One of many design techniques used in Origami (and other aspects of life) is Iteration.

I decided I wanted to make an Origami approximation of a Mitsubishi Triton with a “camper trailer” modification.

I did some rifling through my Origami reference collection and found in the OUSE Convention book a lovely base “Jeep” model, designed by Stefan Delecat.

Folding it gave me some useful widgets for isolating tyres, windscreens and integrating them into a car body … but … it was the wrong shape. On the folded maquette I penned areas that needed expanding and contracting. Unfolding that maquette I was able to see where “grafts” were necessary. A GRAFT is the addition of extra paper to enable a feature – it ahs knock-on effects however of requiring you to deal with the extra paper in areas it was not originally in.

Folding the first iteration of solution, I added waaay too much paper, ended up with a stretched limo, but that sparked the “I can cold the whole thing, including tent with one sheet” fiasco – refolding it again and again I abandoned that idea because it ruined the line of the vehicle – technically possible yes, aesthetically pleasing solution no. Re-working the grafts allowed me to add width and length grafts that I folded into a final proportioned maquette.

Fortunately, the width and length grafts allowed me to add “seams” between the Cab and the trailer. adjust the height of the trailer section and correct the proportions of hood-windscreen-cab that align the model more closely to the actual vehicle.

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