45min

332: Elephant

| wonko

You know when you get a song stuck in your head, and it will not go away? Usually the song is totally daggy but so solidly lodged in your psyche that it effects your judgement:

“Baby Elephant Walk” is stuck in my head at the moment – I will excorcise it with some Rammstein later but for now my mind turns to folding elephants. This is my first fold of John Montroll’s Elephant (taken from his book “Origami Sculptures”).

Not really happy with it – an early inaccuracy compounded through the model making the legs asymmetrical and the shoulders gape – you get that sometimes. I quite like the head/ears/trunk and the rear has modelling potential. I will fold this again, when I have more time, if I remember (unlike an elephant, I forget things all the time).

331: Happy Hogswatch!

| wonko

I have been a fan of Terry Pratchett’s writing for as long as it was possible – his amagination and ability to tell engaging stories is breathtaking:

I thought it apt to celebrate “Hogswatch” – a Discworld event (and the name of one of the dozens of novels set in this amazing imaginary world). I am constantly amazed and amused with the stable of characters, situations and his turn of phrase – if you have never read a Discworld novel then you must, you really must.

This delightful model is my favourite pig so far. designed by Adolfo Cerceda, folded from “Secrets of origami” by Robert Harbin, my oldest (and a bit fall-aparty) hard-cover book.

Complete with a lovely fat face, saggy jowls, nice ears, trotters and a curly tail, this compound model (uses 2 bird bases) is fantastic – very happy with it – he makes me hungry for bacon – is that wrong?

We shall soon be considering Ham, turkey and all the trimmings, with the festive season fast approaching, hope your Hogswatch is a good one.

326: Rough End First

| wonko

All too often we feel like we are dealt the “rough end” of the pineapple:

It is a curious expression that, I think at least, has something to do with inserting said pineapple in a pineapple-unfriendly place (makes my eyes water just thinking about it).

This is a pleated structure designed by David Petty and it contains techniques I will use elsewhere.

You can see the pineapple-like structure (squint, close one eye, through a mirror) … yeah, there it is and this design is meant to be folded with duo coloured paper, as the top would then be a different colour to the bottom – neat.

I have seen much larger paper sculptures using this “stretched pleated rib” technique and now I know how they were made, which is a good thing.

Paper and folding is taking up waaaay too much of my life right now – have other things I HAVE to do but will somehow muddle through,

322: Fledgling

| wonko

Comes time in the life of all magpie chicks, when pin feathers have moulted and the adult feathers, shiny and new are through, untested. The fledgling inches to the edge of the nest, mindful of the effects of gravity. With encouragement, and a gentle nudge, the fledgling spreads its wings, tenses the flight muscles it has been exercising more recently. In an act of self belief, it launches into the great blue yonder:

This is Jun Maekawa’s Crow (or similar, cannot read the Japanese, sorry) – I like that this bird looks like it needs to grow into it’s feet and wings – much as I imagine a fledgling does.

Why a fledgling? A new batch of year 12s launch itself into the real world today. Their future is entirely in their hands, the potential is all there, they will make of it what they see fit. I hope they look after each other, and themselves, that they make the world a better place to be and never forget that they can make wonderful things happen if they can be bothered.

Happy with this as a first fold, lovely feet, nicely proportioned body, economy of use of paper, great design.

321: Zombeh!!!

| wonko

I love it how you can have a serious and in-depth discussion with students about Zombies:

They are experts – both the “undead” and “infection” zombies could, like, totally happen – yeah, and it is well understood how to dispatch them.

Having not long finished an adaptation of Jane Austin’s classic tale “Pride and Prejudice (and Zombies)” I am in touch with my undead self.

Well, in truth, I am a little undead zombie myself – marking does that to my brain, with perilously close deadlines and waaaaay too much to actually do before it, I neeeeeed braaaaaaiiinnnsss!!!

This is Jun Maekawa’s Zombie – well, I assume that is what it is as the book I got it out of is entirely in Japanese and I cannot read it, so, yeah. I love this posture of this model, the hands reach out sinisterly and there is just enough of a facial expression to know he is gunning for your fresh brain.

Glad I used a scrap of lithography paper for this model – copy paper would not have let me puff out and flatten the face before disintegrating.