Tips for papercraft pets that nobody talks about

I did a papercraft of my cat last winter and your note about assembly order hit close to home. I closed her body panel too early and spent an hour with tweezers and a chopstick trying to get a rear leg seated properly. Ended up peeling the seam back open and starting the whole flank over. Never again, legs go on while everything is still open now.

On paper, I actually went heavier than 160gsm for mine. Used 200gsm for the body since she's a chunky little thing with short legs, and it holds the silhouette much better. The tradeoff is that big curved pieces fight you a bit, so I had to score twice as many lines as the template marked. A bone folder helped a lot there, way more consistent than the dried pen trick, though I get that not everyone has one lying around.

One thing that saved me on the head was building it as its own little unit first and only gluing it on once the ears and muzzle were done. Working on the head separately meant I coud actually hold it in my hand instead of poking at it sideways on the finished body. The ears came out symmetric for once, which for me is a small miracle. For dents I used the eraser end of a pencil the same way you described, works fine thru the last opening.

I tried one of my rabbit a couple weekends ago and the ears were so small they kept tearing when I folded them. Gave up and ended up just printing the whole thing bigger, which helped a lot but now it takes up half my desk. Is there a size where the pieces just get too floppy to hold together, or can you go as big as you want if the paper is thicker?

The paint step nearly ruined mine, nobody warned me about that part. I painted the whole thing after assembly and the first coat of cheap craft paint warped two panels badly, the paper just soaked it up and bubbled. Had to redo one flank. Second time around I used an almost dry flat brush with the paint thinned way down, three light coats instead of one wet one. Also did each piece flat on the table before final assembly where I could, way easier than brushing around ears and legs once it was built.