2D & 3D: Tales of an Arranged Marriage

There are challenges to be faced in each and every relationship and circumstance, but who knew that something so simple as decorating a ball would cause such strife. Each design starts with a sheet of paper...the sketching occurs. Once the preliminary design is laid out it gets scaled to size and a trace of the design is produced. Easy peasy.



Now comes the brain racker. Transferring that 2 dimensional design onto a 3 dimensional sphere.


Initially I thought it would be easy, lay the tracing paper on top and transfer it using transfer paper, the way I've always known how...And then the seems bend. What to do?! How does one figure out the precise folds of a 2 dimensional sheet of paper in order to bend it over a 3 dimensional circular sphere? My brain doesn't work that way. I'm trying really hard, but all it does is hurts.


My friend and I came up with the possibility to use computer software to capture the design and do all of the mind-bendy stuff for me, but I have absolutely no idea how to get that to work. Where does one start in the quest to find software that would do that? And once you find it, how the heck to you take it from a 2D screen and get it onto that darn ball?!

So then we thought of a way to go totally old school and use custom rubber stamps, but do they make rounded stamps? All I've ever seen are the rectangular ones that my teacher used to stamp my A's, B's and C's onto my homework in grade school.

So what to do?

I can keep doing what I'm doing now which is a partial transfer and use my eye to correct the proportion and fill in the blanks, but I'd like to figure out a system to make the process a bit less time consuming.

This is going to require a bit of muse. And if anyone out there has the slightest suggestion, please share the dream. I would love to find the missing piece to complete this puzzle.