Numbers? What Numbers?

September 5, 2015 | wonko

I am often asked why some of my posts are preceded with a number. I must admit to folding paper, on and off, since I was 11, but more recently I took it back up again as a sort of physical therapy to convince myself (as much as anything) that I could control my nerve-damaged hands after spinal reconstruction.

The numbering makes sense to me, really. On January 2011 I (in retrospect rather naively) decided to try and fold a different model every day for a year. I numbered the models as I folded them, using that index to catalogue the unique folds I managed to achieve.

When I got to 365, I ran out of 2011 and no longer had the one a day madness that was actually really interesting.

I decided to keep folding. When I fold something I had never folded before it too is granted a number. I will continue – it is a useful metric for me, might be an organiser for you but it reminds me of the staggering variety of models out there, and reminds me of the fact that I have really only tried a tiny fraction of them so far.

Now you know …

504: Coxless Four

September 5, 2015September 5, 2015 | wonko

Rowing is huge at my school – a veritable machine that hundreds of kids get very passionate about, a gear-fest like few others:

Seems the purpose of the sport is to put boys in lycra, sitting atop tiny fiberglass shells, armed with a paddle rowing furiously backwards across vast distances of water. The competitive nature sees rowers exerting huge amounts of energy, enthusiasm and biomass in singles, teams of 2,4,and 8 with or without cox against other equally keyed-up teams. Quite a spectacle.

Continue reading →

503: Man and Woman

August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 | wonko

Flipping through an obscure copy of Papiroflexia Bicolour by Fernando Gilgado, I was struck with a pair of … models that looked like fun to make.

I had some small (10in) squares of handmade Kozo left over from the eagle fold and thought I would give it a whirl.

The fun and hilarity began – I have provided you with a cutout so you can do some arrangement depending on your orientation and preference – is it “Adam and Eve”, “Adam and Steve” or “Eve and Gwen” – you decide. Continue reading →

502: Super Dragon Deluxe

August 22, 2015August 22, 2015 | wonko

Jeremy Shafer is a prolific and super talented Origami Designer:

When I saw his video of the Super Dragon Deluxe I knew I wanted to have a go – such a fun “cartoony” dragon with a lot of detail packed into such an accessible fold. Continue reading →

501: Eagle 3.5

August 19, 2015August 22, 2015 | wonko

I am on constant awe of folders from the Vietnamese Origami Group (VOG):

Hoang Trung Thanh’s Eagle 3.5 is an astonishing and dense fold that really tests patience, accuracy and paper but the result, even this partially incomplete rendition is lovely. Continue reading →

500: Jackass

August 9, 2015October 2, 2015 | wonko

To celebrate the 500th unique fold documented on this blog, I thought I would hold a guessing game whilst trying a fold I have been considering for a while.

This is “Horse Laugh” by Kunsulu Jilkishiyeva from Nicholas Terry’s “Drawing Origami Tome 1” – a fun fold that sees some amazing box pleating and layer management to make a really detailed head (with lips, teeth, eyes, the works), tail, rather lovely mane and some funky legs. Continue reading →

499: Kato’s Titan Beetle

July 19, 2015July 26, 2015 | wonko

I was itching to do a technical fold, and realised I had folded few from the “Bugwars” book I bought for Xmas, so thought “why not”:

This fold has taken an age. I must admit that initially I had passed this over because it looked too fiddly, the CP alone was terrifying. Continue reading →

Copper Dragon

July 9, 2015July 26, 2015 | wonko

As you may have guessed from subsequent posts, I have been learning to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryujin 3.5:

After a year of lessons, learning bits of the model and patiently/painstakingly working on each of the elements of the design, I managed to combine all onto one model. Continue reading →

498: Koh’s Rabbit

July 6, 2015July 7, 2015 | wonko

Every so often a model emerges that has such a naturalistic form that so perfectly represents the subject. This lovely rabbit, designed by Ronald Koh is one such “must fold” figure:

This lovely model is a dense fold (the hind quarters are necessary layer-dense to form the necessary flaps for the head), so thin paper is best – I failed on a 14.5cm square of coarse hand-made paper – it was too thick and my fat clumsy fingers could not tease the details but 20cm+ squares of most papers should be fine. Continue reading →

Totoro Kit

June 28, 2015July 7, 2015 | wonko

Sensei Cassidy was lurking, she did not want to impose, but she was carrying some origami-related paraphernalia and … well … origami:

She had this kit, based on Totoro (apparently a cult Anime film/ character/ universe/ thing), with some pre-printed paper and instruction sheet on how to assemble.

Initially I thought it wold be a cut/glue exercise, so smiled politely and said I would give it a whirl when reporting was done. On further investigation to my relief it was folding only, and some odd stuff as well.

The large character is Totoro, apparently, then there are 2 smaller characters of a similar shape, and then, for no explicable reason, a bus that is a cat (well, a catbus) – which apparently makes complete sense. Continue reading →

Auto-Tweeter

June 14, 2015June 14, 2015 | wonko

This post only serves to test a new plugin from wordpress – WP to TWITTER

It supposed to autotweet an announcement of a new post – seems to work a treat.

Soz for the spam, will purge

497: Tyrannosaurus Rex

June 2, 2015June 2, 2019 | wonko

I have been on holiday, 6 weeks is a long time between folds but I thought I would ease back into it with a simple model … then I saw Fumiaki Kawahata’s TRex and thought “screw it”:

Waiting in my kept mail was the last Tanteidan of the previous subscription, this little beauty on the cover and I thought – how hard can this be? Continue reading →

496: Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryujin 3.5

March 24, 2015July 9, 2015 | wonko

On March 21, 2014, I began a quest to learn how to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s “Ryujin 3.5”, and was lucky enough to be accepted as a pupil of Mr Daniel Brown (MrOrigami).

Daniel sent me a lesson, I had to perform the illustrated tasks and photo my evidence back to him before he sent me the next lesson. The process has been fascinating, frustrating, amazing, annoying, hard, humbling, wild and wonderful.

A year on, I have managed to integrate all the component lessons into the one sheet (well, 2 halves joined at a seam inside) to arrive at this amazing model. It has yet to be fine-shaped – a task that will have to wait until marking and an extended holiday are over, but at least I know that all the creases are now in place, the bits are all where they should be and the beast is something I am unbearably proud of. Continue reading →