2hrs

1028: Montroll’s Butterfly

| wonko

Flipping through “Bugs and Birds in Origami” by John Montroll one gains an appreciation for the clear design skills on show:

Montroll's butterfly

This is Montroll’s “Butterfly” – published in 2001, representing ‘old school’ design, the resultant model is lovely, efficiently uses paper and is morphologically pretty accurate – all this without the hundreds of instructions typical of more modern designs.

Montroll's butterfly views

Folded from a 30cm square of Daiso unryu (do they still make this? i have not been able to buy it for years), the work to isolate legs and antennae is delicious (if requiring precision) folding, and overall is a fun sequence minimally diagrammed.

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1007: The Difference Between a Duck…

| wonko

I am reminded of a joke, oft told by my Father In law: “What’s the difference between a duck? … Nothing … One leg is both the same”:

A duck

In looking to start some recreational folding I remembered a model from Wei Lin Chen I found ages ago but had not gotten around to until now.

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997: Western Dragon

| wonko

Western dragons are an attempt to make sense of a mythical flying beast – the whole wing-thing appears necessary, and the morphology is usually based on a giant lizard:

Redpaper's Western Dragon

This is a test fold of Redpaper’s “Western Dragon”, well my rendering of it at least, from his forthcoming book.

I have taken liberties, having folded it a couple of times to try and work out the most dense parts of the design, and required sheet size.

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996: Eastern Dragon

| wonko

Currently editing a book including designs by “Redpaper”, I decided to road-test his “Eastern Dragon” – an intense fold on the diagonal of a square.

I tried this with a 35cm square of japanese tissue and was unable to realise most of the detail, so scaled up to a 65cm square of duo kraft and found it more manageable.

Red Paper's Eastern Dragon

There is a lot to take in here, the front claws are cute, the facial expression reminds me of the chameleonic monster from “Monsters Inc” but I think this model is really challenging on a few levels.

The back legs are an intense ride that results in fairly clumsy toes, but it is free standing on them in tripod and the rather odd tail. The neck is bent back and forward to point the head forward. If I were to re-fold this, I think large format double tissue would help, and there is so much paper in the body that I am sure you could make that more textured.

The fold sequence contains some mystery meat also – the formation of the legs is a bit smooshy (or it was for me), and the antlers were also tricksey, but it was an interesting ride. Keep your eyes out for the new book – there are some fab folds in it for experienced folders.

993: Roman Diaz’s Deer

| wonko

When asked by a colleague for a model that evokes memories of Japan, Miyajima’s Deer are right up there:

993 - Roman Diaz Deer

I started with a 45cm square of plain Kraft, and started folding – as much for therapy as it was for exploring a new model I am amazed I have never folded before.

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987: Ryu Zin Junior 2.1

| wonko

Rounding out my Ryu journey, I decided to use a small scrap of Kozo left over from another project to fold Jason Ku’s Ryu Zin Junior 2.1:

Jason Ku Ryu Zin 1.2

While sharing some of the nomenclature of the Satoshi Kamiya chinese dragon series, this little chap is markedly different on every level. I found a set of photo diagrams lovingly annotated by Daniel Brown, and thought I would give is a whirl.

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978: Vixen

| wonko

Continuing my journey into the world of Origami Foxes, I came upon a folding sequence from Hoang Tien Quyet:

vixen

This is a vixen (the quaint name biologists call a female fox, not sure why) – quite fluid, feminine and organic – compare it with the previous post and you will see a stylistic difference, but also a similarity in the colour management.

This was a really tricky model to fold, lots of paper packed away in very sophisticated ways, I love the serpentine backbone that ends in a beautiful bushy tail.

This feels much more modern a fold, HT Quyet is known for his curved folds, this was fun yet a real challenge to work on the proportions. The body has a real volume and movement about it.

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970: Siren

| wonko

…so I decided it was time to play a game of WTF (What’s That Fold?) on fakebook, and discovered from my archives this was the 29th such game:

Chen Xiou's Mermaid test fold

Through a series of gradual fold sequence reveals, punters guess, and eventually they got it. This is “Sirene” (or Mermaid) from the soon to be published book by Chen Xiao.

This is my first “anime” style character work (stylised faces, detailed hair, cartoony pose) and it was a bit torturous at this scale, with this paper. Folding the shoulders and central body is tough work on small paper (I used 35cm duo white/natural Ikea Kraft paper).

In the end it is a charming model with lots of details, a diva in a “D” cup with bangs, lovely long hair and a beautiful tail. The fold sequence relies on really accurate pre-folding as errors tend to amplify the further through the fold you get. As a result of a 0.5mm inaccuracy in the first 10 steps, her bra is asymmetrical, and the more I tried to fix it, the odder the breast appeared.

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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.

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Handmade Paper

| wonko

So in a recent workshop, I made a bunch of different types of paper, time to try it out I thought. I had 3xA4 sheets and 2xA3 sheets pulled from the white board + Day Lilly + Lemongrass vat, so decided to have a go at folding something from that.

handmade paper
White board, Day Lilly, Lemongrass hand-made(by me) paper

I remember the ladies of PAQ talking about Chinese Threadbooks – an ancient paperfolding tradition from China. Having already folded one using cheap decorative paper, I thought I would throw some handmade paper at one also.

threadbook complete

There are examples, hundreds of years old, of clever multi-compartment paper widgets, used to store silk threads (from weavers and embroiderers), and there is some exploration of the folding theory on teh internet, but you gotta dive deep.

threadbook compartments
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958: Ilja Trochanowski’s Kusadama

| wonko

Cruising around on facebook, as you do, I saw a call to test a new Kusadama by Ilja Trochanowski:

958Ilja_Trochanowski_kusudama

I put my hand up and set about folding the 6-piece cube, an interesting intricate design based on an octagonal collapse with some fiddly treatment of the flaps to make curly floral facets.

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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.

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955: Versailles Box

| wonko

Looking for a rose-based box for a gift, I came across Tadashi Mori’s tutorial for this fold:

Versailles box

Made of “curler” units, the rose-like structure on top of the box required 4 squares. The box lid also requires 4 squares, the base also – 12 squares all up.

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954: Simi Flores’ Spikey Ball

| wonko

Cruising around on Fakebook, as you do, I came across a module that seemed really familiar. I am sure I have seen it elsewhere, but am not able to find it (I think it is a Bascetta variant?):

spikey ball

I decided to give it a whirl – nice and simple, and quick to fold, it locks nicely with a positive paper tension keeping groups of 3 together, then you group the 3-unit points into clusters of 5 and you get a nice positive curvature. Using other combinations I can imagine zero curvature (6 modules) and negative curvature (7 modules) … hence a torus is possible?.

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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.

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