What i did, was find the median curve for each segment, manually displace some control points on the other axis, made a few lines here and there for the width and made a sweep1.
What is the intended outcome? Will it be used just for paper type uses or as you say a sculptural type piece to be seen 360 ?
Seems like you have to decide on how much depth it wants and such. I hope others can give more than I have. Best of luck. Mark
You could use a combination of helix and curve blending tools to get your guide curve where you want it then create your ribbon as a solid and flow that along the curve. This way you could actually get curvature on that ribbon along all three axis to give the ribbon a bit more movement.
It maybe easier to visualise it as a series of cylinders which touch at the quadrant and tangent to one another. Once you have the general set up you can create the helix and shapes accordingly, if you would like to amend it afterwards use the transform tools to squish and bend it.
