Rainbow Colored 3D Paper Cross

These are pictures of just one object. Maybe it's not so obvious to everyone that all these photos are of the same paper model, a 3D Cross. The photos are all taken from different view points. Click on the video for a better understanding of the different colors on the different sides. And if you like this be sure to check out my latest paper model taking this idea to the next level https://www.instructables.com/Paper-Voxel-Sphere/
How many different views combining different colors do you think there are? There are quite a few. I'll tell you at the end of this instructable, then you can build it and tell me if I'm correct.

It was a fun little idea for a project and a quick execution. I was only one hour late getting the lunch on the table but hey, it's Saturday. I had all this colored cardstock left over from The Rainbow Colored Paper Moon Mobile project which you can also find here on instructables and from looking around at other stuff in the Colors of the Rainbow contest I saw ArKay894 had included a link to a great design idea from makeanything.design which was using a 3D printer. I kinda took from that idea but wanted to see if I could keep things old skool and make a model from paper.

Paper. A noble material if ever there was one!

Paper or Cardstock of 6 different colors

Pritt Stick or whatever glue you prefer

Craft knife

Steel ruler and Pencil

A cube has six sides that means six different colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. These are the primary colors and secondary colors of the color wheel. A rainbow has seven colors. After blue comes indigo and violet but you cant make a cubic shape with seven colors. So we're not exactly in the realm of the rainbow but we're pretty close :P

The idea is to make this shape and have all the sides that are facing in each direction be the same color. I did this quick sketch to see if what I was thinking made sense: that as the colors step down onto the other level I could just have it as one continuous strip that passes behind the other color. I was 99% sure it would work so I didn't want to waste anymore time with the theory. I wanted to see results!

My cardstock sheets were very small: 23 cm x 15 cm. I calculated the maximum width of the cube that I could get to was 35 mm because I needed to get 6 lengths of a cube in one strip as seen here in the photo of the purple strip(actually its 5 in-a-row and a half length at each end for the tabs).

I needed one of these for each color and also two small lengths that are 2 cube lengths each (again its actually just one and a half length at each end for the tabs). So I cut all the strips and carefully marked the distances with a pencil and drew the lines with a bit of pressure so it would act like a score line and guide my hand when folding

So that was the boring part: Measuring and Cutting

The folding is much more satisfying. Thanks to the scorelines made with the pencil the folding went well but because I did all this by hand I realized there could be lot of errors if the lines were not square so I also made sure the edges lined up while I was folding the cardstock and that seemed to do the trick.

Yes, assemble the pieces and try not to go crazy in the process.

LOOK AT ALL THE PHOTOS! I put notes in each one to help you fight off the lunacy. Unfortunately I've only just realized these notes don't show up when viewing this page on a smartphone. So if you have that problem get yourself over to a PC or a tablet.

I was putting the complimentary colors at opposite sides. That is:

Red opposite Green

Yellow opposite Purple

Blue opposite Orange

You don't need to do this but it seemed to make mathematical sense. What you do need to make sure you get right are the strips of all the same color being all together facing the one side.

So I started by placing the long red and long green strips opposite one another and then figured out where the long blue strip would go to join them with glue on the tabs going on the inside.

Then I glued the short yellow strips in place...

IMPORTANT: the short strips are lying over top of the long strips and the tabs get tucked into the inside.

It's hard to explain in words what you need to be doing here I hope all these photos help to guide you. In the last photo here you can see the last strips left to be added and I have them lined up as they will be to the side of all the rest of the pieces. You can almost understand it better at this moment. It's like when you take apart a 3D puzzle. The first piece you take out seems to show you the whole process. However at the beginning of the assembly there's hardly anything in place yet and therefore hard to see/understand where this is all going.

If you've made it this far, like me, you are a genius. Well done for not giving up along the way.

The hardest part about gluing the last tabs in place is that you can't get your fingers inside the 3D cross to press down firmly. But I think a lucky combination of just he right size of 3D cross and the right cardstock thickness meant the structure held everything nicely in place and enough pressure seemed to be hanging around to make the flaps stay put.

All in all I'm happy with the result. It only took about an hour and half to make.

If I had taken a bit more care I could have made it all a bit neater and without all the glue stains. Also it got a little bit buckled when gluing the last tabs in place. But what can you do, there is no room to maneuver. Maybe you can comment below about how you stick the last tabs in your paper craft. Thanks for your interest. See ya!

Oh yeah there are 25 possible combinations of colors you can see from any angle