1188: Jeremy Shafer’s “Pyramid Tessellation”

Few modern origamists are as prolific and inventive as Jeremy Shafer – he seems to be creating new models constantly, and most importantly, his designs are fun to fold:

This is his Pyramid Tessellation field – each molecule has pre-creases that have easy landmarks, meaning you could expand this field in any direction as far as you have patience for.

This version is a 4×4 field of 16 separate square-based pyramids – a lovely thing in itself but when you start playing with it it starts to do wonderfully weird things.

Using just the existing creases, the model flexes diagonally and also horizontally/vertically. When you flex it diagonally it turns in on itself and COLLAPSES down to a hexagonal stack – this initially broke my brain until I noticed the pre-creasing actually formed pyramidal faces that are equilateral triangles – the collapse then is just one state it can be arranged into.

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1143: Toucan play that game

The original and ONLY authorised copy of this post, authored by Wonko, appears on http://www.wonko.info/365origami/

One of the many advantages of being on the editing team for an origami book is that you get to see models before they make it into the wild. This Toucan, designed by Jiahui Li (Syn) appeared in the book “Comic Origami 2 – Feathered Friends” among a plethora of other fun folds:

I had a much used 40cm square of Origami-Shop Shadow Thai paper that I used and re-used (after ironing flat) to do test folds. I quartered it to make 4 20cm squares and set about finding folds for it.

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602: (52/365) Jason Ku’s Lizard

I bought some hand-made paper with inclusions from Daiso and wondered how it would fold, so looked for a punishing model to test it out:

This is Jason Ku’s Lizard – a lovely little critter with toes, an elegant tail and a funky face with gaping mouth and bulby eyes. Continue reading

567: (17/365) Jo Nakashima’s Penguin

Returning to work, we balance between the stinking hot outside temperature and the painfully cold airconditioning (yes, I know this sounds like a first world problem, and it is), but I decided to foldĀ a critter that has evolved to put up with intolerable temperatures:

This is Jo Nakashima’s Penguin, a lovely little model with a blocky, cartoony feel to it. Continue reading