bi-colour

1121: Santa/Satan

| wonko

Comes the time of year when we tell little kids that a morbidly obese stranger in a red suit breaks into their house (by coming down a chimney or other entry point if there is no chimney), eats some random snack, feeds a portion of that snack to a reindeer (who has a birthmark on it’s nose) and then leaves presents, regardless of whether you have been an entitled little shit all year, or a saint:

As a parent I was complicit in this lie until my kids (fairly early on) cottoned on to the fact that this whole thing was so very unlikely, and merely a mechanism for justifying a mound of presents under the xmas tree.

I wanted to try out the new paper pack of Satogami I got from Origami-shop and this festive fold seemed like the perfect opportunity given the latest Tanteidan magazine (which contains it’s diagrams) arrived this week also.

Duo Satogami is quite thick. I bought a paper pack of 58cm squares, mixed colours and love the vibrancy of the red/white, and also love the texture of the paper. I _want_ to report that pre-creasing Satogami was easy … but … I really struggled to my the reference folds and to fold accurately because of the thickness and texture. The paper reverses fairly poorly also (meaning I had to correct lots of folds for accuracy as I went to ensure alignment of layers and edges during more complex moves.

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1120: Steven Casey’s “Numbat”

| wonko

Occasionally I am privileged to be asked to test-fold new models, and I jumped at the chance to fold this Numbat:

As far as I can see, this is the first depiction of this native Australian insectivorous marsupial in origami and the design captures the morpohology and proportions really well.

Starting with a preliminary base, then folding a skewed birdbase, the side stripes naturally emerge in cleverly controlled colour changes, along with the legs, neck and ant-eater-like snout, along with a lovely bushy tail.

I folded this chap from a 40cm square of white/natural Kraft paper (some of my last from the Ikea stash – I wish they sold it again, great stuff) and the fold sequence was fun – some really interesting moves and a good range of skills necessary to complete the model neatly.

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1119: Pocket Godzilla

| wonko

Leafing through one of the origami books I helped edit, I came across a cutey little “Godzila”esque model I had not folded:

Designed by Oriol Esteve, from his book “Fold with the Flow”, this charming little Chibimonster seems ready to terrorise Tokyo and dodge nukes as the ineffectual army fights back.

I used to watch monster movies with a passion, and the old “guy in a rubber suit” versions were terrifying as a kid, but the whole Godzilla franchise seems to go on and on with re-imaginings and various levels of tech in the VFX often getting in the way of the story, at least these days.

I had a 25cm square of blue metallic paper (I think from a sample pack from Origami-shop) that was light blue on the reverse, so decided to torture it into shape. The book suggests Kami, and thinner paper would have made some of the moves less thick, but I think I like him chunky. It is a fun design, starting with one of Oriol’s much-used bases. I like that both the eyes and the back spikes are colour changed. The proportions are nice and I also like that he free-stands because the centre of gravity has been considered in his pose.

1108: Poco Poco

| wonko

Browsing the current Tanteidan magazine, as you do (if you are a paid up member of JOAS), I saw a curious design for a “yummy” rounded unit, designed by Miyuki Kawamura, and decided to fold one:

The fold sequence is simple, the collapse creates a volumetric, rounded, colour-changed “eye-ball” like unit that holds itself together using paper tension. Like most unit designs, it has flaps and pockets, so I had to fold another 2 to see how they connect.

Again, by the miracle of paper tension 3 units unite into a lovely cube corner, so I had to fold another 3 units to make the smallest solid kusudama, again positively locked and, boy, the geometry is fascinating.

Nestled in among the eyeballs is a perfect cube. I may fold more of these (however I will fold using a smaller paper (I used 15cm square, but can easily fold smaller) as I think the 30 module is the pinnacle of weird but interesting kusudama.

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1091: 林靖詠’s “Man Folds Crane”

| wonko

I am interested in meta-folds – that is origami designs that are about origami, I stumbled across a series of 4 images of a man (torso) folding a crane on a routine image search for something else and decided I had to track it down. It was re-posted by a re-poster of the original and took some finding but this little beauty finally gave up some prototype Crease Patterns (CPs 1, 2, 3 and 4) and final images and I knew I had to try them:

I took my 90cm medium-thickness roll of Kraft and carved off a square, divided it into fifths, then halved until I got to 40ths, then split the big square into 4 equal smaller squares – each now a 20×20 grid.

Each figure has a different crease pattern – not sure why. I am fairly certain they were all variations generated by Boxpleat Studio (a program that takes stick figures and works out CPs), but I decided to persist – some worked perfectly, some were more of a challenge than others to collapse, each more or less made the formation of the man and the part of the crane easy, but had to nut out some things that were trickey.

I like this design, and am still working on the best way to display it – I am thinking eventually a shadowbox frame might be best.

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1087: Scout

| wonko

Browsing my pile of Tanteidan magazines, as you do, I noticed a model labelled “wolf” that I thought was more typical of a collie dog:

Scout

A lovely complex fold that, although uniaxial, seems to hold itself together and self-stands without assistance. The management of the bi-colour features is also interesting, suggesting the feathers and white patches of a certain young and enthusiastic collie called “Scout”.

The head shape contains a lot of “judgement” folds that change the shape of the nose, jowels etc so I think I could, with some planning, get a better defined collie head, but I am pretty happy with my first fold.

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1086: Happy New Year (Year of the Rabbit)

| wonko

Proofing manuscripts that are soon to become Origami books is an interesting (and sometimes intense) business. While looking at a recent draft, I happened upon Nguyễn Tiến Kha’s lovely new “Lapin (Rabbit)” design and new I needed to test-fold it:

Phạm Hoàng Hải's rabbit

This is an intense fold – it eats up so much paper (I folded this little lovely from a 45cm square), but in the end we get a lovely bi-colour rabbit with all its bits in the right place, good proportions (although a little “top heavy”) and (with a little bum surgery) self-standing.

There are lots of origami rabbits, I have folded most of them, and this one is a charmer for a bunch of reasons. The fold sequence is ingenious, intense and really reliant of accuracy early – lots of pre-creasing provides good landmarks later on, and some lovely emergent geometry as you turn things inside out, round and about.

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1083: Bodo’s Whale

| wonko

Cruising the socials, I noticed origamist Bodo Haag gifted newly drawn diagrams for a rather splendid whale, and I knew I needed to fold it:

Utilising the back and front colours of the sheet, we have a nicely white tummy and a dark back and tail fluke.

I had a lovely bit of wrapping paper (thx Rachel) and knew it would be lovely folded as something, and as a decorative ocean-going mammal it is perfect.

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1081: l’escargot

| wonko

I was doodling with a scrap of 2×1 note paper and arrived at what I think might be an original model:

le escargot

This little snail has a volumetric shell and body, along with some lovely poseable eye stalks.

le escargot views

Originality in Origami is tricksey, as most models recycle techniques from other folds, and the head/eye end uses a fairly standard waterbomb-accordion sink, but I cannot remember seeing it used in this way.

The shell is formed initially by outside reverse-folding the body and as such offers a colour change opportunity if folded with bi-colour paper.

I made a video tutorial if you want to fold it, or read further for a set of photo diagrams.

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1055: Hermann the Hermit

| wonko

Looking for something to de-stress and unwind to after a brutal term, I turned to “The Works of Satoshi Kamiya II”, and a model that I was astonished to find I had never tried – his hermit crab:

Satoshi Kamiya's Hermit Crab face to face

Starting with a 70cm square of natural/white Kraft paper, the fold was challenging as you allocate one side of the sheet to the crab, the other to the shell. Via a fabulous fold sequence, you tease legs, claws, antennae, eyes and mouthparts while delicately colour-changing the rear and then spiralling a shell as his home.

Satoshi Kamiya's Hermit Crab views

This is, (der), genius design – I always am amazed with Kamiya designs, and the elegance of the developmental sequence – as if the journey is every bit as delightful as the destination.

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1053: Jake the Snek

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My Mum had a large carpet snake take up residence atop her hot water system. Apparently he (she? who can tell?) was gentle, sleepy and knocked off some terracotta plant pots in his quest for a coil-spot:

Gen Hagiwara's snake

Over a period of a couple of weeks, he moved about, basking, slithering and generally being a snek, then he buggered off (as they do).

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1033: Ducks in a row

| wonko

Ducks and Drakes usually are different – apart from gender, the drake is usually the pretty one, a quite common convention in the bird world:

Shiri Daniel's Ducks

Each model is folded from a sheet of the same paper, one the reverse of the other to create the different plumage patterns.

Shiri Daniel's Ducks view

A lovely fold sequence is really efficient, so entirely achievable using 15cm origami paper (I have so much of this, and rarely use it). I decided on some teal-ish Yuzen, and the results are lovely.

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1027: Wasp

| wonko

I was scheduled to go on a weekend away with the missus, then the State Government called a 3-day lockdown because of a small outbreak of a new strain of Covid-19, so found myself home with some time on my hands:

Stephen O'Hanlon's Wasp

After 2 glasses of wine, I decided to see what Kraft paper could do, and decided to throw a 70cm square of white/natural at Stephen O’Hanlon super complex wasp photodiagram design.

Stephen O'Hanlon's Wasp views

I fully intended to stop when it failed – Experience has taught me that insects like this require really thin paper, but I just kept folding and the model worked out pretty well. There is a lovely proportion to this model and the sequence is intense (I must have some skills because the wine seemed no impediment) and fun, borrowing from many designers – namely Shuki Kato, Robert Lang and Anibal Voyer – having folded from all these designers I can certainly feel the influences.

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1024: Grogu, Mando in training

| wonko

For those up to date with “The Mandolorean”, the last episode reveal was “baby yoda’s” name – turns out it was “Grogu”:

Sebl's Grogu

Although loosely a space western, Mando is largely cutie Grogu and as many Star Wars references as is possible to fit into a loose plot (my opinion).

Sebl's Mando Helmet

Sebastien Limet designed a 2-part Grogu and published video tutorial on his Fakebook account – head and body are separate (I cheated and glued mine together – ssshhh!). The next day he did the same for a Mandalorian helmet – I made mine a little goth. More eye candy follows…

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1015: Among Us

| wonko

The game of the moment appears to be “Among Us” – a playful collab game of murder in the dark, in space, featuring an imposter among the group.

t Us characters

I cannot pretend to have played it, yet. I gather you need friends, like-minded, that have good hand-eye coordination. I think I would be a liability given I used to think that “friendly fire” was the aim, and I always found it easier to murder those players just sitting there with me – apparently murdering team mates is generally not appreciated.

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