square

968: Spiny Norman

| wonko

Anyone with a decent knowledge of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, would recognise the name “Spiny Norman” – the gigantic hedgehog that haunted Dinsdale, the more vicious of the Piranha Brothers. When I saw Yudai Imai’s Hedgehog, I knew I had to give it a try:

Yudai Imai's hedgehog

I had been looking for a model to best show of some duo 30cm Thai Unryu I had bought from the Origami Shop.

Yudai Imai's hedgehog paper - OrigamiShop's duo Unryu

Although Unryu is generally tissue thin, this duo paper seemed really thick, still I thought it was worth a bend so set about gridding – This was really hard work on fingers, and resorted to a bone folder – only when I laided in creases crisply was I able to reverse them (and in many cases even then with difficulty).

Continue reading →

Tazzie the Lotus Dragon

| wonko

…so I was approached by a friend who wanted to spring a surprise on his partner for her birthday. He said she liked dragons, immediately my shagged and fragged mind (marking makes me a disagreeable troll) jumped and I committed a huge bit of metallicised paper to fold Shuki Kato’s “Western Dragon” … because I had achieved it once in the 5 times I had attempted it. That failed.

Tazzie scale

Not deterred, I chose a lovely sheet of block printed blue mulberry paper (printed 2 tone with gold and white lotus flowers), cut the biggest square I could and set about folding Satoshi Kamiya’s “Ancient Dragon” (having achieved it once (in 7 attempts) – what could go wrong?

tazzie's new home

As it turns out, all went to plan – even thought he paper was smaller than recommended, I was able to tease, gradually, all the design features and “Tazzie” was born.

Continue reading →

Travel Fold 2019

| wonko

We are about to travel again and, as is our tradition, we will leave origami folds wherever we go.

We decided this time it would be a Koala – they are cute and a definitive Australian animal (albeit critically endangered) so I set about to find a design I liked.

After much to-ing and fro-ing I returned to a model I first folded in 2011, designed by Jozsef Zsebe, from Hungary of all places – interestingly the best Koala designs generally come from places other than Oz – go figure.

I manufactured fur paper, using wet polar bear fleece. Do not start on how a Koala is not a bear, I know, but … meh … the texture works and the colour gradation (I found a dirty polar bear) from ears to arse works nicely I think.

I have committed this fold to memory (no mean feat given the state of my brain at the moment) an look forward to leaving them all around Vietnam and Cambodia.

966: Green Turtle

| wonko

As part of an origami challenge on Fakebook, we were challenged to fold the Green turtle from Origami Pro #4, designed by Jang Yong Ik :

green Turtle designed by Jang Yong Ik

I split off a square from a 70cm roll of black/natural Ikea Kraft and started the diagonal pleat pre-creasing.

Over a period of a couple of weeks, fitting it into life, the universe, and everything, I folded this intense model, really determined to enjoy the process.

Continue reading →

Origami X’s Elephant

| wonko

Cruising fakebook, as one is likely to do when at home unwell, I stumbled across a beautiful little elephant shared as a photo by “Origami X” (sorry, I do not know this users real name).

I asked if diagrams for this new design were likely, and joy of joys was privy to a share of a photo sequence I knew i had to try:

pink elephant

This model is really elephantine, proportions are cute, I love the head assembly and ears/trunk combo – they happen so naturally.

Continue reading →

964: Tetsuya Gotani’s Ankylosaurus

| wonko

Being most of the way though the proof-reading of a new book by Tetsuya Gotani, I decided to test-fold his Ankylosaurus:

Tetsuya Gotani's Ankylosaurus

The final model, folded with 50cm printed Ikea Kraft paper, is a freaky cow-like critter covered in spikes with a club-like tail and a cow-like head.

Continue reading →

962: Ryu Jin 2.1 – Head

| wonko

In a bid to calm down and relax after a brutal week at work, I took a 60cm square of red/natural Ikea Kraft paper and started folding… and folded, and folded and folded.

Ryujui 1.2 head

I have been lured back into the fold (as it were) of Ryu Jin folders (nerds who attempt to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s devilishly difficult dragon series). Having already folded a 1.0, 1.2 and 3.5, I noticed that I had never attempted a 2.1.

Ryujui 1.2 head views and detail

For the uninitiated, the numbers indicate refinements, with the 1.0 being vaguely dragon like and the 3.5 (the culmination of this design process) being the most astonishingly detailed design imaginable.

Continue reading →

961: Drogon, The Black Dragon

| wonko

The lure of Satoshi Kamiya’s Dragon set is alluring. Recently I was invited into a community that celebrates the RyuJin series. Having folded a 1.0 and a 3.5, I thought it time to fold another:

Drogo, Satoshi Kamiya's RyuJin 1.2

This is the 1.2 – a refinement of the 1.0 and I had fun shaping the head as per a guide by Daniel Brown – a luscious and generously shared photodiagram set that I really enjoyed following.

My 1.2 is actually based on almost an identical crease pattern to the 1.0 I folded back in 2013, but back then I had NO IDEA how to shape it, and sort of made up shit as I went along.

Continue reading →

956: Children of the Forest

| wonko

So GOT has started again, the final season and it is a promised shitstorm between people and the undead (sorry, if that is a spoiler).

children of the forest - Flynn Jackson's CP

It seems ALL of the trouble of the resident ice-zombies was caused by an experiment between a man and a race called “the children of the forest”, and some dragon glass, but that plot point will be explored further I guess as the series winds up. This mask reminds me of what I imagined the children of the forest looked like when I read the books.

Continue reading →

953: Nollentonk

| wonko

My second test fold from a book by Tetsuya Gotani, this time a “Nollentonk”:

nollentonk

I say “Nollentonk”, only because my sister, when young, used to call elephants nollentonks – not sure why.

nollentonk views

This lovely folding sequence carefully hides white right until the emergence of the tusks via a clever colour change. The morphology of the model emerges as distinctly elephantine fairly early on and some of the moves that isolate features are delicious.

Continue reading →

952: Styracosaurus

| wonko

I have the honour and privilege of being asked to help edit a new origami book by Tetsuya Gotani. The first diagram I did was of this beautiful Styracosaurus:

Tetsuya Gotani's Styracosaurus

I started with a 60cm square of patterned Kraft, and after a bunch of collapses to make a bewildering collection of isolated points.

Continue reading →

951: Trike

| wonko

The remnants of a pack of Daiso washi was sitting in my cupboard and i am not sure, so I start folding Fumiaki Kawahata’s Triceratops (from Origami Tanteidan Magazine 57) and realised why it was unused:

triceratops by Fumiaki Kawahata (Origami Tanteidan Magazine 57)

You assume that paper is square, and start folding, only to discover in some dimensions it is really not square, but you persist none the less, kludging landmarks as you go.

Continue reading →

944: I Love Lamp

| wonko

Playing with geometry, it got me thinking about lampshade forms. Correct me if I am wrong but there are the sort of “hang-down” and the “stand-up” types common?

Using 15cm Kami, I began doodling, the blue square form came first – a simple corrugation on the middle half of a sheet, folded in eighths only in the middle section it curves perfectly and creates a rather regal “ruff” – imagine nice/interesting/handmade paper and diffuse light in the middle of that.

Continue reading →

941: New Year Squeaker (Boar Piglet)

| wonko

2019 is the Year of the Pig – a fresh page that you are free to form anyway you choose:

blank canvas

There are a pair of pig models in Tanteidan 172 I mean to try, this is the first – a wild boar piglet. Little known fact: boar piglets have stripes (presumably for camouflage) while vulnerably young.

little pig
Continue reading →

940: Kentrosaurus

| wonko

How often have you been totally lost in something – you know, time passes and you are so involved that you do not notice the passing of it? This model ate time and paper in quantity:

A fascinating exercise in vertex isolation, from a square to tease so many points while keeping enough paper for a body, legs and head – wow, just wow.

I found the diagrams as an un-attributed set of images on Pinterest (one of the many bastions of copyright infringement) but could not find details of either the designer or the publication – hints peeps? News just in: This is Fumiaki Kawahata’s Tuojiangosaurus published in the book “Origami Fantasy”

Continue reading →