Designing this was one of the most laid-back design experiences I’ve ever had. While redrawing Kota Imai’s Stinkbug (that is, converting it from a low quality image format to an editable and scalable chart format,) I realized that octagons are indeed quite convenient for designing insects and other hexapods. Each of the appendages can be easily placed at one of the octagon’s vertices. [Insert Demonstration.jpg] I nabbed a pattern for producing body segments from Bodo Haag’s excellent dragonfly, and proceeded to draw the whole thing in a matter of minutes. A bit more time was spent designing a suitable head, and then I was done.

A side note on the body segment structure, it works by bouncing axial creases across a ridge, which changes the angle and causes them to meet, forming another ridge. In order to create a flat surface in the area, the new ridge is squashed flat which generates the pleats. By changing the angle of incidence, one can control the spacing of the pleats. This technique is easiest to use in hex pleating but can be used with box pleating and 22.5 degree design (as it is here).