Live Long and Prosper

| wonko

This morning I was greeted with the sad news that actor Leonard Nimoy had passed away. Our universe is a little dimmer, missing a bright and shining star. “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it”:

spock

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP

— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

Leonard Nimoy did for television and movie what few others have achieved: he demonstrated through his “Spock” character portrayal that a loyal, honest, ethical, objective, calm, logical, thoughtful, respected male alien could be an invaluable colleague and life-long friend. We can all learn from this – he challenges all males to do better.

I have been, and always will be a fan of that “green-blooded devil” and all that he stood for.

You too can fold a tribute – go here

493: FuseBall

| wonko

They say “many hands make light work” and they (whoever “they” are) are quite correct:493FuseBallManyHands

My pastoral care group (the Mighty Magee F) and I folded Tomoko Fuse’s Icosahedron Kasudama, as part of a “getting to know you” exercise to start off the year, with the theme “the sum of the parts is greater than the individual”. Continue reading →

492: Money Spider

| wonko

People keep giving me foreign and local paper currency. A work colleague gave me a pair of battered US1 dollar notes and asked if I could do anything with them. I had heard (old wives tale perhaps) that it was unlucky to kill a money spider. These little critters apparently bring financial good luck.492MoneySpiderScale

I figured MAKING a money spider should be lucky, so set about to find one. Won Park, in his book “Extreme Origami” has a rather lovely spider fold that requires 2xUSD$1 notes, so I thought I would give it a try. Continue reading →

491: Black Sheep

| wonko

On February 15, Chinese New Year kicks off – 2015 is the year of the Goat, but a sheepie is close, right? I thought I would take a preemptive strike given that I am sure to be really busy at work by then.491BlackSheep

The latest Tanteidan magazine features diagrams for Beth Johnson‘s Sheep – a lovely 2 part model and I was itching to give it a go. Continue reading →

490: Shake, Rover, Shake

| wonko

I have been a fan of Star Trek since it was possible to be so, love the franchise, movies, series, the lot. I saw a diagram that resulted in an ATAT (All-Terrain Armoured Transport) – one of many fairly silly designs from The Babylon 5 universe, and with some shaming from a friend (thanks Dodes) I decided to give it a whirl.490ATAT

If you were making a vehicle for battle, the last thing on the design bench (apart from a 2 legged chicken-like bipedal mobile gun turret) would be a quadruped.

Any Browncoat worth his part of the ‘verse would be able to ride their Viper Mark II with cables attached, tangle the legs and bring the thing down, like a heavy, falley-downey thing.490ATATScale

Continue reading →

488: Burr Puzzle

| wonko

In the hiatus between receiving parts of the Ryujin to fold, I am always on the look out for something interesting to fold.488BurrPuzzle

I first saw Froy’s Burr Puzzle on the Hong Kong Origami Society’s forum and decided to give it a try. Continue reading →

… there be Dragons!

| wonko

For much of the past year (2014) I have been learning how to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryujin 3.5, as taught to me via a series of lessons cunningly devised by Daniel Brown (Mr Origami). I started this project on March 21.

This is Part 3 of a series that also includes Part 1, Part 2

Lesson 18 was folding the head in isolation – I must admit that even when searching for photos on how the head of this beast should end up, none really make it clear. What is clear however is that there is a terrifying amount of detail.headviews1

Following photodiagrams (in 3 phases 18a, 18b, 18c), I ended up with a beautiful thing that is my take on how a eastern dragon head should look. Continue reading →

487: Making Peace

| wonko

There is always time to make a little peace in our world.487MakingPeaceIt takes incidents like those that unraveled yesterday to realise that peace is a choice we make as participants of the world on which we live. Continue reading →

486: Little Turtle Kusudama

| wonko

A dear friend (*waves to Caff) holidayed in Europe, visited Florence and found some amazing block-printed handmade paper, popped it in a post pack tube and mailed it to me.486LittleTurtleKusudamaView

To be honest, I have struggled to use this paper because it seemed a such a terrible shame to cut it. Lovely irregularities, vibrant colours and relatively heavy cardstock suggested that a kusudama might be the solution.

Thumbing through Tomoko Fuse’s book “Multidimensional Transformations, Unit Origami”, I came across a unit called “little turtle” that I had not tried. I think they got the name because, as part of the folding process of the unit you make a shape similar to the “turtle base” I have used for other models.486LittleTurtleKusudamaScale

Continue reading →

485: Segway

| wonko

…so I am a teacher, and I teach senior students:485SegwayTheChaps

I have, on occasions, joked about how cool it would be to own a Segway – my classes are physically far apart and getting between campuses takes time, hence the idea that a PTD (personal transport device) would be cool. I _never_ in my wildest dreams imagined my students would do anything about this pipe dream – let’s face it, we all say things in jest.485SegwayAmbush

It was an ambush, total surprise – I think I was the only one who knew nothing. It still gives me goosebumps thinking about it. I was teaching my year 11 class when the whole year 12 class arrived headed by Tom on a Segway. They had crowd-funded a second hand one as a end of year gift – wow, just wow!.485Segway

Continue reading →

484: We are Groot!

| wonko

Not sure if you have seen it but I enjoyed “Guardians of the Galaxy” – nice escapist buddy movie whose adventure that does not withstand much scrutiny from a plot perspective. Love the characters, particular Rocket Racoon and Groot.484WeAreGrootView

When I first saw Groot on screen, I knew he was perfect origami material, resolving to design something similar to my tree model for him, but Luciffer Chong beat me to the punch with his simple yet effective Crease Pattern.484WeAreGrootView2

I see influences all over for this model – lovely joisel-like hands, Acuna-like arm formations, I am sure I will fold him again – might be fun on some rough textured hand-made paper also. Continue reading →

Tim’s Surprise

| wonko

A mate, Tim, knew of my paper bending tendencies. He is also a Bank Manager and so he came across a rareish paper Australian $20 note:TheGift

Once upon a time, boys and girls, Australian currency was made of paper, not shiny brittle plastic as it is now.

Much to my surprise, a letter arrived addressed to me, containing a lovely crisp $20 note – limited edition and precious, along with the instructions to make something out of it.scale2

I have agonised about this – creasing a rare thing is fraught with guilt and I am sure currency collectors would be horrified, but it came with challenges – most “dollargami” is geared towards American “greenbacks” which are not 2×1 – the $20 note is oddly a 2×1 rectangle, meaning conventional dollargami landmarks are in the wrong place. Continue reading →

483: Dollar SLR Camera

| wonko

A work colleague is going on Long Service Leave – lucky bastard!  It appears he had no end of trouble buying a camera for travelling, so I thought I would make him one as an hooroo gift:483DollarCamera

Designed by Won Park, this little SLR Camera is tiny, but has a viewfinder, winder lever, shutter button, pop-up flash and lovely lens all sticking out of a lovely boxy body.483DollarCameraScale

Genius design, if tiny and torturous, I hope he likes it. Continue reading →

482: Four Interlocking Triangular Prisms

| wonko

Procrastination, thy name is Wonko!

I had some time, and some coloured paper, so decided to try Daniel Kwan’s lovely geometrical modular:482FourIntersectingTriangularPrisms

Simple units, reminiscent of Frances Ow’s 60 degree unit interlock to form one, then two etc triangular prisms – choice of nice bold colours make this a real charmer. Continue reading →