animal

171: Lambs to the Slaughter

| wonko

So I am setting and supervising exams at the moment – hate it almost as much as the marking – cannot help but feel sometimes like leading lambs to the slaughter:

A simple but flawed fold I think – hand-drawn diagrams with few landmarks and an oddity about the head formation that I would re-make if I was to re-fold it. There are ears there, and plenty of paper to improve them  them but the photo does not do this model justice.

I like the legs, and the body-head proportions are good, I can see myself messing with this model to improve the sheepishness of it. Still – they cannot all be gems.

170: The Happy Couple

| wonko

Another parental milestone today. We are going with our daughter and her fiancé to look at a wedding and reception venue:

Lots on, important however to attend to that which really matters – family and friends.

Designed by Joseph Wu to me folded at the reception of a wedding (to give the guests an “ice breaker” activity to get to know the people at their table), a figurative “Happy Couple” – nice and simple.

169: A Yabbie

| wonko

Now in Australia, local waterholes and creek banks are often pock-marked with Yabbie-holes:

Yabbies are a sweet, freshwater crayfish that are related, albeit distantly, to the American Lobster more commonly seen off the Florida Coast

It is my brother-in-law’s Birthday today – happy Birthday Rob!!! he lives in Florida and dives for lobsters in his spare time – I thought it timely to remind him of his Australian equivalent.

This is a torturous model on a lot of fronts – a collaboration between John Montroll and Robert Lang from the book “Origami Sealife”.  I shoulda tweaked that it was the LAST model in the book (traditionally the the final model in a book is the most challenging) but began folding it anyway – 3 1/2 hours later, after some serious swearing and no little amount of paper torture I ended up with a delightful model.

Folded from a square cut from an A3 copy paper page, this TINY end model is testament to a superb design as it is all tucked away into a plump body, 8 legs, 2 claws, 2 stalked eyes and a lovely pair of antennae. It looks like it would cook a treat.

Actually pretty amazed that I was able to fold it at all, many times I contemplated giving up (like 1/2 hour in when I discovered my square was not quite … square), or the formation of the 2 pairs of 6 legs via some extremely fine (3-5mm) folds. You know a model is tough when on 5 separate points, after folding a tight model you are instructed to unfold everything, turn it over and fold something new – the planning to get that crease patter is mind-buggering.

You may applaud now, reminds me of the prawns I cooked for dinner last night – throw another shrimp on the barbie Rob, many happy returns for your birthday.

167: A Hyena

| wonko

Hyenas get a bum rap by the general public, They are seen as garbage collectors and, whilst it is true that they will eat stuff already dead, they prefer to hunt.

This is a difficult model to get the posture right – I like the base however and can see a rande of quadrupeds that could spring from it.

A “jackall” I think, and a dog are closely related. Hope you like it.

165: Sugar Plump Fairy

| wonko

I once shared a house with 3 other uni friends – much happened, most memorable. Late one night, instead of finishing a due-next-day assignment, Mark was seen flitting and pirouetting through the house:

We coined the expression “sugar plump fairy” after the dance he was attempting, it stuck. Happy Birthday Mark!!!

I like this model, simple folds, precise creasing that gives form from flat surfaces – very clever Mr Brill.

This model is designed to be a Christmas tree topper – I can see how that would work given the convenient pocket at the back. It is not free standing (although I could mangle the lovely minimalist legs into feet and knees I guess – that would ruin the lines however.

Hope you like it.

163: The Bullfight

| wonko

Miguel the Matador struts confidently into the arena, the crowd erupts, enraptured. El Toro stampedes into the arena, head held high, the crowd roars entusiastically:

Proudly El Toro circles the matador, alert yet regal the matador watches his worthy opponet, a balletic interplay continues, each proud adversary taunting the other until…

they both live happy ever after, El Toro got put out to pasture and the Matador, a champion for animal rights forms PETA and abolished the barbaric … yeah, I know, I got nothing.

Interesting figurative model – each suggestive of form without being nit-pickingly detailed – I like them, except for the sport they personify. I was looking for “Llopio’s moment of truth” by Neal Elias but could not find a licensed diagram, so I bought the book that it is in – it is being shipped from the British Origami Society as we speak, so settled on a much simpler but none the less effective model by Robert Neale.

I had to cheat – you can just see the splayed paper clip and blob of bluetac holding up the matador (his ankles are too weak and the balance is all wrong for him to stand unaided, sadly.

Why a bullfight? Well, we have been invited to a Spanish-inspired lunch by some old friends “The Goodies” so I thought getting in the mood was a good plan.

161: A Dragon

| wonko

Now I have been looking for nicely shaped Dragons:

and stumbled across a Hungarian fold that reminded me of a cartoon one.

Lovely wings, thick and powerful tail, nice head – a fairly simple fold actually but sometimes simplicity is good too.  

I am working towards a Satoshi dragon, so I need all the dragon-practice I can get. I would like to pretend this one was my first-fold, but I scored a Year 11 Maths C stuporvision at school, and got bored with matrices and vectors so tried it then – so sue me.

Was going to give it to Josh, who has not shut up about dragons since he heard I was going to try the ancient dragon, but then he did not stop talking so took it back – you win some  lose some I guess.

160: Joisel’s Penguin

| wonko

For those people not in Brisbane, it is unseasonally cold today so I thought that it might be appropriate to try a Joisel model:

This delightful model has very few folds, yet emerges with a fairly normal posture, plump belly, lovely fins and figurative feet.

Joisel is a master, each fold well thought out and I always enjoy folding his models – this model is a nightmare in thirds – most divisions are thus, and really difficult to get right.

On a day like today, this little penguin would be well at home.

159: Harbin’s Bat

| wonko

Going batty here trying to decide what to fold, late after a QSITE meeting … so:

I folded a Bat – quite a tidy model, plump little body and nice wing span

Unusually made from an equilateral triangle, relatively few folds actually for a well proportioned bat

157: A Little Mage

| wonko

You see a gaping cavern, the sudden rush of sulphurous breath hints at a hiding dragon, you fumble in your robes, raising your wand and hope your newly learned incantations are sufficient defence against the scaley foe …

I love RPGs, get lost in them all the time, as does my Wife. She has a good friend, on the other side of the world, who is having a birthday today – **Happy Birthday MIKE!!! ** So I thought making a mage (his fav class) would be a good idea.

Cute model, relatively few folds (which is good as I am not feeling the best atm), hope he likes it. Doubly fitting as it is also Draco Malfoy’s Birthday (potter geeks should confirm this).

156: Basset Hound for Mum

| wonko

When we were growing up, we had Basset hounds – lovely droopy, pendulous eared dogs. Mum had one called Rebecka, my sister had one called Cleo. Now I am not a “dog person” but these old ladies were different, they were family:

It is Mum’s Birthday ***HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM*** She is on the other side of the planet right now (in Cornwall) so a few weeks back I folded her a basset with similar colouring to Rebecka (bought a brindle cow print from a closing down craft shop nearby):

Hoping the post gets it to her on time, this model fills me with fond memories, companionship, childhood, feelings of home. Anyone who has had a Basset knows they are just like people.

I would like to say the cow-print paper was easy to fold but it wasn’t, tough work, my hands ached afterward, but it folded flat so it could be enveloped and sent off in the post amidst a card.

You can try this one for yourself – relatively straight forward, being tidy at the beginning makes for a better model later on.

June is a busy month for birthdays – must be something in the water around this time of year (or rather 9 months earlier :P)

155: See Hear and Speak No Evil

| wonko

About a month ago I bought a huge sheet of tracing paper. Well, I call it paper but it is actually a type of opaque plastic called “vellum”. For my birthday fold I decided to see what vellum could do:

The paper was 42cm square (cut from a 42x60cm rectangle) and straight away I knew it would be tough – vellum does not like to be folded but once it is, hates being unfolded.

This INSANE design sculpts 3 wise monkeys Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru and places them under a palm tree via some miraculous paper torture. See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil is a pretty good life philosophy but there were evil words muttered whilst this fold was wrestled into place.

Getting the monkeys to look monkey-like with the density the body ends up being is a real challenge. facial expressions, such that they are, and arm postures alike were tough fought, but I am pretty happy with the end result.

I have learnt a lot from this exercise – vellum can be folded, but fatigue shows itself as splits, particulalry at the pointy ends. It hates being re-folded in the opposite direction on a fold (reversed), is VERY strong, once folded it stays there – consequentially, this model is rigid and is not trying to unfurl (much as I imagine tissue-foil behaves).

Will I use it again? not sure – when my tissue-foil arrives along with my Satoshi book I now have a point of comparison, I am honestly surprised the model worked at all, but will accept congratulatory applause now.

You too can have a go here – be warned, this is NOT an introductory exercise.

Happy Birthday to me 🙂

154: Draft Donkey

| wonko

…so I am marking Drafts, dozens of the things – life goes on hold for a while and I feel like a bit of a work-horse:

This is supposed to be a donkey reading a paper – I sort of get it, hope you do to. ears and head are nice, I like how the paper is held also but would remodel the “hands” to hoofs if I were to fold this again

153: Shiri’s Snail

| wonko

Now I stumbled across this recipe for a snail, only problem was all the instructions were in Thai:

Quite by coincidence, we are having home-cooked Thai tonight (I make a mean beef and basil) but NOT cooked with snails

So I gave it a whirl – in the end I had to work from the way diagrams looked, think I nailed it, difficult to tell – this snail has a lovely shell, head/feelers and foot – quite my favorite mollusc so far
I really like how the shell becomes 3d, with some tweaking and some textured paper this would be really beautiful (well, as beautiful as a snail can be at least)

152: A Magic White Rabbit

| wonko

I like this model – a rabbit sitting atop a dice (white spots on the white die – totally Zen)

Made with a 2×1 rectangle, containing a waterbomb and crafting the rabbit from what was left is neat

I like the ears, nose and posture of the rabbit, and the fact that the waterbomb base is neat (oft times I make them lop-sided) and am happy with this “white rabbits” for the first day of the month

Folded from my oldest Origami book “Secrets of Origami” by Robert Harbin, the model is actually designed by Fred Rhom.