1119: Pocket Godzilla

Leafing through one of the origami books I helped edit, I came across a cutey little “Godzila”esque model I had not folded:

Designed by Oriol Esteve, from his book “Fold with the Flow”, this charming little Chibimonster seems ready to terrorise Tokyo and dodge nukes as the ineffectual army fights back.

I used to watch monster movies with a passion, and the old “guy in a rubber suit” versions were terrifying as a kid, but the whole Godzilla franchise seems to go on and on with re-imaginings and various levels of tech in the VFX often getting in the way of the story, at least these days.

I had a 25cm square of blue metallic paper (I think from a sample pack from Origami-shop) that was light blue on the reverse, so decided to torture it into shape. The book suggests Kami, and thinner paper would have made some of the moves less thick, but I think I like him chunky. It is a fun design, starting with one of Oriol’s much-used bases. I like that both the eyes and the back spikes are colour changed. The proportions are nice and I also like that he free-stands because the centre of gravity has been considered in his pose.

1118: Riccardo Foschi’s “Human Bust”

I virtually attended OWM4 (Origami World Marathon 4) recently – one of the classes I attended in the wee hours of the morning was a workshop run by Riccardo Foschi:

Riccardo has a recognisable style and his models are a delight to fold (you will find lots of them in this blog). This stylised human bust has such a serene expression on their face, I knew I wanted to try it.

My fold live in the workshop was ok, but re-visiting it when I had some more time (and better understood the fold) resulted in a nicer overall model.

I had recently purchased some “Shadow Thai” paper from Origami-shop.com and thought it would be a good fit for this model.

I chose a grey/smoke blue sheet (black on the reverse, it is a duo paper) and figured because it is a little thicker that it would help with the statuesque quality of the design.

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1115: Typeface

Determined to fold something, I came across some diagrams in Origami Dan (an origami-focussed Discord) and figured I would give it a go:

Base unit

The idea behind the the fold is interesting – making, from a square, a 3×4 matrix of “pixels” that can be colour changed either whole or in part. From this base you then strategically reveal colour to form letters of a typeface.

Designed by Jason Ku, it is a clever and flexible shape and I then set out to form all the letters of the alphabet and digits of basic numbers.

Some of the letters represented more challenge than others – some had little fiddly 1/4 triangle components, others had reverses contrary to the underlying structure, requiring some strategic swivels and reverses. the more observant among you will realise I stuffed up the colour conventions and got a few letters in reverse colours to the others (I, J and L for those that did not notice) – meh.

The most time-consuming part of this fold was compiling the photo record and stitching it together – happy I managed it however.

1113: Shore Crab

When tidying my JOAS Tanteidan Magazines, I discovered a special edition that members used to get – one issue in particular has 2 terrifyingly complicated models I have not (to my surprise) ever tried:

This is Hideo Komatsu’s glorious “Shore Crab”, an amazing but intense design that is described in a fascinating sequence of diagrams. They are involved, number 194, and involved many advanced techniques, and in retrospect I probably looked at it at the time I got it and mentally added it to my “try later” pile.

I started with a 50cm square of crispy Kraft, and adopted my usual fold it until it either fails or finishes.

To my delight, the logical sequence and time to be accurate and careful resulted in a clean fold which I absolutely love. The resultant crab is plucky, has bulk (indeed, most of the paper is folded inside) and is just so anatomically crabby.

It takes great skill to design a model that closely resembles the silhouette of a figurative subject. It takes a special sort of genius in design to ensure that the model looks like the subject all the way around – the underside has all the features of a crab also – just brilliant.

I made a little clear acrylic stand that snugly slots into the crab’s carapace, enabling it to stand up like it is either walking or challenging and, I added some tiny spots of glue to keep seams from gaping all that was necessary to present the fold.

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1111: Goldfish

Cleaning my desk is an important psychological activity, it helps me “move on” and, oddly, I had not cleaned my home desk since well before I retired … I am not sure why, but I just was not ready:

The cleaning process also de-clutters, re-homes and generates a pile of detritus headed for the rubbish bin. Among the accumulated layers of life I discovered a printed diagram from Pham Hoang Tuan for a lovely ornate goldfish.

I remember being sent a bunch of printed diagrams with a paper pack from him (I won it for … something I cannot remember), and realise I have yet to fold most of that hand-made and hand-coloured paper … must do something about it.

I approached this model like most – I first grabbed my goto test-fold paper (Kraft), decided to try a 30cm square and set of, reasoning that I will either finish it or fail trying – both are useful journeys.

Like many diagrams from Pham Hoang Tuan, I found some inconsistencies between what was being asked and what you had to do that with, but as a reasonably experienced folder I was able to “creatively” step over those weirdnesses.

This model is lovely, and screams for pretty, textured, thin paper – so I must re-visit it with the same. Like Ronald Koh’s Goldfish, this model is volumetric (it is chubby), has a profusion of fins and the shaping requires a deft, delicate touch. I love the formation of the eyes and separation of the fins, a symphony of bizarre genetic engineering designed to create fan-tailed delicate ornamental goldfish.

It contains a number of seemingly impossible closed-sinks to shape the body and create volume, but the net result is quite beautiful – one I will return to.