How do people know what 2D shapes go together to make certain 3D shapes when sewing?

Question

[Edit: How do people know what 2D shapes go together to make certain 3D shapes when *making patterns.]

I know if someone wanted to sew a cube, they would cut 6 squares and sew them together. If they wanted to sew a pyramid, they would cut 1 square and 4 triangles.

But what about weird shapes like with stuffed animals? If someone had never seen a sewing pattern for a teddy bear in their entire life, how would they know what shapes to cut and sew to make the teddy bear?

(It seems simple in concept, but it’s hard to imagine how certain shapes would come together to create something like a humanoid doll.)

In: Other

Answer 1

I guess the other thing would be to break the overall shape down into smaller shapes, so a teddy bear might be four long cylinders (or cones) for the arms and legs, 2 small cones for the ears, one wider but flatter cone for the nose and 2 spheres/flat cylinders for the head and body. Cones have a round base and a triangular shape for the top, and cylinders have 2 flat circular pieces and 2 rectangular pieces. A sphere is potentially more difficult, but depending on the material and stuffing you could probably get away with 2 flat circular pieces sown together and stuffed, like a pillowcase as another commenter said.