621: (71/365) Little Mouse

Under the weather at the moment, folding while suffering a streaming headcold is not much fun. After 2 model fails, I thought I should go simpler:

I stumbled across an obscure book by Eduardo Clemente called “Papiroflexia”, it is full of historically revolutionary designs I must try. Continue reading

618: (68/365) Plesiosaurus

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

617: (67/365) Narwal

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

616: (66/365) Nollentonk

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

611: (61/365) Pocket Godzilla

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

609: (59/365) Leia Organa

“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

608: (58/365) Master Yoda

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

607: (57/365) Storm Trooper

…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

602: (52/365) Jason Ku’s Lizard

I bought some hand-made paper with inclusions from Daiso and wondered how it would fold, so looked for a punishing model to test it out:

This is Jason Ku’s Lizard – a lovely little critter with toes, an elegant tail and a funky face with gaping mouth and bulby eyes. Continue reading

601: (51/365) Hideo Komatsu’s “Rhino”

I want to pretend that I have the skill level to master a fold first go, but in truth, sometimes it is not as simple as that:

This Rhino appeared in the current edition of the JOAS magazine Tanteidan and I was determined to try it – an hour or so and it would be done – right? Continue reading

598: (48/360) Neal Elias’ “Rocking Horse”

This model is testament to the design genius of Neal Elias:

Taking the bird base, and a colour change, we fashion a jockey (with the cutest little cap) atop a rocking horse. I love the detail here and will probably fold this again, only with a slightly bigger bit of paper.  Continue reading

596: (46/360) Keigo Matsuda’s “Peter Rabbit”

Now it seems Beatrix Potter has gone out of favour in the age of political correctness, but there is no denying the charm of her stable of animal characters as they anthropomorphise through their day:

This is “Peter Rabbit” – well, more correctly it is supposed to be the rabbit from “Through the Looking Glass” but the colouring I used is more Peter that White Rabbit in my opinion. I have never really understood the Victorian tradition of partially clothed animals (he is wearing no pants, right?) but that is carried over to cartoon characters also which is a little odd. Continue reading

594: (44/360) Shore Crab

A folder I follow on Facebook asked for volunteers to test his diagrams for a new crab design so naturally I put my hand up:

This is Tuan Hoang Pham’s “Shore Crab” design, a delightfully dense creation that is morphologically fairly close to a ghost crab in my opinion. Continue reading

593: (43/360) Neal Elias’ “Andres Segovia”

When a member of the British Origami Society, I purchased “Selected works of Neal Elias” and continue to find gems within it – this is one such treasure:

Modeled after a classical guitarist in 1970, this model starts with a 3×1 rectangle (8×23 to be exact) and, via miracles of box pleating (a pioneering technique back then) we tease an artist and his instrument. Continue reading

588: (38/360) Sipho Mabona’s “Swallow”

When planning origami models that will be good for permanent display, locks and paper tension matter as a model will try to unfold itself:

This genius design results in a fairly faithful swallow, the body is rounded, beak and head cleverly proportioned, tings and tail streamlined – it looks like it would fly. Continue reading