page that shows the meerkat shooting down the hawk. It precedes the feast scene. I've been mulling this since the beginning. Originally, I'd have a bush pull away to reveal meerkat sitting or kneeling behind a mounted 50 caliber aimed at the 2:00 position. Sounds easy enough. Too easy.

Then I thought I'd have a standing meerkat swing up to the top of a hill aiming a rocket launcher at the 1:00 position, which seems to be a 100% incorrect way to shoot a rocket launcher. I might do that anyway because the sketch is hilarious. But should I have the meerkat swing up while a bush simultaneously swings out of the way? Should I try to have a puff of smoke delayed to appear when the card is fully opened? Should there be two meerkats? Would a mortar be better than a rocket launcher? A grenade launcher?

You know how sometimes you just have to work things out of your system even though you already know there's scant chance they'll actually be used? That's what's happening to me right now. I'll most likely settle on one of the earlier ideas. But for now, I must see what things look like. That's my explanation for the nonsense below.

•  I revisit the door that gave me such a problem in the Angry Monkey card. Such a simple device. Should be easy. Why isn't it? What am I doing wrong? I take another shot at that.

•  So much pop-up action relies on the  forces located at the center fold of the card. That's why so many mechanisms are placed there. One way to get things off the center is to create another fold on a new layer and move the crease off center. Basically, a door. It must be connected somehow to the opposite side in order to make it work.  

Moving the active fold from the center by creating a door is one thing, but that new door having enough force to reliably work mechanisms attached to it is another.  See? As you elaborate and build outward,  mechanisms attached to each other  become less reliable as you elaborate more extravagantly. But that mustn't stop you. Go right on ahead and elaborate away -- see what happens.

•  I use the hinged V arcing mechanism to see if I can show a meerkat sticking his fingers in his ears. It works! It's funny as hell too. The problem is, the V crimp folds outward and whatever is attached to the collapsing portion of the V tends to move in front of the layer it's attached to. So whereas I attached the bent arm behind the meerkat, the finger tends to arc in front of the meerkats face rather than behind it. This can be worked out I suppose with layers. Or perhaps a larger disc with the arm drawn on it rather than a cut-out arm.  I'll have to keep working on that some more until I understand what's going on. Those V crimps still confuse me. Anyway, it was really easy to sketch the arms and position the crimps to make it appear like the fingers are going directly into its ears. It's a shame I probably won't use this idea.

Still, I can't stop thinking about fingers in ears and BOOM happening at the same time.

I just now realized something -- something with the clarity of a ... of a ... of something really clear! Oh man, I have to go try it. Here's these pictures, then I'm off to try the insight I just now had. 


mortar front mortar 1/2 opened more opened
mortar even more opened mortar fully opened main fold moved to the right
moved fold half way opened door with attachment fully opened hinges attached to separate folds
layers close all layers begin opening properly meerkat fingers in ears half opened
meerkat, fingers in ears, 3/4 opened meerkat, fingers in ears, fully opened fully opened closer, new view


Okay, that thing that I saw so clearly didn't work. Too bad. I won't even try to explain what went wrong, but now it seems obvious. I keep seeing crimps and I see them working then when I do it it turns out they don't work.  Crimps in elevating supports aim in the wrong direction. (But now I just got the idea to add extra non-supportive supports that aim in the desired direction.)

So I tried something else and that didn't work either. When I finished it, and it was lovely and well done, I realized why that doesn't work. V crimps perform a full 90˚ arc when they're pulled to the fully extended position, not the half-way position. The photos ↓ show my error.  

So that gave me the idea of adding an extra squared tube and put the fully extended crimp in reverse. I had to really puzzle that one out. I made a play tube and crimped a corner then kept reorienting it to see how it should go. It's almost like a Rubiks cube in its puzzlement. Finally it required I cut out a section of the tube to make room for the arm to swing upward.  I saw in the down position the edge of the arm jams into the remainder of the tube so I removed even more. All that trouble would be concealed with a cover. I checked to make sure it works. Open, close, open, close, open close, left, right, left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down, up, down.  Yep. It works.

I learned from this, when dealing with these crimps, when something is attached to one half of the crimp the attachment swings in an arc. Attached to the other half of the crimp, the attachment flips. This is the oddest damned thing, but it's something I can use. 


arm braces that don't work closeup of one brace two arms
arms attached up arms down arms up
arms down arms up arms up
arms down arms up arms down
arms up


Uh oh. It's happened again. I appear to have become a bit obsessed.  Please pardon me a moment while I exercise this obsession. That up there didn't work ↑ because I forgot: a table of this sort, which is the first mechanism I learned, is in its full open position straight up and down. That means it cannot fully open these crimps. Which means the fingers only go half way up. Oops.

I finally unraveled the mystery to these crimps. The solution involves turning upside down,  reversing them, and using them inside out.  Sorry, I cannot be any more clear than that. Actually, I cannot go straight to the solution myself, rather I must form a crimp and rotate it around until I get something that looks like it'll work. There's probably a more eloquent solution and one day I might learn it then look back at this and wonder how I could be such a dunce.

I've taken to dividing my paper in half. Seems reasonable considering I'm working on one little thing. I don't mind if they extend beyond the borders or hide an arm too much. I can correct all that when it comes to the actual card.

Is it worth it?  Look, I'm getting a meerkat to stick his fingers in his ears. You bet your sweet ass it's worth it! Jeeze.

You'll notice:

•  A square tube is used to elevate content. It has a square tube segment on each side with a crimp in each one to operate in opposite directions. One is a 1/2 inch segment, the other is a 1 inch segment. This is because the longer one needs to have a portion removed in order for it to work in the opposite direction. This might not be necessary, I'm not sure.




crimp mechanism, straight up position crimp mechanisms second view, closed position crimp mechanism, third view, closed position.
demonstration arms attached, closed position demonstration arms, straight up position demonstration, full open position
demonstration arms, closed meerkat body attached, half opened meerkat body, demonstration arms up, card opened
meerkat body, demonstration arms straight up, card fully opened front prototype begin open
prototype continue open prototype, half opened prototype 3/4 opened
prototype fully opened


Well. Here we are. The crimps brings us to the very end of this project and still I do not completely understand their mysterious ways. I thought I had them all worked out, painstaking photographed my steps. I attached them here and got them wrong again. Detached them. Reattached new crimps and discovered the bush flipped instead of swinging in an arc. That's OK. The bush can flip if it wants to.It's funny either way. It just means I must draw a bush on both sides.

A crimp swings up a meerkat with a rocket launcher on his shoulder. Simultaneously, on another layer directly above that rocket-launching meerkat, another crimp swings a bush out of the way. On different layer positioned at the opposing side of the card's central fold, two crimps cause a second meerkat to lift his fingers to his ears.

Comical little meerkats bringing down a hawk. These are long distance weapons. No need to show the hawk which was already show twice on previous pages. I might draw it on the background sky, although I could flip a little wing on the distant corner using a bit of pop-up subterfuge underneath the backing by way the door technique which I have now mastered, but that would be just showing off.

I learned that when using a layer like this to drag open crimps, it's best to either use a slot and glue both sides to the underside of the card or glue both sides to the top surface of the card. The reason is because the thickness of the paper effects the way the mechanism closes. I found the layer bulges when all is complete when  the finished card is closed and that is unacceptable. I'm saying the new layer that's connects on one side or the other at the same distance from the central fold as it is elevated above the card, underneath which crimps are dragged opened and shoved closed by the layer and on top of which content is either attached or drawn, should be connect at each end the same way, either through a slot and glued to the back or simply folded and glued on the surface. Got that? The point is, do both sides the same. That avoids the layer-bulging problem caused by paper thickness.  Scientific, eh?

I also learned to attach a tiny arm to half of the inside of a crimp and then play with it. Roll it in your fingertips flat one way, open to square, flat the opposite way, as if rolling across a page. 

Like this:  rolling the square tube in this direction  →,  flattened == to  opened ☐ , to flattened again ==.

Then back again in this direction ←,  flattened == to ☐ to ==

Keep rolling it like that back and forth until you can see what effect the crimp is having on the tiny arm you attached.

Then rotate the square tube by only one side,  ☐ ↺ and do it again, == ☐ ==. And again.

Then rotate again, ☐ ↺.

Then attach the arm a different way, switching from point end insertion to flat end insertion, and do this all over again. By doing so, the wonderful and mysterious world of pop-up crimpery will begin to reveal its secrets.  Unless you're smarter than me and can see all this at once.

Again, that tiny arm can be attached to the inside of either half of the crimp. It can also be attached to the outside of the crimps. One side swings the arm, the other side flips the arm. Additionally, the arm can also be shoved into the crimp so that it ends with a point or it can be shoved in from another direction and end with a blunt straight edge. Both methods of arm-attachment do different things.

This concludes the full extent of my acquired crimp-wisdom that I can share at this time.


scored page for squared tubes squared tube flattened square tube opened
crimp scored crimp bent tube opened, crimped formed
crimp rotated flattened crimp arm attached to crimp, closed position
arm in up position new crimp, blunt end, opened position half way position
arm straight up new crimp before arm attached new crimp in up, opened position
arm half way arm at closed position layer attached to opposing side of card
layer attached to elevating support lower support positiioned crimp in fingertips
crimp with arm in fingertips crimp in fingers crimp in fingers
lower crimp assembly glued to card crimp and arm for meerkat upright position crimp with arm in closed position
bush support positioned card closed, bush support untrimmed card closed and and named
finished card, 1/4 way opened finished card 3/4 opened card fully opened


The card.  ↓ Loaded with crimpery goodness. One for shoulder rocket firing meerkat, another for the bush that conceals him. A third and fourth on the arms of the meerkat sticking his fingers into his ears.

I learned more about crimps. I am now nearly a crimp expert. In fact, I created crimp mechanisms then didn't use them, opting to crimp the posts that create the layers instead. In the case of the finger-in-ears meerkat, I put two crimps in the same post.


page scored for squared posts squared posts crimp mechanism
background drawn layer and support positioned for shoulder rocket meerkat first layer trimmed
post trimmed and positioned rocket meerkat glued bush added
lower view of posts second lower view of posts third lower view of posts
crimps with extensions for fingers-in-ears meerkat double crimped post in half-way position support post with crimps extensions up position
lower meerkat added, fingers-in-ears finished card 1/4 closed finished card 1/2 way finished
finished card, nearly closed finished card closed


Meerkat prototype page 1 here
Meerkat prototype page 2 here
Meerkat prototype page 3 here
Meerkat prototype page 4 here    
Meerkat prototype page 5 here
Meerkat prototype page 6 here     ← you are here