In a true testament to sheer bloody-mindedness and perseverance, I present to you for my self-satisfaction my first SUCCESSFUL attempt at Shuki Kato’s “Western Dragon”:
Some explanation: This is a western dragon because it has wings (westerners reason that to fly it needs wings). Potter nerds would naturally recognise that this is a “Hungarian Horntail“. It is version 3.1w because I used the “modified” instructions for v3 and then added some of my own variations to improve the model (I closed the breast and used the otherwise wasted flap as a bottom jaw allowing me to model a tongue).
This has been quite a journey. This is attempt number 5.
My first attempt was nearly 3 years ago, and the crumpled ball that failed at step 53 is landfill somewhere. I have kept the previous 3. I mistakenly in attempt 2 used a really nice bit of paper, failed at step 60 but unfolded it to one day reclaim the paper via an MC flattening.
I blogged my most recent failure, and that made me more resolute to beat this thing so isolated the head (the thing I had the most trouble with) and went BIG to try and nut it out (discovering I could make a tongue etc).
This model is really punishing. Just to get the body is an achievement then the wrangling of the head on top of that requires delicacy and accuracy as you fold on fold on fold – arrrrggghhh.
Very happy with the result, I will probably fold this again now with nice paper, but my bruised fingers (and ego) need a break from it for now.
Out of curiosity, what size paper did you end up using?
First successful fold (this one) was on a 90cm square. The head is the limiting thing here – folding it smaller makes crease-drift and compounded error much more problematic. I used the same Kraft that I used for my Ryu Jin 3.5 halves – a little thick but sufficiently strong to forgive the much torture this model throws at it.