605: (55/365) Starship

Origami, the final frontier. These are the journeys of the paper folder “Wonko”, his ONE YEAR MISSION, to seek out new models and folding techniques, to boldly fold where he has not folded before:

This cutie little Trek-inspired ship was hidden away in a Tanteidan convention book I have and all the annotations are in Japanese so I have no idea who the designer is, sorry. Continue reading

311: Air Mail

“Once upon a time, boys and girls, people used to use hand-held ink dispensing rods to make marks on flat sheets of manufactured plant fibre, fold them, place them inside an envelope of the same material, write a distant geospatial reference on one side, their own geospatial reference on the other. They would then pay for a coloured sticky icon and then hand this package over to a corporation that used to exist solely for the carrying and dispensing of such message envelopes” the old story teller said. The assembled children gasped in amusement, then vlogged about the experience collaboratively via the ether.

Snail mail, you remember that – I like the idea of air mail – this sort of letter has a Terry Pratchett, Discworld sort of feel to it.

Designed by Hojyo Takahashi, this delightful model is just what it says on the label.

Happy with this as a first fold.

274: White Rabbits!

The beginning of another month, and I am finding it difficult to find rabbits to fold:

This is Stephen O’Hanlon’s rabbit – a simple figurative fold that is suitably rabbitty for the “pinch and punch first day of the month”.

I cannot believe this heralds the last quarter of this project (10th month starting).

209 Elias’ Bull

When I bought “Selected Works” by Neil Elias, I was delighted with teh collection of box pleating models from the founder of this technique

After watching masterchef tonight I thought “What a lot of bull” – judges and contestants sprouting such a lot of false sentimentality the model I decided to fold was really obvious (at least to me)

there is much to like about this model – it looks stroppy, like it is readt to charge – head down, horns to the front, nice. The hind quarters are also good except the back legs seem an odd proportion to the rest of the model. Knowing how hard it is to plan and design a mode however I will forgive Mr Elias.

Very happy with this as a first fold – I must explore more of Elias’ work, many amazing figures from an origamist before his time. Not a good sign that the wife could not pick what the animal was (I think it is relatively obvious – maybe that is just me)

208: Flexiball

Now I am not an experienced modular folder, but this is relatively new to me and yee gods it is interesting. Having Parent-torture interviews tonight I got home in time to do the final assembly for this little beauty:

Designed by Jorge Pardo, it takes 60 – yes children, that is right SIXTY squares of paper in delicious and bendy ways.

Each module is fairly easy (if a little fiddly) to make, coupling them takes nimble fingers and a bone folder to lock the layers – bunches of 5 make stars of a spoke, each spoke unit connects to each adjacent one via 2 arms, it more or less forms itself.

This has taken me ages, literally hours – over the last few days inbetween other models but it is hoopy. My FIRST FOLDS were white, but I decided a while into the model that it had to be done in colour, using small Washi paper squares provided by Mary Cassidy made the job easy (thanks Mrs Cass!).

You may applaud now.