humanoid

1184: Walking in the Rain

| wonko

One of the many models I have had on my “to fold” pile for ages is Chen Xiao’s “Walking in the Rain”:

This box-pleated model seems to have taken me an age to complete for many reasons (including what I consider a weakness of box pleating), but finally I committed a square of pre-prepared Wenzhou paper to a rendering of this design.

The paper was previously Eco Dyed: Sandwiched between each layer of the folded up sheet was various vegetative matter – onion skins, tea leaves and other tannin-based plants. This bundle was boiled for a few hours in a “dirty pot” containing red cabbage and purple carrots. The cooled bundle was then carefully washed to remove all the bits of vegetation leaving subtle stains. This paper I called “Cherry Blossom” Wenzhou because the dappled pinks and muted browns reminded me of blossom trees.

Continue reading →

Null and Void

| wonko

I decided I needed to do a presentation fold of Boice Wong’s wonderful pair of models he calls “Head Empty”.

My previous folds were with plain Kraft paper, but I decided I wanted to show off the clever colour changes implicit in the design, so re-folded them with White/Natural Kraft paper over the last week or so.

Having released only Crease Patterns (CP), part of the delicious challenge of this pair of models is working out what becomes what. Although related, the 2 models use CP variations that both allow for the formation of a box head, one attached to shoulders, the other not.

Continue reading →

WALL-E says “Hi”

| wonko

Digging through my stash, I found a large sheet of yellow Crumpled VOG paper. Remembering I had never done a presentation fold of Brian Chan’s “WALL-E”, I knew I had found the right model for the paper:

The original character – a (Disney) Pixar masterpiece is a lovely little character piece with one of the most expressive robots ever on film. The design is intense, eats paper like nothing else but results in features that are instantly recognisably “WALL-E”.

Squaring up the paper, I managed a 60cm square from the sheet, cleaving wisps of 3 sides and a strip off the bottom. The strip was later used to coat some armature wire to keep him in shape – the model has some lovely deep pleats that allow you to hide structural supports to give the model some longevity.

VOG paper is particularly great for super-complex models because it is really tough, takes creases well and the texture persists, even after extensive working.

Continue reading →

1173: The Eye of Horus

| wonko

The masters of 2D side-on imagery, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics and associated artefacts have always fascinated me:

This is Peter Bucan-Symons’ design, represented as a 2D colour change model (a genre that has had a recent surge of popularity), and folded from a 25cm square of Green/Gold Washi Deluxe.

This design is part of Peter’s forthcoming book “Folding Fantasy 3”, a collection of stunning complex original works, coming soon to a bookstore online.

I have not folded many 2D colour change models, but love the angular geometry, truly reminiscent of all artefact representations. The Eye of Horus is a left eye in a pair of Wedjat eyes. The right eye is the Eye of Ra, and often in modern illustration presented mirrored, curiously.

https://egyptplanners.com/eye-of-horus-vs-eye-of-ra/

Designing 2D colour change models is a specialised skill, manipulating and utilising raw edges (typically) in exotic and torturous ways.

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-egyptians/what-is-the-ancient-egyptian-eye-of-horus-and-why-is-it-found-in-so-many-burials

This was a fun sequence, and would be easier on larger thinner paper. I found the pre-creasing folds on the Washi Deluxe disappeared, so it was harder than it would be on less textured paper.

Continue reading →

1168: Cotton-top Tamarin

| wonko

As a once obsessed biology teacher, I am very interested in critters that are distant relatives – in this case the group of “New World Monkeys” contain some astonishing and cute members – few cuter or more critically endangered than the Cotton-top Tamarin:

Origami primates are fairly rare, but the more exotic specimens hardly ever get a representation. It was wonderful to see that in a soon to be published book “Origami Oddities”, by Kunsulu Jilkishiyeva that this Tamarin was designed so thoughtfully by her.

Test folded from a 45cm square of peach/natural matt Damul Kraft paper from origami-shop.com, the sequence is fun, tricky and contains some very satisfying collapses.

There is heaps of opportunity to go nuts with the shaping here, as the head is expressive (yet has no facial features – yet), the hands are fully fingered, the back legs in the original design were points (I rendered them more as paws), the tail is lovely and lively, the “cotton top” is fun.

Continue reading →

Just a Guy Holding a Crane

| wonko

I was cleaning some cooked Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) bark, scraping the outer layers that was outer bark and the remnants of the dried up fleshy parts of the plant, and a thought occurred to me. The residue was really fibrous – what would paper even look like made from this waste?

Given I had the time, equipment and curiosity to fuck around and find out, I hand-beat the residue, rinsed the pulpy mess until it was clean, and then divided the ball into 3, figuring (via guestimation) that 1/3 of the blob was enough to make an A3 sheet.

I took 1/3, added it to a bucket of water and agitated it vigorously to breakup and disperse the fiber uniformly through the water. Then, using a rectangular chinese food container, I gently ladled the really watery pulp onto my new A3 Mold and Deckle, in the lid of my new vat. Taking the time to distribute the fibre evenly and thinly. When all the fiber was gone, I couched the resultant sheet onto glass, then added some smooth poly-cotton sheeting material as a layer to isolate the sheet, then added a flanellette layer, another poly-cotton sheet material layer and then repeated the sheet formation process another 2 times.

Topped off the “post” with another layer of flannelette, and a top sheet of glass. Putting this sandwich on an angle to encourage the drips onto the floor drain, I then added a besser block to add firm squishing pressure, and left it to drip overnight. I must engineer a paper press that is more consistent.

Continue reading →

1162: Zen

| wonko

There are times when thoughts turn to the complexity of simplicity:

A few simple folds on an eccentric waterbomb base and you end up with a model that encourages deep contemplation, invoking a calm.

This is Pierre-Yves Gallard’s wonderful “Buddhist Monk”, folded simply (if not accurately) from a 15cm square of orange-white kami to simulate the otherwise vibrant saffron robes.

I am always delighted by how few folds it takes to evoke a human form – we seem innately able to recognise “people shaped” things, faces also.

A lovely exercise in restraint – this is my first fold, as I was discovering how to isolate the head and form the robes – I have no doubt subsequent attempts will be an improvement, but real life doesn’t give you a “re-do”, so here it is.

I posed it here with my Vietnamese soapstone dragon behind. The model is free-standing, it has a fold-back tab that makes it pretty stable. I like the the juxtaposition of the meditating monk playing against the hidden dragon in sharp focus, with the background blurring into obscurity.

I wonder if paper is folded in the forest and there is no one there to see it, does it remain as origami?

1149: NFTs

| wonko

As far as I can tell, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are dumb:

On this blog, NFTs stand for “Newly Folded Things”, but in the imaginary world of cryptocurrency and blockchain, NFTs were going to be the next big thing.

…until they were linked to money laundering, and people buying them realised that all they were actually buying was an entry in some blockchain register, not the “like, really cool, next level bored ape…man” [I assume that is how “the kids” now speak]

This NFT Bored ape was designed by Viswa Sarathi, and I stumbled across the design leafing through an edition of “Origamiaze – The Indian Origami Magazine Issue 02 December 2022” (yes, I was amazed there was one also)

Folded using duo Ikea Kraft paper, it was a fun (if wildly inaccurately diagrammed) fold – on re-fold I think I would refine the expression to make the ape even more bored.

Continue reading →

Display

| wonko

My annual origami display at Holland Park Library was installed this morning:

Cabinet 1 views

Included is a broad range of origami styles from a huge and diverse collection of designers, folded from a varied collection of papers.

Cabinet 2 views

I am trying to get better at not crowding the display cabinets – sometimes less is more to allow individual models to shine – let me know how I went.

If you visited, I would love your impressions, comments and suggestions for future displays.

Get directions here

The Perfect Organism

| wonko

I have long been drawn to the particular thrill of Science-Fiction based horror – few franchises do it like Alien:

This Xenomorph, designed by Kade Chan (you too can have a go at folding it here) was folded from a 60cm square of Crumpled VOG paper – a rare find in my stash, near last remnant of a purchase some 10 years ago when you could still buy VOG paper.

My previous fold of this model was in crispy Kraft in 2013, and I had always meant to return to it and fold a presentation fold. With the release of “Alien Romulus” in cinemas, I figured the chest burster was about ready to pop.

Continue reading →

1131: The Work of Fynn Jackson

| wonko

A long while ago, a new artist on the scene, Fynn Jackson, started releasing astonishing mask crease patterns on social media.

He later commercially released his designs and I purchased his crease pattern packs for masks 1-35, along with the more recently released noses 1-9.

I love Fynn’s work, and eventually will develop my own CPs of faces. There is so much expression in the score and fold bundle, so decided to expand my collection and try out a bundle of manilla card in the process. I contacted @Jacksonorigami and asked him about selling finished masks – he (to my surprise and delight) freely encourages folders to monetise their rendering of his designs, so long as we do not share the purchased CPs (so please DO NOT ASK) …. so I got to thinking about an upcoming Gallery shoppe associated with my papermaker friends PAQ – put 1 and 1 together and arrived at 6.

I set about folding 6 faces I had not tried before from Fynn’s rich collection of characters, each using different aspect ratios, techniques and all quite wonderful. I was encouraged (by some of the wonderful ladies in PAQ – I am looking at you Ann and Wendy!) to consider selling, and began thinking about displays that would make them work as purchaseables.

Continue reading →

Barnaby Blockhead

| wonko

Everyone called Charlie Brown “Blockhead”, a past Deputy Prime Minister continually is caught acting like one, so I began wondering what that would might like:

I had recently folded Boice Wong‘s astonishing pair of figures called “Emptyhead” (I named them Dumb and Dumber), so started there, and re-familiarised myself with the crease pattern, devising a smoother collapse (as I adopted the much criticised method of “parachuting” the last time).

I briefly toyed with the idea of posing him like Neo during Matrix’s groundbreaking “bullet time” scene, but decided to go simpler because he would be a … simple … soul.

The tricky bit was to use minimal paper for a neck, leaving enough of a pleat tube to sculpt a 2×2 solid cube, and explored that geometry a bit before settling on a scheme.

Continue reading →

1125: Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus”

| wonko

After acquiring a copy of “Potential Origami” by top Korean Origami designers, I was struck with a choice – which astonishing model should I try first:

It is well known that i love a bit of classical art, and am fond of a fullsome bosom, so decided on Han Ji Woo’s astonishing design based on Boticelli’s painting masterpiece.

I started with a 90cm square of kraft, and intended to give this a try, fully expecting it to fail. My approach to designs outside my skill range is to “fold until it fails or is finished”. I have used this mantra for decades and, as was the case this time around, I discover I have “levelled up” in terms of skills.

The design here is genius. Although it is a boxpleated model, the allocation of flaps to details and proportion evident, as well as attention to the original artwork is outstanding.

From a single sheet of paper, we have a naked lady, masking her modesty with hands and a wicked hairdo. She is standing on an open scallop shell, because … well … that is how she as a Roman Goddess was apparently born. Clearly a little more is now known about where babies come from but it is a striking model version of Botticelli’s classic painting.

I want to tell you this model came easily, and that the shaping was intuitive, but … it wasn’t. I suck at shaping, so really feel like i have levelled up on this model – making the body luscious (yes, I know the breasts are a little “cubist”, but ample and pointed in the right direction. I am particularly happy with the much layered and frizzed hair.

Continue reading →

1123: Anubis

| wonko

I have always been fascinated by Egyptian symbology, myths and ancient artforms. The very pictorial style is angular, stylised, often animal-based and very interesting. Anubis is the god of funerary rites, protector of graves, and guide to the underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head:

I am currently watching STARGATE, a few episodes at a time with my son. I began watching it back in the days of free-to-air broadcasting but, for whatever reason I stopped (prolly because I had a life and no longer had time/access to episodes). The series premise is interesting, and I particularly love their hijacking of Egyptian gods/mythos as the “baddies”, as well as the whole aesthetic.

I wish I could remember where I first found this Crease pattern (CP). It has been in my “must try this, sometime” pile for a couple of years and I finally got around to it when looking for something to fold with my second bit of treated Wenzhou rice paper (not made of rice, is a fine and resilient mulberry). I also wish I knew the designer – can anyone help me out here as I would love to give proper attribution?

The CP seemed pretty straight forward – indeed the collapse was quite natural (I did not do my usual “parachuting” as I tried to collapse key details in the order that seemed most logical), and resulted in a base with a myriad of stickey-outey parts in more or less correct locations. I am so pleased with my developing CP solving skills – a loooooong way to go, but every success encourages me further.

Continue reading →

1121: Santa/Satan

| wonko

Comes the time of year when we tell little kids that a morbidly obese stranger in a red suit breaks into their house (by coming down a chimney or other entry point if there is no chimney), eats some random snack, feeds a portion of that snack to a reindeer (who has a birthmark on it’s nose) and then leaves presents, regardless of whether you have been an entitled little shit all year, or a saint:

As a parent I was complicit in this lie until my kids (fairly early on) cottoned on to the fact that this whole thing was so very unlikely, and merely a mechanism for justifying a mound of presents under the xmas tree.

I wanted to try out the new paper pack of Satogami I got from Origami-shop and this festive fold seemed like the perfect opportunity given the latest Tanteidan magazine (which contains it’s diagrams) arrived this week also.

Duo Satogami is quite thick. I bought a paper pack of 58cm squares, mixed colours and love the vibrancy of the red/white, and also love the texture of the paper. I _want_ to report that pre-creasing Satogami was easy … but … I really struggled to my the reference folds and to fold accurately because of the thickness and texture. The paper reverses fairly poorly also (meaning I had to correct lots of folds for accuracy as I went to ensure alignment of layers and edges during more complex moves.

Continue reading →