How does he come up with the 2d designs? They need to all fit together right? I feel like there some missing step between the reference material and the 2D illustrator designs.
This threw me off too. Sure Illustrator is probably a better tool for this than pen and paper, but it seems like far from the best choice. I guess that just makes this all the more impressive.
I've never tried it, but I wonder if designing in 3D and then printing out UV maps would be a good way to go? You'd at least end up with all the polygons and an outer shape to cut out, although whether you could fold paper along the edges is another story.
