I have been making Mulberry tissue, and wanted a non-trivial model to test the foldability of the untreated sheets. I remember finding @taniiiii_ori ‘s Fractal Crane CP on Twitter ages ago, so decided it was perfect – based on a traditional fold, with a modern complex twist:

I picked the first sheet of tissue I pulled from my vat of freshly beaten kozo pulp – it was imperfect, painfully thin but none the less lovely. I cut the largest square I could from the most solid end and then set to laying in pre-creases for an n=2 fractal.

The CP is easily extended to add new levels, but the folds get impossibly fiddly exponentially – an n=2 was a good compromise I thought.

I was delighted to find that the paper took the pre-creases well, with no visible fatigue as I exposed the sheet to torsion and tension making the fiddly folds in the central gutter. Once creases were in and oriented correctly (mountains or valleys depending on their job) , the collapse began. The small bird-bases collapse and that allows the central gutter to form naturally around them.

Next the larger bird base is collapsed and shaped, hiding the extra layers inside. All that was left was to shape each of the bird bases into traditional Tsuru (cranes), hiding the extra layers that form on the smaller crane head/tail areas.

The result is, in my opinion, remarkable. The paper took and holds folds beautifully. The natural texture and colour make the fold feel traditional but also modern.

I now have a reasonable stash of beaten Kozo, and have found pulling A3 sheets of thiiiin tissue pretty manageable, so will do more of that.