6hrs

533: Gjerde’s Pinwheel Tessellation

| wonko

After leafing through Eric Gjerde’s “Origami Tessellations” I knew I had found the motherload of paper punishment:Tessellation6

This is the “Pinwheel” tessellation and it has a hidden beauty. I am learning that a tessellation is a regular repeating pattern, magically interlocking “molecules” that go together like tiles on a mosaic floor.

Usually based on a grid (at least initially), this one is based on a triangle grid, and features closed hexagon twists and open triangle twists that compliment each others vertices very neatly. Backlit they reveal an intense and curious but often completely different geometry. Continue reading →

461: Lang’s Butterfly

| wonko

Originally I was approached by a blog reader who wanted to know how a particular part of this model worked. Given I had never folded it before I had to admit I did not know, but would love to find out:

This is a torturous model by Robert Lang from his book “Insects and their Kin” – torturous because most of the detail originates in the MIDDLE of the sheet, via some astonishingly complicated manipulations. We tease 6 legs, abdomen, 2 antennae from the middle of the page, leaving large expanses of largely un-folded paper for the 2 pairs of wings.

I have wrestled with this for an age – not sure the instructions are very clear (particularly layer management late int he piece) and certainly are not noob friendly.

As a first fold I am very happy with the result – not sure I wold fold it again, I do not really like the way the body sits and the clumsy layering at the wing junctions but it was a fascinating exercise in accuracy none the less. I say clumsy but I know of the design genius to engineer such a shape, so please Mr Lang do not rake this as a criticism, I remain in awe of your paper prowess. Continue reading →

447: Black Forest Cuckoo Clock

| wonko

In need of some therapy, and with my procrastinator set on FULL, I embarked on a punishing box-pleating exercise:

I remember as a kid in New Zealand we had a cheezy Cuckoo Clock (Mum loved it) that used to have metal pinecones as counterweights and a faux timber case that used to “cuckoo” and scare the life out of me every hour. It had the loudest tick of any clock I remember.. I am fairly sure it did not survive the emmigration back to Oz because I do not remember it afterwards.

Robert Lang is known for beautiful mathematical models and when I first saw photos of his “Black Forest Cuckoo Clock” it seemed impossible to tease all that details out of an uncut sheet. Continue reading →

416: Dark Rider

| wonko

“Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse; and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the high stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible.
“When it reached the tree and was level with Frodo the horse stopped. The riding figure sat quite still with its head bowed, as if listening. From inside the hood came a noise as of someone sniffing to catch an elusive scent; the head turned from side to side of the road.” – “Three is Company,” Fellowship of the Ring, p. 84

I hate it when things beat me – I find it really hard to let it go:

On my FOURTH attempt, I managed to fold Jason Ku’s amazing model of a Dark Rider (version 8.1) – another character/thing from Lord of the Rings. This is getting to be a habit but is part of the build up to the release of the first part of “The Hobbit”, and I am a bit of a fan.

This fold took me an age (about 6 hours of actual folding) – determined to be accurate, take my time and complete each step as neatly as I could, this strategy paid off through stonkingly complicated twists, crimps and spread-squashes as you coax a square of paper into a possessed horse with a robed rider.

I am particularly proud of the hands/gauntlets – my variation on Jason Ku’s design, I think it looks better. there is so much to see in this model that it is difficult to photograph it and do it justice.

A huge piece of Kraft paper (60cm square) results in a decent sized model (14cm at its tallest) with amazing detail. My only criticism I guess is the flimsiness of the front legs – completely unable to support the bulk of paper above.

I mounted this model on a simple wire armature, so it can stand – he sinisterly looks like he is reaching for something (the one ring, naturally) and I like that the robes look full but are empty.

I masterpiece in design, there were many times I just had to walk away, unable to fathom what the next step meant or how I was going to achieve it. Kraft paper is remarkably forgiving and there was nearly no paper fatigue near the end. Not sure how you could actually fold this model with thicker paper as the centre gets very dense and shaping requires you to wrangle upwards of 20 layers.

I am totally chuffed to have achieved this, my first successful fold after so many failures – one I even had the paper disintegrate in my hands due to fatigue. I found myself having to look forward to how the manoeuvre looks when done to work out some of the ore complex swivels, reverses and open sinks.

As awesome as this model is, this design is NOT a beginners model – the instructions need interpretation as many steps require many new folds to happen at the same time (some without reference).  Indeed I look at my first successful attempt and notice a bunch of things I will do differently next time I fold it.

No idea what I will do with this model, but I am pleased I can now mentally tick this one off in my folders bucket list.

401: Double-Star Flexi-Cube

| wonko

It took me ages to even understand what this model was:

An ingenious design by David Brill, modular in construction composed of 3 different types of modules, clustered in threes, hinged together, it is a most perplexing construction.

A seemingly plain cube opens up to show a star, which fits wholly within the cube and is removable.

Flexing the cube makes another star, flexing the star makes a plank, stellated plain and other interesting twisted geometries.

This is a keeper – paper tension keeps it in shape generally but it does not strongly lock, so I may resort to cello-tape on the joints so it can be handled without risk of it disintegrating (as it did to me twice).

The geometry is interesting, photographing it seems not to do justice to the shapes but I am glad I finally nutted it out – bravo Mr Brill.