559: (9/365) Shuki Kato’s Western Dragon V3.1w

In a true testament to sheer bloody-mindedness and perseverance, I present to you for my self-satisfaction my first SUCCESSFUL attempt at Shuki Kato’s “Western Dragon”:

Some explanation: This is a western dragon because it has wings (westerners reason that to fly it needs wings). Potter nerds would naturally recognise that this is a “Hungarian Horntail“. It is version 3.1w because I used the “modified” instructions for v3 and then added some of my own variations to improve the model (I closed the breast and used the otherwise wasted flap as a bottom jaw allowing me to model a tongue).


Continue reading

554: (4/365) Shuki Kato’s Simple Dragon

There are many subjects for origami models that are sort of a “holy grail” of folding, dragons are one such thing:

This is Shuki Kato’s “Simple” Dragon – the term simple is a relative term, naturally, as most of Shuki’s models are not for beginners and this little charmer is no exception.

I decided to try it on 50cm Daiso origami paper, fully expecting the paper to fail (as it is fairly ordinary wood-pulp paper) but I managed to coax it into a relatively huge dragon that has simple features but recognizably dragony morphology. Continue reading

No, They Do Not All Workout As Planned.

I _want_ to pretend that every bit of paper I touch turns into a magnificent model that everyone gasps at, but that is FAR from the truth. This is my FOURTH attempt at Shuki Kato’s “Western Dragon”. It joins a LARGE collection of landfill (discarded unsuccessful models) and was responsible for many BAD WORDS but I have just about calmed down and will lick my wounds before re-engaging with the demon paper.

This is a western dragon because, apparently, people in the west need “wings” to make a flying dinosaur make sense. In the East, wings are not necessary because they just fly – humans do not need to wonder how.

This is the furthest I have gotten with this model, and managed to wrangle all parts of the model (first attempt 2 years ago) but I did not achieve the head – it is supposed to be a glorious 12-horned snarling grimace (as opposed to the crumpled mess I made). Continue reading

499: Kato’s Titan Beetle

I was itching to do a technical fold, and realised I had folded few from the “Bugwars” book I bought for Xmas, so thought “why not”:499TitanBeetle

This fold has taken an age. I must admit that initially I had passed this over because it looked too fiddly, the CP alone was terrifying. Continue reading