933: David Brill’s “Robin”

I have been a fan of David Brill’s designs ever since I read his book “Brilliant Origami”. Such a lovely touch, breathing life into paper:

This Robin is delightful – I saw hand-drawn diagrams on David’s website and then professionally drawn diagrams in the latest Tanteidan Magazine and knew I needed to try it. I particularly like the free-form nature of the hand-drawn version, making it a bit more of an adventure to fold this bird.

The shape, management of colour change and general model stability is wonderful in this model. There is nice sense of volume, beautiful 3D head, and an animated pose. The subtleties in fold here are such that I found all 5 of them (yes, I got a bit carried away) are all slightly different, making almost a family grouping. Continue reading

785: (235/365) Pentagonal Masu

A Masu (or box) was traditionally square and used to measure rice in Japanese kitchens. These days, masu are typically used to sip Sake out of:

Having mastered David Brill’s Square Masu, I thought it time to try the pentagonal one. Apparently the pentagonal masu exists only in Origami circles – this makes sense as the woodworking skill necessary to make this in timber breaks my brain.

Page division into 6ths (to allow overlap/join) then gentle faceting and a magic corner hinge joint results in a lovely 3d shape that feels like it has volume.

I used thickish paper and found some of the internal collapses tough work to make them behave and sit tidily but overall it is a fin fold because you really have to think through how it works before trying the collapse.

782: (232/365) Wedge Flex

Topologically convoluted geometric modulars confuse the brain – shapes that morph into different shapes in stable but seemingly unpredictable ways are fascinating:

This is a wedge-flex – a modular hinged construction of a series of triangular prisms (wedges) that fold, bend, twist and re-align in interesting configurations. Continue reading