With my 3D models done, I needed to find a way to translate that 3D data into a real word model. After exhausting most of my research channels, I looked over and saw a small saber tooth tiger skeleton puzzle. I'm sure you've all seen these but for those who haven't, the bones are laser cut in wood and grooves are added at strategic points to be able to fit them together to resemble a figure. Now imagine covering that figure with cloth or clay to fill it out and give it a covering. Boom, inspiration hit.

I modeled cross sections into the various body parts that I could print out and cut out of cardboard. I built my own frames from the cardboard to get a positive that would form the inside of each section. There is no real science to deciding where these sections are, but try to think where they would best serve support to the overall shape of the thing. Top and bottom surfaces, highest and lowest faces, drastic changes in shape. Play with them a bit to make the foam manipulation as minimal as possible. The less extreme you have to bend or stretch the foam, the better it will hold its new shape. I glued all the sections together and added some soft foam to fill out the shape.

Cover the entire thing in aluminum foil, no glue or tape here! Just lay it out as flat as you can manage over the entire surface.

Next, wrap the entire thing again using duct tape. Again, try not to crease the tape, follow the contours of the piece.

Using a permanent marker, draw lines over the surface of the tape following your frame edges as best you can.

ProTip: Thanks EvilTed for this tip! Along each of your marker lines, draw tick marks every couple inches. This will help you align the two pieces later once you're reassembling.

Using your razor blade, cut along the lines and extricate your new flat pattern! Then make small cuts around every tick mark. Again, this will help later on.

Lay your pattern out over your foam, try to minimize waste by arranging the pieces to best fit on your sheet. Trace them onto the foam with your permanent marker or ball point pen, including the cut out tick marks.

Use your razor blade to cut out all the pieces. Don't cut the tick marks! They're only there for reference. Also, try to keep the blade as vertical as you can, this will help with alignment when you go to assemble them.

Sharpen your blade (or replace it) often, as the foam can dull it in less than a few linear feet of cutting. Clean, crisp edges are the key here. The glue will adhere better, the edges will merge cleaner, there will be less cleanup down the road.

Once you have all the pieces cut out, grab your heat gun and warm one of them up, then you can use your frame as a guide for shaping the foam. Once you've got a hang of how the foam works, you can use your knee or some other tool to help you stretch the piece into shape.

Finally, once the pieces are in about their final shape, coat the edges with your contact cement. Wait about 10-15 minutes for the cement to dry, then press the edges together firmly. Be careful lining the pieces up, once the cement touches itself, it's stuck! It'll destroy the foam before it'll pull back apart. Sometimes if you screwed up really badly, you can use your heat gun to heat up the seam and you may be able to pop it back apart to try again, but this has to be done quickly after touching the glue together, or it dries and sticks forever.