D Brown

1177: 31Cactus

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Having folded Robert Lang’s masterpiece Cactus, when I saw Daniel Brown had designed a smaller version based on a 31 square grid, I knew I would be folding that sometime:

I have been really into time-consuming surface deformations, corrugations and tessellations lately – whether it is procrastigami or the need for a time-sponge, pushing paper into amazing regular shapes is just fascinating to me.

I threw a 50cm square of glossy duo green/natural Damul Kraft paper from origami-shop.com at this design, but the resultant fold is tiny – few tessellations eat paper like this one. The rows of prickles are raised via overlapping pleats in an astonishing collection of cooperating maneuvers where accuracy and thickness is everything.

My previous fold was rendered from a 90cm square of Kraft that I painted after it was folded. The thickness make point sharpening really challenging. This fold using Damul Kraft made the fold much easier because the paper was thin and tough. The scale of the fold here is also smaller – a real challenge for my nerve-damaged and clumsy fingers.

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1142: Daniel Brown’s Seamless Chessboards

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Having folded Steven Casey’s 8×8 40 grid seamless chessboard and singularly failing to fold Marc Kirschembaum’s 40 grid because of crease-creep inaccuracies, I was approached by Daniel Brown and asked if I was interested in his chessboards – naturally I jumped at the chance. “Seamless” chessboards are deliciously more complicated because it required each square to be represented by an un-broken surface (as opposed to being able to be comprised of bits and pieces of layers – a much easier path):

A "clusterfuck" of seamless chessboards
A “clusterfuck” of seamless chessboards

I say CHESSBOARDS because Daniel has developed a series of coloured/white alternate seamless models of LOTS of sizes, and the skills necessary to migrate edge paper towards the centre to effect colour changes is a thing that needs some work and, often, particular “widgets” (or self-contained localised fold structures).

I started with the 4×4, rather efficiently designed on a 9×9 grid ( 0.444 efficiency). I had a piece of blue-white kami, so gave it a whirl. Even dimensions require different approaches for adjacent corners as they are different colours – the same colour corner exists on the diagonal.

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1040: A Little Crabby

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As a teacher, ends of term are a plague of marking, and that tends to make me crabby:

Daniel Brown's Crab

My procrastination engine keeps kicking. I found a photo sequence on an Origami Discord, designed by Daniel Brown, and knew I needed to try it.

Lovely challenging sequence, figurative representation of a crab, love this little model, must fold it again.

1022: Ryu Jin 1.64

| wonko

This started as pure procrastination – I had marking and reporting to do but ….

ryujun 1.64

Folded from a “live guide” photodiagram series produced by Daniel Brown, as part of a channel in a discord from another planet, irresistible as it is yet another variation of eastern dragon I knew I HAD to fold,

ryujun 1.64 development

This little fellow is nearly naked – apart from some glue to hold in a wire spine and wires for arms and legs, he is otherwise folded only (hence some of the wayward seams and flaps). I quite like this unfinished appearance and think he will stay as is.

ryujun 1.64 views

Folded from 90cm natural Kraft, it starts with a therapeutic 64 grid on the diagonal and goes to hell in a handbasket from then on. The basic folding is quite straight forward (as a Ryu master), this variation is a bit of a mashup between a 1.2 and the head of a 2.1 – the result is wonderfully complex and beautifully “Kamiya” in intent.

ryujun 1.64 scale

I decided to fold it in plain (both sides same) paper as the bi-color fold has a large gash of reverse side colour along the underside – I have used this to effect in both a 1.2 and a 2.1, so thought I would go differently this time. Interestingly (to me) this little chappie is folded with a sheet exactly 1/4 the size (and from the same paper roll) as my original 3.5 (a little Ryu Jin nerdistry there).

1000: How Green Was My Cactus

| wonko

Episode 245, Mabel, confused about her husband’s sudden emergence from a coma as a woman, signs over her mortgage to Favio, the pool boy, and became a nun, briefly.

How green was my cactus - finished

I remember a radio serial comedy drama, it used to make me giggle and it was called “how Green was my Cactus?”, the inspiration for many of the hashtags as I chronicled this fold, over what has seemed like an age. Somehow this is relevant in the context that this is “never folded this before #1000” for me – an astonishing milestone that I do not take lightly. I knew I had to attempt something epic … be careful what you wish for.

I first saw pictures of Daniel Brown’s fold of Robert Lang’s “Cactus, Opus 680“, and then I saw some fold suggestions from Daniel and flirted with the idea of taking a crack at this fold.

How green was my cactus - views
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987: Ryu Zin Junior 2.1

| wonko

Rounding out my Ryu journey, I decided to use a small scrap of Kozo left over from another project to fold Jason Ku’s Ryu Zin Junior 2.1:

Jason Ku Ryu Zin 1.2

While sharing some of the nomenclature of the Satoshi Kamiya chinese dragon series, this little chap is markedly different on every level. I found a set of photo diagrams lovingly annotated by Daniel Brown, and thought I would give is a whirl.

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985: Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryu Jin 2.1

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Some folds are quite the journey, Ryu Jins are no exception. I have already folded the 1.2 and the 3.5, but had not tried the 2.1, relegating it to the “when I have time” pile:

2 point 1 - model

Holiday time is a time of recharge, paper folding therapy is my thing so I embarked on the super-duper-complex journey with HUGE bits of paper. I decided to fold it in 2 halves (two 140 x 70 cm rectangles of red duo Ikea Kraft paper).

2 point 1 - CP

As a bit of paper engineering, Ryu are masterpieces of fitting so much on a single square. The 2.1 is laid out in a similar morphology to the 3.5, with 2 halves of the model on opposite edges of the paper. The Ryu 1.2, in contrast, uses the diagonal and is symmetrical about that.

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962: Ryu Jin 2.1 – Head

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In a bid to calm down and relax after a brutal week at work, I took a 60cm square of red/natural Ikea Kraft paper and started folding… and folded, and folded and folded.

Ryujui 1.2 head

I have been lured back into the fold (as it were) of Ryu Jin folders (nerds who attempt to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s devilishly difficult dragon series). Having already folded a 1.0, 1.2 and 3.5, I noticed that I had never attempted a 2.1.

Ryujui 1.2 head views and detail

For the uninitiated, the numbers indicate refinements, with the 1.0 being vaguely dragon like and the 3.5 (the culmination of this design process) being the most astonishingly detailed design imaginable.

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900: (350/365) Calamari

| wonko

I stumbled across a “dollar fold” designed by Daniel Brown and decided to try it:

An interesting exercise in sinking, point isolation and layer management, this charming squid looks fresh enough to cook. Continue reading →

516: Jaws

| wonko

In 1975, after finishing year 10, a friend (hey Brendan!) and I decided to cycle to the Sunshine Coast as “something to do” during the Christmas holidays. Living in Maleny, this was a journey but not really that far in retrospect, but on a bicycle in the middle of summer it was kind of madness. 516Jaws

Our bikes were laden with water bottles, tent, airbeds and other camping equipment (I was a scout, and, generally, was prepared), down the range we made for our first campsite at Caloundra. In those days the caravan park/camp site backed on to the beach – cool breezes and ocean sounds – all good, right? That night, we went to the local cinema to see a new release blockbuster movie – “JAWS” directed by Stephen Spielberg. I’ll be honest, this movie really gave me the willies – the now classic film had palpable suspense, shock, gore and was set at the seaside. Continue reading →

496: Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryujin 3.5

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On March 21, 2014, I began a quest to learn how to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s “Ryujin 3.5”, and was lucky enough to be accepted as a pupil of Mr Daniel Brown (MrOrigami).496SigmundRyu

Daniel sent me a lesson, I had to perform the illustrated tasks and photo my evidence back to him before he sent me the next lesson. The process has been fascinating, frustrating, amazing, annoying, hard, humbling, wild and wonderful.496SigmundRyuViews

A year on, I have managed to integrate all the component lessons into the one sheet (well, 2 halves joined at a seam inside) to arrive at this amazing model. It has yet to be fine-shaped – a task that will have to wait until marking and an extended holiday are over, but at least I know that all the creases are now in place, the bits are all where they should be and the beast is something I am unbearably proud of. Continue reading →