waterbomb

319: Performing Seal

| wonko

The crowd gasped and applauded enthusiastically at the task do deftly performed by the seal on display. The seal sighed, feeling that the humans watching it were easily amused and so concentrated on the mathematics of parabolic hyperflexion and existential philosophy to pass the time until the next fish was tossed her way:

This is Fred Rohm’s “Performing Seal” an old-school model that is clever none the less. Perched atop the nose of a reasonably nicely formed seal is a beachball – all ONE piece of paper, some nice bending in this.

This and the “Magic White Rabbit” both make use of a blended waterbomb, should I fold this one again I would ensure it is less square.

Quite ingenious, we use a 3×1 rectangle and tuck most of it away to leave the seal.

I have never understood the justification from animal trainers – the whole “reinforcing natural behaviours” falls flat on it’s face with these sorts of tricks – still, so long as the crowd loves them it cannot be all bad – right?

303: Llopio’s Moment of Truth

| wonko

The croud erupts spontaneously with “Olé!” as Llopio narrowly dodges the bull calf’s first charge. His grandfather’s matador cap, too loose for him, slips and obscures his vision, there is an amateur swish of a cape as the bull’s developing horns pass too close for comfort, quick step out of the way and Llopio is finally a bullfighter.

This is “Llopio’s Moment of truth” – the reason I bought the British Origami Society’s compendium of Neal Elias figures. There is much to like in this complex box pleat. from one piece of paper emerges a Matador, Bull and the Cape that separates them.

I like how there is movement, you can sense the drama, a fitting end to my exploration of Neal Elias’ work. This fold is challenging, so much of the design is “mystery meat” where you just have to sort of “improvise” – you would not want to fold it much smaller, the manipulation of layers in the bodies is intense and fiddly and it is not immediately obvious what is going to be what until near the end.

Interestingly, only the matador is box pleated – unusually you torture 2 water bomb bases to get the bull and cape so this is a nice fusion between pure box pleating and free-form sculpture. Happy I have folded this, apparently if you fold it with duo paper the cape ends up being the alternate colour – wow.

285: National Ride To Work Day

| wonko

I heard on teh radio this morning that it was National “Ride to Work” Day and narrowly avoided running over a flock of cyclists near the freeway entrance – it got me thinking what riding to work might be like:

I had a model I was looking for an excuse to try, and initially tried it on paper smaller than recommended (a 2×1 rectangle cut from an A3 sheet) only to find it sort of worked in miniature scale, but decided it needed to be bigger. Our school art department has this paper designed for lithography, thin, light, lovely.

I cut a rectangle 1m x 50cm and this is the resulting fold, quite magnificent if tiny given the huge bit of paper it started as. Quite wonderful if I must say so myself. Designed by David Brill, this masterpiece has much to love – the horse (or more correctly pony) is very horsey, and the integrated rider looks like he is riding – very clever indeed.

I was trapped at work, waiting for a meeting so had a little time to kill – so glad I killed it with this. this scale model lets me build character into the elements, the rider’s knees and elbows, alert horse ears and a mouth. The designer apologized for the thin front legs but I am prepared to overlook that minor detail – bravo Mr Brill!

278: Passing Notes

| wonko

Now those who know me realise 2 things – I love music but I cannot read those little black dots on the lines for nuts:

It was doubly problematic when I was in a choir as all those around me were able to sight-read and I … sort of … faked it (I have good pitch and developed a skill of singing along).

It was/is a frustration that is heightened when I am confused, tired, stressed and … well … pretty well all the time really.

This model, designed by Jeremy Shaffer is a neat little cluster of notes and is very tidy, considering it came from a square there is lots of tough hiding of paper inside to make a polished model.

WHY fold this? Well, today JJJ released a new radio station – “Unearthed” that promises to give a whole bunch of unsigned bands a place for their music to be broadcast – this is a wonderful thing IWHO.

264: Stinkbug

| wonko

I mowed yesterday, and noticed my citrus trees were once again infested with stinkbugs:

I would dearly love a solution to this annual pest – not only do they smell, they damage the new growth of the tree and mark the fruit. Worse, I am allergic to the stuff they spray in defense when disturbed – I come up in horrible blistery sores that take ages to heal.

The trees are quite large, individually picking off the bugs is impractical, I am open to suggestions.

This little bug was very badly diagrammed (sorry whever did it), I had to improvise at many junctures and would fold it differently if I were to fold this again – you live and learn however.

Morphologically, this is a fairly good stink bug actually, just a pain to fold at this scale.