D Brill

165: Sugar Plump Fairy

| wonko

I once shared a house with 3 other uni friends – much happened, most memorable. Late one night, instead of finishing a due-next-day assignment, Mark was seen flitting and pirouetting through the house:

We coined the expression “sugar plump fairy” after the dance he was attempting, it stuck. Happy Birthday Mark!!!

I like this model, simple folds, precise creasing that gives form from flat surfaces – very clever Mr Brill.

This model is designed to be a Christmas tree topper – I can see how that would work given the convenient pocket at the back. It is not free standing (although I could mangle the lovely minimalist legs into feet and knees I guess – that would ruin the lines however.

Hope you like it.

149: The Black Pearl in a Bottle

| wonko

…so my Wife and I went to see the fourth installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean” (admitting to be fans) and discovered Capt’n Jack’s beloved “Black Pearl” had been imprisoned in a bottle by Blackbeard (amongst other piratical stereotypes trotted out this adventure):

So I got to thinking about ships, and found a lovely “fully rigged ship” by Patricia Crawford, in the book “Origami – Step by Step”

I had previously made a bottle as designed by David Brill so put the two together and got a satisfying rendition of the classic “ship in a bottle”, which counts as my ONE model today, given the bottle has previously been folded, and the ship stand (Designed by Fred Rhom) do not count (cut me a little slack here).

I learned a LOT folding this thing – scale matters (had to scale the bottle to fit the model AFTER it was finished), cellophane (which the bottle is made out of) does NOT like being cut straight nor folded, nor does it intend to ever stay folded (I resorted to anchoring it in place with sticky tape – so sue me) and finally how jolly hard it is to photograph something INSIDE a bottle made of cellophane.

Still, I think the Black Pearl may well survive to sail another day, the scene after the credits (that few of us theater patrons hung around for) would indicate the adventure continues.

133: Brill’s Bottle

| wonko

I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy:

A fully formed container, neck, base, hollow and interesting

I like this design, and was sure it would not work – forming the neck and pleating the base to seal it make it a very clever model indeed.

Folded from the aptly titled “Brilliant Origami” by David Brill. Looks like a spirit bottle – it suggests you fold it out of clear material and put a ship inside it – that would be cool also.

Hope you like it – not bad for such a tired brain.

109: Brill’s Nut

| wonko

Take a rectangle cut from half a square and torture it via box-pleating:

and you get a nut that actually takes the thread of the bolt previously made with the same hexagonality, nice.

This was an odd fold, it looked like it was going to hell at every stage, the inside collapse looked like it could not work, until it just did. Tucking away all that paper inside to leave a relatively clean hex nut on the outside is paper engineering genius.

Folded from “Brilliant Origami” by David Brill (that is 3 Brill models in a row, time for a change perhaps?).

108: David Brill’s Bolt

| wonko

When I first saw this model I thought it was not possible, but thought I would give it a whirl anyway:

This is a bolt, box pleated to have a functional thread and a beautiful hexagonal do-uppy endy thing (sorry, no idea what you call the end you use a spanner on).

It was a fascinating exercise in crimping and pleating that did not come easily – the pattern of valleys and mountains was challenging to fold in pre-crease stage and more torturous to collapse. I found it difficult to reach inside the tube during the early collapse stage (fingers were not long enough to reach) and resorted to using the bone folder to help out the first few crimps.

This was folded from the appropriately named “Brilliant Origami” by David Brill. It has an accompanying model (the “nut”) that I shall try for tomorrow – they form a pair – could be interesting.