I attended the 2021 April OUSA Foldfest – a 25 hour online marathon of folding tutorials, lectures and virtual meet nd greet:
One of 2 deciding reasons to attend was the opportunity to be taught a model by Sipho Mabona – his “Geisha”.
At 3am, I awoke, made tea, cut some paper ready for the workshop (international time is cruel), and, thankfully followed alone a complex but beautiful sequence.
By pure coincidence, my paper looked like Sipho’s, and my final model is really close (amazing for a first fold, testament to the sequence and expert tutelage).
It is the days you do not look in your mailbox that mail arrives – I arrived home from work to find an astonishing collection of paper from Pham Hoang Tuan’s origami shop, and a couple of his diagrams, all screaming “fold me!”, so I started that journey:
I had only ever seen this model complete and in CP form, failed at solving that CP 2 times and had given up folding it for now, then it arrived in diagram form to my delight.
This model is such a synergy of techniques – I can see influences from so many of Joisel’s other creations (many of which I have folded before). The initial collapse is vaguely humanoid, but the shaping is the making of model. So many details to control. The face and hat are tricksy but I an really happy with the level of detail I managed here – he has a playful but chilled character, smug smile and refined face – the mask is jauntily sitting on his nose also.
The fabric effects to the sleeved and pantaloons are a nightmare – to make them seem to “drape” is really hard I found, but eventually it came together. I pre-creased some quilted effect on the bodice and skirt which I am really happy with, and the collar took me ages to nut out. He is in full stockings (diamond pattern), has goofy shoes, a fly-away in-action wavey cape and open hands – so many bits were there waiting to be shaped. One can only marvel at the genius of the design.
For those up to date with “The Mandolorean”, the last episode reveal was “baby yoda’s” name – turns out it was “Grogu”:
Although loosely a space western, Mando is largely cutie Grogu and as many Star Wars references as is possible to fit into a loose plot (my opinion).
Sebastien Limet designed a 2-part Grogu and published video tutorial on his Fakebook account – head and body are separate (I cheated and glued mine together – ssshhh!). The next day he did the same for a Mandalorian helmet – I made mine a little goth. More eye candy follows…
So I reasoned that if I mess with the “Superdude” base, I should be able to re-purpose the “cape” into a set of wings … so set about doing that:
In relatively short time I had made my first faery, to be told that it was a boy – and that faeries are typically girls which left a dilemma – how does one endow a gender to these little ffolke?
I, sadly, solved the problem by resorting to archetype, and put a “tutu” on my next one – in no way determining it’s gender, but conforming to the “her” stereotype.
I reason that fictional critters that fornicate to make more of themselves must have, biologically, distinct sexes, but I in no way wish to say they must conform to human dress standards, albeit antiquated ones.
Continuing my exploration of Mi Wu’s new book “Duo Color Origami”, I present his “Skull Badge”:
A genius rendition of a skull icon complete with upper set of teeth. I enjoyed the fold sequence so much I folded a second one (to convince myself the first fold was not a fluke).
World Origami Days is a period end October-beginning November that is an international celebration of Origami. I decided to try a super complex model (fold until it fails) and successfully folded Satoshi Kamiya’s “Divine Dragon (Bahamut)” on the first attempt:
Rarely does a first fold work out but I kept folding and it did, much to my surprise and delight. The fold sequence is particularly punishing and describes a bit of an enigma of a model – the balance between paper thinness and size. I chose 80gsm 100cm square Kraft paper and at this size/thickness it was tough going in places indeed. The body and legs are incredibly thick compared to the single layer wings – a bit of a puzzle if you wanted to fold it small.
A “Bahamut” is a monster from the “Final Fantasy” franchise, and is an odd mix of a lizard, dragon, Godzilla…thing.
The detail here is terrifying. Thick, muscular 4-toed feet, thick dragonny tail, chest sporting a 6 pack (make that a whole slab), arms with 4 claws, complex and snarly horned head and glorious wings with an extra set of hands atop them – quite a formidable beastie.
This fold took me the best part of the weekend to complete, and I used a little glue (shhhh!) to tidy gaping seams and a little MC to stabilise his (? only they would know the gender) posture and basic body morphology.
If I were to fold this again I would use thinner prettier paper, but there are sections where front and back are visible, so the model is not really suited to duo paper – perhaps double tissue or unryu. I had forgotten how satisfying Satoshi Kamiya models are to fold, and how wonderful it is to just get lost in the folding process (I took no progress pics, soz) – it was terrific paper-based therapy. There are so many complex techniques here to isolate and separate body elements, genius design indeed.
The game of the moment appears to be “Among Us” – a playful collab game of murder in the dark, in space, featuring an imposter among the group.
I cannot pretend to have played it, yet. I gather you need friends, like-minded, that have good hand-eye coordination. I think I would be a liability given I used to think that “friendly fire” was the aim, and I always found it easier to murder those players just sitting there with me – apparently murdering team mates is generally not appreciated.
I cannot for one moment pretend that all my folds work out – indeed I have sent LOTS of paper to landfill as twisted wrecks of models i have later mastered.
A single week (with work, life etc) for me was not a challenge I could complete – the Harlequin model is a glorious extension of a “gnome-like” structure, the pre-creasing took me 2 days alone.
I managed the collapse, fairly cleanly, managed to isolate all the key features (face, hat, bow, cape, arms with ruffles, skirt and puffy-pants legs with diamond stockings. I ran out of time shaping, sadly.
Wet folding requires application of water and/or MC, molding, clamping and waiting for it to dry before moving on – the process is tedious, long winded if you have to go to work, sleep etc as well as shape. A piece like this would typically take at least a week to shape alone, so I am not sure it was a good model choice for a week challenge – that said, a couple of folders managed it – I have no idea how.
I will re-fold this, when I am less time-restricted. I am sad I did not complete the challenge actually – it upset me to think I did not have a week 4 entry. the process of acceptance has kicked in however and I am stoic enough to look back at what I did achieve over the past 4 weeks. I am inordinately proud of my efforts, regardless of what the judges thought.
I reflect on Joisel’s legacy a lot – he passed 10 years ago today, I remember the shock that consumed the origami community at his passing, but celebrate his artistic contribution – he re-defined shaping, “breathing life into paper” like no one else.
If you are interested in the challenge, other entrants and the whole shebang, go here: https://tributoajoisel.wordpress.com/ for the tribute competition home, galleries etc.
It is a well known fact that Eric Joisel was a sculptor before taking up paper as his medium of choice. Never is it more evident than the figurative human series of nudes he made, of which this is my approximation of #4:
He uses an ingenious grid system, dividing each corner up into 18 radial lines, where they intersect geometry emerges on a square and that geometry provides the landmarks for the base.
I had tried 2 different schemes for corner division, failed both times until I realised that, relative to the centre line, the interval is a geometric series that increases the further away you get. In the end I used a CP template to “rough out” the divisions and then with my trusty straight edge, ironed out the anomalies.
Corners of the sheet give you arms and legs, the head is near the top middle and a torturous neck reduction brings the chin down to allow the face to look out. The layers are reminiscent of musculature and indeed, Joisel teased and primped, each model different, few photographed clearly enough to really see what was what.
My blog suggests that there are mostl successes with my folds, this is far from the case. I had decided some 5 years back, that I was going to master “Mermaid” by Eric Joisel, and indeed I have tried on a few occasions and failed.
When at first you do not succeed, try, try and try again.
It turned out that “Mermaid#1”, the less attractive of his collection was the subject of Week 2’s intermediate challenge (intermediate they say!!!?!?! Bahahahahahah.). In my confusion, back when I thought it was “choose ONE of thes models and fold it in 4 weeks” I had actually chosen mermaid, because. I recently learned it was fold 1 new model each week, AND copy the work of the master as close as possible. While I am not entirely sure this is respectful, and while I totally fucked this up with week 1 (I did an INTERPRETATION, not a copy, and scored few points for my best gnome ever which was quite disheartening), I am perservering because I like the challenge – it is good for my head.
This is the 4th model in this batch of folding. It is not perfect, and I will probably not be keeping it, but it is as close to a copy of the original as I can manage. Realistic human figures are hard, curves, breasts and soft tummys with delicate bellybuttons are even harder.
So this started as a cautionary tale – I saw the a competition, in Spanish, where they were celebrating the art legacy of one of my favourite designers of all time: Eric Joisel. My initial “skimming” of the competition was “pick a level, choose a model from that level’s choices, fold that model” – easy, right?
I chose “Intermediate”, no real idea why, but I did, and was accepted. Just before the comp started, I get an email welcoming me to the competition and detailing Week 1’s challenge … wait!?!? What!?!?!
Turns out I signed up to fold ALL of the intermediate models, one a week for the next 4 weeks. I have no idea if I can actually fold some of the models in this category, but am (after the “reorientation”) prepared to give it a crack.
After what feels like ages, I am returning to recreational folding (it is great therapy):
This started as a mystery CP by Sergio Guarachi, that I sort of solved, then researched and realised I collapsed it more or less correctly. I am still a NOOB when it comes to solving CPs, so was a little chuffed that my collapse liberated a workable number of points, and with some creative smooshing (an actual origami technique) got a fair approximation of a human skeletal hand.
Lately I have been folding a lot of faces – some free-form, some crease pattern (CP) based:
This is Mask #16, designed by Flynn Jackson, folded from cardstock, painted bronze.
I am beginning to get a “feel” for facial features – repetition and practice of free-folding helps me realise nuances between face structured, position of key anchors (brow ridge, nose, mouth) and how to set the eyes.
Human Corona Virus is in the news, the news is alarming:
It is difficult to know the extent of the emergency, the effectiveness of treatment, the vector of infection, the spread and infection rate, the facts.
Social media and websites masquerading as “news” agencies love a good headline, and this mixed with Survivor in the jungle, celebrity red carpets, sham impeachment, Corona Virus “influencers” on instagram and fad diets makes navigating the facts difficult.
Public warnings and travel bans aside, what constitutes a pandemic? What is the appropriate response?
I took a 3×1 rectangle of white/natural Ikea Kraft and … well … doodled and came up with an all too familiar image – a face-masked regular person. In an odd bout of synchronicity, Sebastian Limet (@sebl) had the same idea. His fold, as usual has lots of character.
