746: (196/365) Fairly Bloody Long Walk

July 15, 2017 | wonko

My lovely daughter walked for charity last year and I was so proud of her (secretly regretting not doing it with her). This year, the same walk is on offer at, thankfully, at a much cooler time of year so we are both walking “The Bloody Long Walk” in early August:

Today, as part of our prep we did a fairly bloody long walk, from Brighton to Redcliffe and back again to see how far it is (apparently about 26km according to Google).

I returned to an Origami master – Akira Yoshizawa – his little person, made from the frog base is genius – spirit of the subject, glorious simplicity and I managed to fold it in my state after today’s test walk. Continue reading →

638: (88/365) Traditional Frog

March 29, 2017March 29, 2017 | wonko

Can’t fold, busy:

Remarkably I have never blogged this model. Continue reading →

321: Zombeh!!!

November 17, 2011April 2, 2015 | wonko

I love it how you can have a serious and in-depth discussion with students about Zombies:

They are experts – both the “undead” and “infection” zombies could, like, totally happen – yeah, and it is well understood how to dispatch them.

Having not long finished an adaptation of Jane Austin’s classic tale “Pride and Prejudice (and Zombies)” I am in touch with my undead self.

Well, in truth, I am a little undead zombie myself – marking does that to my brain, with perilously close deadlines and waaaaay too much to actually do before it, I neeeeeed braaaaaaiiinnnsss!!!

This is Jun Maekawa’s Zombie – well, I assume that is what it is as the book I got it out of is entirely in Japanese and I cannot read it, so, yeah. I love this posture of this model, the hands reach out sinisterly and there is just enough of a facial expression to know he is gunning for your fresh brain.

Glad I used a scrap of lithography paper for this model – copy paper would not have let me puff out and flatten the face before disintegrating.

261: Satoshi’s Pegasus

September 18, 2011 | wonko

“I am Pegasus, my name means horse…” – I am old enough to remember a folksey song by Ross Ryan about a mythological winged horse:

I had some time, amidst trips and other things today so thought I would give Satoshi Kamiya’s Pegasus a go – it has been taunting me from the pages of his book.

This delightful horse is remarkably horse-like (which I guess is a bonus) but also has the most lovely wings, I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Dainty little ears, lovely head, nifty legs – one bent as if about to take flight, with hooves, a flowing tail, just a masterpiece of design that takes such a big sheet of paper (over 30cm square of tissue foil) and reduces it to a lovely little 8-10 cm model).

There were many instances where i had to just get up and leave this model for a while – tricky, precise and the layers get so thick – I cannot imagine attempting this with regular paper. Keeping the legs sharp and shaping the body through all those layers was tough work – very happy with this as a first fold however.