1087: Scout

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)

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

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

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

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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