Armadillo Ball! Question

I've been away all week, so I really haven't done anything. So instead of giving a full account of my progress, I'm going to post a couple of armadillo pictures and pose an open question to all of you.

All photos from northrup.org

The one thing I want for this project is a way of opening and closing the piece. I need a good way of sliding and pivoting a series of scales. There are two ways I can do this:

The first is basically mimicking the armadillo's skin. I can attach a cloth backing to the scales, and if I leave a little bit of a gap between the scales, they should have enough room to slide underneath each other. This is probably the easiest way to do this.

All photos from northrup.org

The second method I could use is a mechanical slide system. This is a little more complicated. Attaching it to the scales would be easier and the scales would always move the way I would like, but it has more of a chance of jamming, which would not be good.

Either way, this project is going to be a pain in the butt.

I would like to get everyone's feedback before I start into the finicky parts of rigging this project because you might have a better insight into this than I do. Thanks guys.