Looking at my “must fold when time” pile, I remembered a diagram destoned for a Peter Buchan-Symons “Folding Fantasy” book:
This lovely duo colour dragon is designed by Matthew Dunstan, and is an interesting variation of a classic birdbase with some grafts for the head.
An intense little fold in places (the head in particular is really fiddly and thick), I really like this little western dragon with good proportions and a unique character.
I folded this from a 35cm square of Duo Kraft paper – a mistake in retrospect, it would have been easier (less finger bruising) with a larger thinner sheet. Originally I planned to fold it with my Shadow Thai, but I think it is too thick … now I know how the fold works I may still give that a go.
EDIT:
Folded with a 40cm square of origami-shop Duo Thai paper, with some extra detail and shaping, this little beauty is a treasure indeed
Cruising the channels on Origami Dan, I found a CP for a fold challenge I had missed, but decided to give it a whirl anyways:
Designed by Scott Okamura, this seemingly impossible fold featured a traditional Tsuru (crane) folded in the middle of a large page of duo paper – the surrounding paper is then formed into a box.
Colour-change models are astonishing to me, designing models that use colour change are something special:
I have folded a number of different models like this, nothing quite like it however – what sets this model apart form any other is that each “tile” on the board is a seamless square.
Folding this from a SINGLE UNCUT square ends up being a bit of a brain-fuck. The paper was blue one side, white the other (actually cheap and nasty 70cm wrapping paper from my local dollar store). Distributing the “colour” is achieved, mostly, by bringing the sheet edges up through pleat bundles using a variety of techniques.
You can see the final location of the 4 corners of the original sheet in this development photo:
Planning/designing of a model like this is beyond me – pre-preparing the colour changes means that every bit of the paper has a job – either visible “tile”, spacer, flipper, mover etc to get the bits of colour to get where they need to go. Fold accuracy is the make or break of such designs – novices who use a “near enough is good enough” approach will not succeed here.
I was asked to test fold this, by Steven Casey, prior to publication. The diagrammed sequence is intense, starting with a 40×40 grid. Most of the folding is working on the wrong side, creating interacting pleat stacks that sit flat but that strategically manipulation pleat order. The run towards the “checkerboard” effect happens around the edges first, they they are migrated further towards the centre (although really only in a 4-unit strip around the periphery.
Scrolling through this year’s JOISEL AWARD entrants, I noticed a lovely little Rocketship designed and folded by Zhu Yandan, from China – it was released with a crease pattern (CP) so I thought it worth a try.
I used a technique called “Ghost Creasing”, where ONLY the needed creases are transferred via careful embossing using a stylus. This eliminates the excess grid creases, making the fold cleaner.
The majestic “Bin Chicken” is, sadly, an aussie icon – those black-headed ibis emerge from the deepest, moistest corners of a ripe dumpster, dripping bin juice.
Yes, I KNOW that an Egret is not an IBIS (the beak is different and the body colouration is different… but… creative license). This is Jeong Jae Il’s “Egret” – a beautifully lifelike rendition of an altogether more polite bird. The diagrams, from “Potential Origami” suggest heavier paper, so I trotted out a lovely 58cm square of duo Yukogami to work this model.
The paper is stark white one side, jet black the other, heavily textured and light cardboard in thicknicty, but I thought I would fold until either it was finished or it failed. The only real struggle was thinning down the legs that end up being about 12-18 layers. In finishing, after dry-shaping, I slid a little white glue inbetween the layers then re-formed on my dry shaped form, compressed and found the paper dried solid – an added bonus was I did not need to add wire, she stood on her own!!
One of many things I like about being a subscriber of JOAS’ Tanteidan Magazine, is the little modulars that usually start each edition. Leafing through #191, I spotted a series of cubes designed by Jun Maekawa:
My pick of the cubes is his “Binding Cube”, a delicious little 6-piece modular whose layers lock so completely and tidily, the cube looks like it is one piece.
Folded from 3 squares of Tuttle duo each split into 2:1 rectangles. The module is relatively simply folded from thirds, the lock has layers of adjacent modules interleaving in such a clever way. Some of the modules were hard to place because the lock has very little clearance if folded accurately.
I like this model a lot, and am also happy with the colour choice.
Few origami designers design, present and then release CPs, diagrams and tutorials for their work like Riccardo Foschi:
When I saw his newly designed frog 2 days ago, I was hoping for there to be a tutorial or CO soon, his tutorial dropped yesterday and I knew I had to fold it.
I used a square of Duo Thai paper – dark and lime green and folded it slowly to enjoy the demonstrated process.
The front end of this frog/toad is wonderful – big whimsical eyes, beautiful suckered feet, nice shaped head. My only criticism is that the back legs and bum are a little stubby – there is quite a bit of paper back there that is not doing a lot, but as is it is simplistic. None the less, I love this little chap.
Crease patterns, photo sequences and diagrams are the primary way of communicating the complexities and details of an origami model. While I am fairly capable of faithfully following even the most complicated diagram sequence, but still consider myself a newbie at solving CPs:
Sometimes the job is easier – lines are indicated as mountain/valley (red/blue or dashed/dot-dashed lines), other times you only get the major creases of the “base”, from which you then shape and tease the details from.
Origami-Kimiro, a Discord user on OrigamiDan released a CP for a simple domino toppling, and I knew I needed to give it a try:
Using 12″ duo Indigo Tuttle paper, I laid in the creases, oriented them in mountain/valley and marvelled as the paper collapsed into a base that was pretty close to done. Finishing the hand, colour changing to get the coat sleeve, posing and done.
I remember doing a test fold of this delightful model nearly a year back, but never got around to blogging about it… so I grabbed a trusty 50cm square of yellow/brown Origami-shop Sandwich paper and got gridding:
Wall-e – author unknown
With just a 16 grid and some strategically placed diagonals, and a breathtaking “all at once” collapse, the general morphology of the model sorts itself out pretty quickly.
Finessing the details and pose are fun and fairly straight-forward, and before long the character of this simple but adorable little trash compactor begins to emanate from the otherwise inanimate paper from whence it sprang. I do not however know the author of this work – I only have diagrams with the author in Chinese (王翌宸) – thank you, whoever you are for such a stunning design.
Test folding is different to model folding, the brief is to see how easy to follow the diagrams are, how reproducible the forms are and what sense the written instructions make.
As all the models in this book are unit-based, I folded 3 or 4 of the modules (rather than the entire 30+) to check the 2 types of joins and how regular the construction methods can become. There is a wonderful mix and variety of spikey balls in this new (as yet unpublished) collection, and the skill levels to complete them range from fairly easy to nearly impossible – which is good, challenges abound for all levels of folder competence.
Unit and join testing – 3+5joints (“Star Virus” kusudama)
Xander commonly uses some funky paper ratios in his base-papers. Commonly 1:root(3), but this collection uses 2:root(3) and more exotically 6:5root(3). The paper ratio allows construction of accurate angles (many based of multiples of 60 degrees), and the book demonstrates nicely how to cut sheets of this ratio from more conventional sized paper.
Each kusudama has it’s own quirks, tricks and stress points, all require accuracy and nice paper (most showcase duo coloured paper in flamboyant and wondrous ways).
I have not folded a book “cover to cover” since I was a kid (who only owned a only couple of origami books) – it was an intense but hopefully useful journey as I made notes about the instruction set, unit folding and assembly process, subsequently passing this on to Xander for his consideration.
As I approach retirement age, I can see myself doing more in the meta origami world, having already established myself as an origami book editor and test folder – having time to do this without having to shoe-horn it inbetween school commitments is a luxury I am looking forward to.
Whilst being eliminated from the Origami Tournament, I am still interested in the models being folded by surviving contestants. This week’s challenge was Jang Yong Ik’s :Smilodon” – a “sabre tooth tiger” like critter from time gone past:
The fold sequence is intense – this model ate up a 70cm square of black/natural duo Kraft paper like few other models. The body is thick and heavy, some sections had dozens of layers.
I took my time, considered as I went, determined to succeed on my first fold. In retrospect, using thinner paper would have an advantage in that the layer management would be easier, but the legs would be flimsy and require wire supports – tough for a designer to distribute paper structurally.
In the end, we have a crouching toothy fossil, it was an interesting exercise and entrants did some good shaping to personalise their folds. I enjoyed exploring the sequence.
It has been a while since I last blogged a fold. Truth be told the end of the term beat me up a lot – coupled with a savage cold, auto-immune rash (I still have) and an infected tear duct, on top of the marking and reporting it beat me up proper:
That said, folding remains a refuge and I did fold a lot in the interim, just did not blog about it – must redress the balance.
I “found” a set of diagrams, well, stumbled across them on Pinterest (the largest bastion of copyright infringement) and decided it was worth a fold after seeing an unauthorised youtube video tutorial of the same fold (I must have skipped over it while scanning the document).
I have waited an age to fold this model – I was waiting on finding some large format duo paper. When visiting IKEA, I came upon delicious 70cm wide rolls of duo Kraft paper (black on natural and white on natural), and bought a bunch of rolls.
Folding a 24×24 grid on a virgin square of white/natural Kraft, the collapse lines laid in, the collapse proceeds to the first stage then you re-work each stickey-outey bit. Continue reading →
