windmill

165: Sugar Plump Fairy

| wonko

I once shared a house with 3 other uni friends – much happened, most memorable. Late one night, instead of finishing a due-next-day assignment, Mark was seen flitting and pirouetting through the house:

We coined the expression “sugar plump fairy” after the dance he was attempting, it stuck. Happy Birthday Mark!!!

I like this model, simple folds, precise creasing that gives form from flat surfaces – very clever Mr Brill.

This model is designed to be a Christmas tree topper – I can see how that would work given the convenient pocket at the back. It is not free standing (although I could mangle the lovely minimalist legs into feet and knees I guess – that would ruin the lines however.

Hope you like it.

164: Queen Anne Table

| wonko

Now I put my hand up as a staunch REPUBLICAN – I have never seen the sense of a colonial country holding on to a token monarchy. It would be different if the monarchy were actually USEFUL to us, like a table:

Strong, supportive, present, made of something sustainable and central to daily life, a table is central to any home. This is a “Queen Anne” style table, designed by Robert Harbin, folded for our celebration of the Queen’s Birthday (a public holiday for us – one good, tangible thing that benefits us I suppose).

Nice exercise in petal folding, there are a few variations possible to transform it into a square table – quite like the polyhedral form however. Folded from “Secrets of Origami” by Robert Harbin, a treasure trove of old-school origami designs.

158: Little Plane

| wonko

Stuck for something to do, honestly, so decided to try and make sense of a set of instructions in Spanish with hand-drawn diagrams and hola:

This is a little plane – most likely a cesna or similar – remarkably little effort to make a fairly detailed plane

Nice landing gear, good wings – it glides! No propeller or back tail flaps, but otherwise a satisfying model – amazing really because the instructions sort of run out well before a plane-like object is formed … so I “winged it” – hahaha – soz, it is late, I am tired and you should be impressed I folded anything at all.

When translating, I get to a point where it says “important it is that white side upmost is facing” … that would be FINE if I was not folding an all white model – lol. I have yet to learn to swear in Spanish, so I resorted to verbose and guttural Klingon.

140: A Cannon

| wonko

Now one of the things I enjoy playing, with my mate, is an old-school game called “Dogfight” – great fun of plane v plane between German and American allied forces, set in WWI, when fair game and honour existed between aces. One of the game elements is a cannon:

A fairly clever figurative model that uses the windmill base as it’s starter and ends up fairly complete

I quite like the wheels, although they are formed at step 15 with the most hilarious instruction “Fold as shown, you might find this easier if you had folded these at step 2” – hahahaha, not. The designer is right, it would have been easier, but a headsup might have been prudent…?

Nice figruative model – I could see some little ones of these on a game board, but they would get hella-fiddly in places (might do a test on the limit of smallnicity I can fold them) … Dang, now I need a biplane (think Red Baron) …

3: Jackstone

| wonko

This is, in my opinion, a masterpiece of pre-folding, you make one model, unfold it and bend it into another model. I pride myself of folding this from memory – not bad given I have not folded it in at least 15 years.

One piece of paper (photocopy A4 is not great as it frays after 3 or 4 creases on the same line) cut square, no additional cuts, no glue – all class.

Design by Jack Skillman, USA, 1965 (I first saw it in a Robert Harbin “Origami 2” book I own)Jackstone