5hrs

1099: Songbird

| wonko

To mark the release of Phạm Hoàng Tuấn’s new book, he released a photo sequence of a little songbird on Fakebook:

Hundreds of development photos lead you (sort of) through the exacting process of folding this little wren-like bird. I decided to throw some nice paper at it.

The suggested size the author used was 20cm, so I went 35cm square, thinking I would have been safe, but should have looked ahead as it got waaaay too thick due to layers really quickly. Not to be deterred, I thought I would try to shepherd the now clearly wrong paper through a torturous fold,

In the end, some features (like the head) were really clumsily folded due to thickness, but I am pretty happy with the number of bird-like features I was able to tease out of this lovely sheet. I was also reminded of an important lesson – choice of appropriate paper is REALLY important on complex-supercomplex models.

I posed and stabilised it as much as possible, and will prolly fold it again some other time. The photo sequence was super annoying to use – it kept timing out (google drives get lazy) and so many of the photos showed indeterminate actions at times I was left scratching my head thinking “what is actually being shown here”. Beggars cannot be choosers however, so I gave it a red hot crack.

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986: Meta

| wonko

I love meta – that examination of self-reference is great brain food, and this fold designed by Neelish Kumar fits nicely into that philosophical space:

Neelish Kumar's Origamist Nightmare

Nominally named “Origamist’s Worst Nightmare”, it is a place I have been – being so into a model at the expense of the materials, having it disintegrate in my hands as I work it.

The more observant of you will notice a despairing folder, paper ripped along a much-worked crease. Look closer, the crease pattern is Eric Joisel’s “Dwarf“, a particular favourite that I have ruined many a sheet mastering.

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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.

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930: Ground Control to Major Tom …

| wonko

…take your protein pills and put your helmet on.

I have waited an age to fold this model – I was waiting on finding some large format duo paper. When visiting IKEA, I came upon delicious 70cm wide rolls of duo Kraft paper (black on natural and white on natural), and bought a bunch of rolls. 

Folding a 24×24 grid on a virgin square of white/natural Kraft, the collapse lines laid in, the collapse proceeds to the first stage then you re-work each stickey-outey bit. Continue reading →

776: (226/365) Boney McBoneface – dem bones

| wonko

The toe bone’s connected to the foot bone,
The foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone,
The ankle bone’s connected to the leg bone,
Now shake dem skeleton bones!:

The leg bone’s connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone,
Now shake dem skeleton bones! Continue reading →

740: (190/365) Rubic’s Cube

| wonko

Long before there were “fidget spinners”, Pokemon and “Pogs” there was a craze that swept me away when it first hit the market. A Hungarian designer called Erno Rubic devised a cube, subdivided up into 3x3x3 cubies that all slid on each other in layers:

I instantly had to have one (well, in truth I had 9, including a triangular, circular and 4x4x4 one that I still have). Continue reading →

526: Sunflowers

| wonko

When asked by a friend (hey Trevor!) “can I make Sunflowers”, my answer initially was “dunno”, but let’s find out:526Sunflowers

I found a Youtube video by Ph2 with a flower base that was near identical to a number of other flower petal turnings I have done before. Squash then squash then squash and you get 16 petals per flower – nice. Using a simpler form the sepal works. Having the basis for the fold I set about selecting paper and scale to make these things near actual size.

I had some Lokta paper, in yellow and chocolate, so laminated a smaller chocolate square to the centre of a 26cm square, waited until dry then began the paper coaxing. Continue reading →

478: Ku’s Fairy

| wonko

Often I find highly technical folding is mentally cleansing – that complete absorption in meticulous detail lets you lose yourself:

Jason Ku is an engineer and origami artist unlike any other – having marveled at his bicycle, I was determined to find something else of his to try.

I had dismissed this fold, featured in a Tanteidan convention book I peruse periodically as too hard, but given my skill level has raised (attributable directly to my structured wrestling with Kamiya’s Ryu Jin), I thought I would give it a try.

To my astonishment, the folds came quite easily, breathtaking collapses and “unfold everything and re-fold it this way” moments seem just to work themselves out and the result is pleasing to me at least. Continue reading →

445: Mother of Dragons

| wonko

I was paper shopping, as you do (my daughter calls me a paper nerd) and stumbled across a hand-made sheet of blue embossed Lotka that reminded me of dragonscale:

She who must be obeyed (SWMBO), an avid gamer and tamer of Dragons, had asked for a dragon so I put 2 and 2 together and got 17, well 5 to be precise. I have been exploring dragon-form, with the current Weyr (or wing) containing 5 dragons so far (Darkness Dragon by Tadashi Mori, Fiery Dragon by Kade Chan,  Green Dragon by Piotr Pluta, Riu Zin 1.0 by Satoshi Kamiya and nearly a Western Dragon by Shuki Kato)

After examining the paper, and its fold receptivity, SWMBO decided on a Fiery Dragon so I start bending, patiently (the paper is more like fabric so although you can crease it, it tends to want to unfold again.

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444: Wolf Spider

| wonko

I have these lovely bits of Lotka and was looking for something to be my first fold with this new paper:

I chose Brian Chan’s Wolf spider partly because I had not folded it before and partly because the “milk chocolate” fibrous nature of the paper reminded me of the natural colour and texture of the spider itself.

The first cut is more painful than the first fold on a sheet that is roughly rectangular – the issues with most hand-made papers include rough edges, uneven thicknesses, odd fibre bundles in unfortunate places and a lovely mottled colour distribution.

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437: Perambulator

| wonko

When I first saw photos of this model, I could not believe it was folded from a single sheet, without cuts, folds only:

In case you were wondering, this was WTF (What’s That Fold?) # 8. I was determined to give it a go. Noticing it was made from hundreds of pleats, and given the crease pattern folded down to 64ths in places, I upscaled the suggested paper size (to a 70cm square of 80GSM brown Kraft) to allow for my fat, clumsy fingers to make the creases.

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429: Satoshi Kamiya’s Lyrebird

| wonko

You may have guessed I am a bit of a fanboi when it comes to the works of Satoshi  Kamiya:

As previously stated, my wife and I spent some time in a rainforest cabin and that inspired me to have a go at his Lyrbird – a deliciously complicated crumple that needs to result in a characteristic fan tail, 2 side tail things, wings, legs, body and head.

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