Modular stars are a thing, there are many beautiful ones including multi-sheet omega stars (8 pointers), but this little beauty is crafted from a single uncut square:
From a sunken waterbomb base we tease xyz planes then fashion points from their intersections – genius. Continue reading
I started this fold near the end of last year, shelving it when the marking hit it’s peak and realised I had not got back to it:
Playing around with a tiny (4mm) triangle grid, initially I was just testing my patience and accuracy to see how small and accurate I could fold the grid. The paper contains a lot of cotton fibre so is pretty tough and withstood a week of punishing bone-folder-assisted creasing before I then tried to work out what to do with it. Continue reading
Prehistory must have been an amazing time, evidence of such fantastical beasts continue to boggle the mind. The air was full of ferocious snappy things, land was populated by ferocious snappy things and the oceans were the same:
This is Lu Hao’s “Plesiosaurus”, a rich, dense and interesting fold that results in a serpentine necked swimming snappy thing after a complex process of hiding most of the sheet. Continue reading
There is a mystical beast called a Narwal – the unicorn of the sea:
I am lead to believe this is a real critter, and their nose horn seems (at least from photos I fond on Google) to be impractically long but there you go – evolution is an odd natural force. Continue reading
When I was a kid, apparently I used to call elephants “Nollentonks”, not sure why but there you go:
This is Chuya Miyamoto’s Elephant, a wonderfully complex fold that, like most folds of this critter, focuses on the head and trunk first then sorts a body out of what paper is left. Continue reading
Who could have foreseen that the concurrence of a series of parallel mountain folds interspersed between a series of concentric parabolic valley folds would result in something with such sculptural simplicity?:
This is Jun Mitani’s “Spheroid”, well, at least as close as I could get to it by guessing the intervals between parallel lines and the curve on the parabolic ones. Continue reading
Brickwork tessellations are a bit of work, but it is nice to see a model that uses the tessellation as the texture of another structure:
This is Ichiro Kinoshita’s “Fireplace by Brickwork”, a torturous fold that requires a ton of pre-creasing and as the scale I chose (square cut from an A3 sheet), the final crease lines end up about 4mm apart on fairly heavy paper – not, in retrospect, a good choice. Continue reading
We are heading into assignment season in many of my classes – this means my students are busy getting on with it, occasionally asking for help, but I am stuck there inert and when I get bored I get naughty:
…so I fold stuff to keep me awake. Modulars have an advantage that, once you have mastered the module, it is largely “rinse and repeat” until the final assembly. Continue reading
Potter Nerds and Minecraft Nerds unite, for I present to you a “Minecraft” style cubey golden snitch:
This buzzy little bugger would be difficult to catch in a full on game of Quidditch indeed. This is Riccardo Foschi’s “CuBird”, an interesting little CP that collapses with a little wrangling to make a lovely little cube and enough paper to fan out a quite solid set of wings. Continue reading
I remember as a kid being a fan of most things science fiction, and loving Japanese monster movies particularly:
There is something rather charming about a monster, effected by radiation, growing really big then being annoyed by greedy people, subsequently reeking havoc on highly populated areas of Japan. Continue reading
I like a challenge, so started with a huge (60cm) square of spotty bi-colour kraft paper and began the process of folding this model:
Formed, initially from a base that is 4 adjacent bird bases that are then sunk to make 8 long flaps, 4 short ones and a shedload of hidden paper, you then tease the long flaps into position for axles, spoilers, tyres and more. Continue reading
“Help me Obi Wan Kenobie, you’re my only hope’:
This is my second attempt at Tadashi Mori’s “Leia”, a fun fold that does so much with a tortured little piece of paper. Continue reading
Do or do not, there is no try:
This is Stéphane Gigandet’s “Yoda”, a lovely simple Star Wars character fold taken from a video I found on a Chinese version of a ebsite (the English version is here) – try it you should. Continue reading
…now I am as much a fan of Star Wars as the next browncoat. I loved Orac, thought he was the best little droid sidekick since Starbuck and 7 of 9 was my favourite character in all of the series:
This is Tadashi Mori’s “Storm Trooper” – a lovely little clone of a guy from the SW universe. Continue reading
I must admit I like folding modulars – sure they take a little while but the concurrence of units to whole is a fascinating process:
This is David Mitchell’s “Omicron” – a fascinating block modular that, when folded with the right paper, looks solid and impossible. Continue reading
