mammal

421: Asiatic Elephant

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I have folded a few elephants – most concentrate on the head and ignore the rest of the animal – not so this little beauty:

This model has much solidity about it. It looks like it has bulk yet uses little paper to do this, an interesting haunch locking mechanism and a tight little bottom (ahem).

Taken from Works of Satoshi Kamiya Volume 2, this is the most elephantine figure I have yet folded and uses some lovely techniques to use the paper very efficiently, yet result in a free-standing, locked model.

The hind quarters, particularly, are well formed, with a cutesy tail and toe nails and all – very nice Mr Kamiya.

I think this model would work on a much bigger scale – maybe when a sufficiently large sheet avails itself I might give it a go.

I am enjoying working up to some of the more challenging folds in this book – some are just plain bewildering to me at the moment but that confusion too shall pass eventually I hope.

418: Kamiya’s Golden Retriever

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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!

416: Dark Rider

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“Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse; and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the high stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible.
“When it reached the tree and was level with Frodo the horse stopped. The riding figure sat quite still with its head bowed, as if listening. From inside the hood came a noise as of someone sniffing to catch an elusive scent; the head turned from side to side of the road.” – “Three is Company,” Fellowship of the Ring, p. 84

I hate it when things beat me – I find it really hard to let it go:

On my FOURTH attempt, I managed to fold Jason Ku’s amazing model of a Dark Rider (version 8.1) – another character/thing from Lord of the Rings. This is getting to be a habit but is part of the build up to the release of the first part of “The Hobbit”, and I am a bit of a fan.

This fold took me an age (about 6 hours of actual folding) – determined to be accurate, take my time and complete each step as neatly as I could, this strategy paid off through stonkingly complicated twists, crimps and spread-squashes as you coax a square of paper into a possessed horse with a robed rider.

I am particularly proud of the hands/gauntlets – my variation on Jason Ku’s design, I think it looks better. there is so much to see in this model that it is difficult to photograph it and do it justice.

A huge piece of Kraft paper (60cm square) results in a decent sized model (14cm at its tallest) with amazing detail. My only criticism I guess is the flimsiness of the front legs – completely unable to support the bulk of paper above.

I mounted this model on a simple wire armature, so it can stand – he sinisterly looks like he is reaching for something (the one ring, naturally) and I like that the robes look full but are empty.

I masterpiece in design, there were many times I just had to walk away, unable to fathom what the next step meant or how I was going to achieve it. Kraft paper is remarkably forgiving and there was nearly no paper fatigue near the end. Not sure how you could actually fold this model with thicker paper as the centre gets very dense and shaping requires you to wrangle upwards of 20 layers.

I am totally chuffed to have achieved this, my first successful fold after so many failures – one I even had the paper disintegrate in my hands due to fatigue. I found myself having to look forward to how the manoeuvre looks when done to work out some of the ore complex swivels, reverses and open sinks.

As awesome as this model is, this design is NOT a beginners model – the instructions need interpretation as many steps require many new folds to happen at the same time (some without reference).  Indeed I look at my first successful attempt and notice a bunch of things I will do differently next time I fold it.

No idea what I will do with this model, but I am pleased I can now mentally tick this one off in my folders bucket list.

413: Satoshi’s Minotaur

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Determined to try something harder, I had flagged satoshi Kamiya’s Minotaur a “must try eventually”:

I also wanted to try my new “envelopener” – an ingenius paper cutter from The Origami Shop that splits a page on a crease – being frustrated at not being able to cut a straight edge easily on large format paper.

This lovely mythical beast is part man part bull but Satoshi takes this to a new level, making the man beastly as well.

So much paper is worked here, starting with nearly a metre square, the resultant model is barely 15cm tall and so dense in places that detailing was very difficult. I love the expression of his face, the arms and hands, hooves and fantastic tail.

Such innovative use of the sheet, you do not realise that the arms end up being about 30+ layers thick. I have seen this model folded by others and it was standing – mine, made from 35GSM brown Kraft paper does not (without the assistance of a wider armature stand I made for him)

As a first fold, I am very pleased with how he turned out – I might fold him again, one day, as I learned a lot from this fold.

408: Buckbeak the Hippogriff

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I will say it, I am an out and proud Harry Potter fan. Amongst the fantastical beasts that exist in the potterverse is a Hippogriff:

Manuel Sirgo is a talented designer and this is a masterful use of (an albeit fraking huge bit) paper.

I am so glad I started large (45cmsquare brown kraft) as some of the wrangling to make the head and feet was pretty intense.

This odd critter is part “griffin” part horse – claws at the front, hooves at the rear, wings and a bird-like head – weirdly wonderful.

I like that the paper is so dense it ends up being free-standing, the wings spread majestically and I am pretty happy with my first fold of it. More importantly, I learned a new trick to spread/stretch and twist stickey-outey bits to get more paper for a hood/hand which will be handy for making other models more details I suspect.

405: No Bull

| wonko

When I first saw pictures of this Bull, I knew I wanted to try to make it:

I love the pose, the power, the majestic playfulness of this, a proud bull.

There are many junctures in this fold where there are no landmarks, you guess places of folds so this, my first fold, is lucky to look even vaguely bull-like. I will fold this model again, I want to try to fold this from memory. Continue reading →

401: Spike the Echidna

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Ladies and Gentleffolke, may I introduce to you Ms Thelma Tiggywinkle – Eric Joisel’s Adult Echidna: 20120817-163036.jpg

I had folded Eric Joisel’s “Baby Hedgehog” early last year and noticed as part of the instructions that a scaled up version (9 ranks of quills instead of 5, based on 32ths instead of 16ths) would result in a “mother” and he was right – what a mofo of a fold, honestly!

Starting on Friday evening with a 60cm square of brown Kraft paper, I started pre-creasing – dividing up into 32nds vertically and horizontally, then diagonal creasing to create hex-grids which ended up tiny.

I had long been fascinated with the process of forming the quills – crease-crimp/collapse diamonds and then making a zig-zag trough beside one row to raise the next results in lovely paper geometry both on the outside and the underside,

After over an hour each rank of spines, the resultant paper is box-pleated into legs and the ends inside-reverse folded into toes.

The ranks are then teased out to form tail and face – a lovely fold that is soooo very cute although it is punishingly time-consuming.

Very satisfying – folds ONLY, no cuts, no glue, she needs some “wet folding” shaping but she is already very echidna-like. No idea what we will do with her, but for now she is snuffling around our house. Hope you enjoyed the journey as it played out on facebook.

395: Showing Off

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Our local council library has a large glass display case that usually has things on show for a month. I cautiously asked one of the librarians if she thought some origami would interest patrons and she was very enthusiastic:

There are around 200 models now on show at Holland Park Library for June and I am quite chuffed about that.

Dragging 3 large tidy-tubs of models, most of which I had left over from the 365 Origami Auction, they fill the case rather completely.

You can see models designed by me amongst designs by such luminaries as Kade Chan, Robert Lang, Eric Joisel and many others.

In addition, I was asked to run a workshop in the first week of my school holidays for interested folders (10 years old and up) – see the Holland Park Library website for details and bookings if you are interested.

The only question that begs answer is what the floop I do with these lovelies AFTER the month on show? Suggestions welcome … dear reader?

390: Flying wallaby

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As a travelling Australian, the “flying kangaroo” is something I wish I could afford to travel using, but we are using the the “flying wallaby”:

I decided that trying to memorise a kangaroo fold would be a good idea for an aussie abroad, and what better than the kangaroo by Robert Lang from the book “Origami Zoo”.

On making, then re-making it I am convinced that this model is much more like a wallaby than a roo, but it is a lovely form none the less.

I can now fold this from memory, but it is very dense and requires thin paper else it gets bunchy early. Will practise it and hopefully, leave a stream of them all over Europe.

388: The Lion King

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…now many of you know I am travelling overseas real soon. Whilst in London, we decided to take our pick of shows playing at London’s West End, and decided on “The Lion King”:

I then got part way through the fold and posed a development shot on Fakebook for people to try and guess what the model would end up as. I am pleased to say that Janet C was the successful guesser.

This model is lovely – a real mask, folded with a larger bit of paper it would be a person-sized thingy, neato with design details. Designed by Victoria Serova (with instructions in Russian which made it an interesting challenge), it has a lovely 3D muzzle, sleepy feline eyes and potential for modelling a lovely mane.

Next time I fold this I think I will rough up the mane a little, still, very happy with this as a first fold.

368: Brent The Unicorn

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Now I am aware that a certain “Brent” recently had a birthday, and on that birthday I folded a creepy crawly, so thought it appropriate to counter the scary with “unicorns and rainbows”:
20120107-100832.jpg

This is Roman Diaz’s Unicorn, lovely thing – mane, tail, beautiful ears, splendid horn.

Happy Birthday (all be it belated) Michael the Brent – may you live long and prosper. Folded amidst the rainforests of northern NSW

364: SNOWY!

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When I was a kid, my parents gave me Tintin Annuals to read – the adventures of a young ginger and his dog Snowy:

I must admit I have fond memories for the adventures of Tintin, and had clear ideas in my mind of what Captain Haddock, Thompson and Thompson and Professor Cuthbert Calculus were like. I have just seen the film and I was delighted to say the least. What a cracking tale, told so wonderfully. You realise why they chose of do it as computer animation – most Tintin adventures would be un-filmable in live action given the pace, locations and lunatic athleticism.

At breakneck speed I was transported back to the Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham’s Treasure and other adventures I had – I remember 6, but wikipedia says there were 24 in total, so i only saw a small collection of Hergé stories really.

Although I have never really liked dogs, I was always taken with Snowy, Tintin’s faithful dog – I loved that he could talk to the dog and the dog actually understood – as an adult that makes no sense but as a kid there was no problem. Mind you, I accepted Lassie, Me Ed and all so my brain was already soft 😛

This is a “billfold” – that is it was originally designed to be folded out of an american dollar bill. I do not have any so I used the interweb to find the dimensions, doubled them and cut a rectangle to size. The instructions were very poor, actually, and at many junctures I merely “improvised” as I knew where we were going but could not follow how I was being told to get there.  In the end we have a plucky rendition of Snowy, and the second last model in the 365 challenge. Hope you like him.

362: Young Buck

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Amongst the plethora of models I still have not yet tried, there are some beauties:

This is Roman Diaz’s Deer and it is a lovely specimen indeed. 10 points on his antlers, proud stance and a spring in his step.

This model, though lovely, was a cow to fold – hand drawn instructions that were not to scale, step 41 I missed altogether, which caused no end of peril and a re-fold (so sue me).

In the end this is fantastic – you get a real sense of the animal, the proportions and stance feel quite natural, the ingenious mangling to get enough points for the antlers amazing and the wrangling to get the majority of the paper tucked away to reveal the body nothing short of breathtaking.

Diaz has a unique style, this model features closed sinks in abundance (quite difficult to do well) and so provided me with some valuable practice.

359: Santa Claus is Coming to Town

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You better watch out. You better not cry
Better not pout, I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He’s making a list. And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who’s naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town

This is a David Brill tableau, scaled down to teeny weeny because … well, because … because I could? I have a packet of shiny small origami paper so used that for the micro-reindeer – they sort of determined the scale for the remainder of the figures.

There is much to like about this festive scene – The sleigh is full of water bombs (the perfect summer gift), Santa sits, the reindeer seem animated and Rudolph has a lovely red nose, courtesy of a suggestion from “she who must be obeyed” to use a glass headed pin – good call.

I hope this post finds you enjoying family, fun and festive cheer. Our Christmas Origami display is as you see it here – most of these models are available for you in the auction house for a limited time only.

354: Should have bought a Squirrel

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One of my wife’s favourite movies is a comedy called “Rat Race”, the title of today’s model is one of the “morals” of that cautionary tale:

Akira Yoshizawa is credited as being the father of artistic origami – he also invented the diagramming language we all follow now.

This is his squirrel – a lovely 2-part model that uses relatively few folds to reveal the squirrel-nicity of paper beautifully.

There is much to like about this model – lovely face and ears, nice posture and a bushy tail. I also like that most of the folds used judgement rather than landmarks – that way a little of the character of the folder is intrinsically captured in the model making no 2 folds identical.

An ingenious system of locking the 2 parts together is employed – the rear half has pokey-outey parts that are re-folded into the shoulder folds of the front half – nice work Yoshizawa Sensei.