It is rare that a simple bit of geometry is so lovely but this floral pot combines glorious proportion and an efficient use of the sheet:
A simple(ish) twirl causes the vase shape. I must work out how to fold this without the pre-creasing scars as I think this would look beautiful in large format hand-made paper. 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
Voting is something democratic societies hold as an important right. Some counties have compulsory voting, most allow citizens to choose whether they want to vote – all too often the result is the same – groups of opinionated, empty-headed people are elected to represent the views of the common people.
Anyone who knows me, realises I take the political piss whenever I can – voting only encouraged politicians to think they are more important than the rest of us, but they are just us, right, paid to argue (usually paid a LOT more that those of us who enjoy a good argument). 
We organise candidates into “parties”, “alliances” and “coalitions”, pick “leaders” and rally behind them like their personalities are what really matters. All too often, in the end, we end up with the government we deserve. Continue reading
…so I am a teacher, and I teach senior students:
I have, on occasions, joked about how cool it would be to own a Segway – my classes are physically far apart and getting between campuses takes time, hence the idea that a PTD (personal transport device) would be cool. I _never_ in my wildest dreams imagined my students would do anything about this pipe dream – let’s face it, we all say things in jest.
It was an ambush, total surprise – I think I was the only one who knew nothing. It still gives me goosebumps thinking about it. I was teaching my year 11 class when the whole year 12 class arrived headed by Tom on a Segway. They had crowd-funded a second hand one as a end of year gift – wow, just wow!.
A work colleague is going on Long Service Leave – lucky bastard! It appears he had no end of trouble buying a camera for travelling, so I thought I would make him one as an hooroo gift:
Designed by Won Park, this little SLR Camera is tiny, but has a viewfinder, winder lever, shutter button, pop-up flash and lovely lens all sticking out of a lovely boxy body.
Genius design, if tiny and torturous, I hope he likes it. Continue reading
Needing to clean my brain, I looked for some box-pleating (as that is absorbing, fiddly and it is difficult to to do or think anything else while doing it):
I came across a design for a folding chair, folded in 24ths and decided to give it a go.
My heuristic is that we do not get mail on Fridays – not sure it is always true but mostly. Last Friday I therefore did not check the mailbox. Sunday I discovered my Tanteidan had been delivered on Friday and I had left it for nearly 2 days before opening it.
On the cover, Gen Hagiwara’s violin – a sublime fold that I have seen many fellow paper-benders succeed at folding and I was determined to give it a bash.
Contemplating buying Christmas Crackers, you gain a sense of waste and expense – they are hideously expensive and full of stuff no sane person would actually want:
…so I thought about folding some.
I am fond of a twist, and whilst exploring the maths of a hex twist, I discovered a method for making a pentagon-based twist with rolled seam and nice turnovers that seems to do the job admirably and also naturally results from a square. Continue reading
You may remember I recently folded a Chuka Ryu, and it had a particular spiral bend to it…
… that spiral corresponds to the diameter of the white keep precisely – one sits inside the other.
This now tells a totally different story – what is happening here?
Add your narrative suggestions to the comments section.
In days of old, when people of a township were threatened they retreated (as their last best hope) into the Keep – a heavily fortified “core” of the castle that was designed to withstand the most vigorous of attacks
So I had this odd but interesting idea that it should, given the right size of paper, be possible to fold an entire castle from it. After being inspired by Gachepaper and his exploration of Lotka I decided to give it a whirl
In need of some therapy, and with my procrastinator set on FULL, I embarked on a punishing box-pleating exercise:
I remember as a kid in New Zealand we had a cheezy Cuckoo Clock (Mum loved it) that used to have metal pinecones as counterweights and a faux timber case that used to “cuckoo” and scare the life out of me every hour. It had the loudest tick of any clock I remember.. I am fairly sure it did not survive the emmigration back to Oz because I do not remember it afterwards.
Robert Lang is known for beautiful mathematical models and when I first saw photos of his “Black Forest Cuckoo Clock” it seemed impossible to tease all that details out of an uncut sheet. Continue reading
When I first saw photos of this model, I could not believe it was folded from a single sheet, without cuts, folds only:
In case you were wondering, this was WTF (What’s That Fold?) # 8. I was determined to give it a go. Noticing it was made from hundreds of pleats, and given the crease pattern folded down to 64ths in places, I upscaled the suggested paper size (to a 70cm square of 80GSM brown Kraft) to allow for my fat, clumsy fingers to make the creases.
Anyone who knows me understands my fascination with the Sydney Opera House, as a kid I saw the sails of it being built:
Set magnificently on Bennelong Point right in the heart of the harbour, it together with the Sydney Harbour Bridge (no, do not panic, I am not making that) are quintessential Australian icons.
Googling one day I stumbled across a design idea from Gerwin Sturm (2007) for a box pleated version of my fav building on earth, and some vague explanations of how it “should be possible to collapse and shape based on a 32×32 grid”. Continue reading
As soon as I knew Satoshi was due to release a new book, I knew I had to have it:
This is the first fold of my first model from “The Works of Satoshi Kamiya 2”, and it is quite recognisably a Golden retriever/labrador. 
For anyone who has been blessed with a lab in their life, you realise how wonderfully gentle, soppy, stupid and plain lovely they are.
This model is dedicated to the memory of “Missy” and “Raffy” – two much missed pets (one of my in-laws, the other a mates family pet).
I love how this model is demonstrative of form without necessarily capturing every detail. The fold technique is odd, but interesting and each time I wrangle the head/shoulders, you get a slightly different aspect, expression and posture – lovely use of a sheet.
I used lithography paper for this, but have also folded it with a piece of double-sided kami, with good results. I think I like the white fold, however sandy/buff would be more demonstrative of the actual dog’s colour.
This is the first, of a series, taken from this wonderful book – some serious challenges ahead – bring it on!
I have been asked many times by well-meaning people whether I can make paper air planes:
The honest answer is “sort of” – I love fantastically complicated and detailed Origami models of actual planes, but cannot make one that can fly for shit.
This little beauty was a right bastard of a fold but closely resembles, at least in intent, the Sopwith Camel – a famous dogfighter in WWI. A fantastically detailed little model with propellor, machine gun, pilot, landing deat abd a lovely set of supported twin-wings.
Designed ingeniously by Jose Maria Chaquet from a bird-base within a bird-base, I mis-judged how dense the paper would become and started with too smaller a square I think – 40cm was not big enough, but still, battled on with the Kraft paper and think the end result is pretty nice for a first fold.
If I were to fold this again, I think 50-60cm would make the final modelling easier. As the fuselage is so dense I had to “cheat” and use some small bits of double-sided tape to hold it together and stop it unfolding itself in the humidity but I will not tell anyone if you do not.
