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blah blah blah, about nothing in marticular – may contain traces of aaaarrrggghh

240: The Stork Brings Babies

| wonko

That’s right children, when the mummy and the daddy love each other very much, the stork visits them and brings them a baby:

Such a strange lie so often promulgated in years gone by to obviate an awkward conversation about the details of how birds and bees … well, you know … actually, that is even more confusing than the facts when you think about it – and what have birds and bees got to do with the process anyway?

This  is a simple and cute origami model to celebrate the many recent births (Dianne, Amanda, Brendan) – now the adventure really begins for these parents.

This is an old-school origami model that would probably be labelled “Kirigami” (a model that involves a cut sheet of paper) from Neal Elias – essentially it is 2 bird-bases grafted together via s split, allowing the 2 parts of the model to be folded carefully with each other.

Taken from Robert Harbin’s “Secrets of Origami”, a book in much need of repair nowadays as it’s binding is failing. Today’s folders would look to see if they could achieve this model from one sheet, with some clever box pleating to boot i suspect – interestingly no one has tried as of yet (well, that I can find at least).

New parentage – I remember those years with great fondness – that exhilarating (and daunting) moment when you realise that pink, wrinkled alien is relying on you totally for love and attention. Cherish the time you have with your kids – they grow up all too fast.

238: Daffodil Day

| wonko

In Australia, August 26 this year is nominated as “Daffodil Day”:

We celebrate the lives of those brave people who have fought cancer in all it’s forms – to do so we use a flower, the fragile symbol of hope and beauty:

I made a white one, then folded 4 in colour and scattered then strategically around my school. I remembered, if few others did initially. I do this in memory of some dear friends that lost the fight and suffer no more.

A complex and time-consuming fold,  the flower head is dense and made, unusually from a hexagon cut from an A3 sheet, it collapses down to a life-size bloom via some interesting sinking, swivels and squash folds. An interesting (and cathartic) fold designed by Paul Jackson, taken from a book loaned to me by Amanda (thanks @ackygirl)

I hope you remembered Daffodil Day, or at the very least people you know who have been touched by Cancer.

227: Science Week

| wonko

Today schools (well some of them) started activities to do with National Science Week so I thought it only fitting to fold the logo for this celebration:

An interesting exercise in sixths, with a pleasing design in relief, this model is tidy front and back and I am just a little disappointed it is not as 3d as it looked on the instructions

Hope your week is filled with all things Science – the scientific method is the basis of all great discoveries man has laid claim to.

221: Census Night

| wonko

Tonight is Census Night – lots of demographic questions and a bunch of boxes to tick:

Naturally I wracked my brain as to what to fold on such an occasion (it only happens every 5 years or so) and drew a blank, then thought of the response style for some questions and that was my inspiration for this original fold

Fairly happy I can think of something and then make it with a reasonable resemblance to the original idea. Next time, if I had time, I would try to do this with only ONE piece of paper (via box pleating)

218: A Thousand Cranes for Peace

| wonko

During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945 and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.

For my birthday this year (June 4), my daughter bought me 1000 sheets of coloured origami paper so that I could attempt to fold 1000 cranes by today, August 6, Hiroshima Day.

The First and Last folds were done here at home – first was a microgami version (folded from a 1cm square) to pay homage to the importance of the individual in the enormous task; the last was a simple white fold, completed in the relative safety and warmth of my lounge room while watching telly last night.

I had many helpers – many hands make light work – thank you to the hundreds of kids and teachers who helped, provided encouragement or simply asked what I was doing and why – I hope it was instructive. I also had a passive collection (I positioned a piggy bank near by for punters to deposit change if they felt so moved) and have a tidy sum to donate to Japan Red Cross.

So what does 1000 cranes look like when amassed?

I will organise to give these away – hopefully students will think about things when/if they take one.

Why?

I must say that when I visited the Hiroshima memorial site in 2003 the place upset me for a bunch or reasons – primary school kids ran and giggled and filled in worksheets, collecting information on casualties, counting demolished buildings on scale models, being photographed beside the scale model of “little boy” the first bomb dropped and coloured in pictures of the shadow left by someone as they vaporised in a doorstep. I know I should have been heartened by the obvious celebration of life and love around me but it made me ashamed to be allied with a group that could do this or even contemplate it.

I realize the tragic significance of the atomic bomb… It is an awful responsibility which has come to us… We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.
—President Harry S. Truman, August 9, 1945

215: iBaby 1.0

| wonko

Now I was asked to speak publicly today to farewell a work colleague about to begin a period of maternity leave and so thought a Baby was appropriate:

Robert Lang, in “Origami Design Secrets”  has a box pleated baby I was interested in trying. When I had done the first fold, I decided the presentation fold (to be mounted on cardstock) should be blue because everything associated with Amanda is, then I decided the little blue baby beeded a teddy bear (having already mastered Kirschenbaum’s fluffy teddy bear) so the card project was on

When it came time for the speech, I am a very nervy public speaker but I got a little geeky – below is most of the speech (well those bits I did not make up on the spot) –

As spokesgeek, I was asked to “get my geek on” and talk on behalf of Rablin and Rablin in the prototyping of an all new product:
iBaby 1.0
Making a baby takes time, here is a prototype I prepared earlier [reveal baby] although I have not worked out where the USB cable goes yet.
This prototype may not be to scale, may appear bigger in a rear vision mirror than it actually is, is available in any colour so long as you want BLUE, represents a choking hazard for small children but does not contain any traces of nut, so I am lead to believe (having seen the scans, it is a little girl you see).
iBaby1.0 is being prepared for release at the Rablin household September 4, developers Amanda with seed funding by Travis are busily planning for the release. We hope the download proceeds without issue but believe there us a bad language and drugs plug-in available to assist with the data transfer.
Those of us who are experienced users know that iBaby1.0 may be incompatible with realLife3.0 and may cause the sleep process to behave erratically for a while but that is within normal parameters.
We would like to warn of the potential newtooth incompatibility causing iBoob 1 and 2 to crash erractically. We are also unsure how compatible the iBaby capsule is with the blue vw, but work arounds and kludges are being investigated.
We look forward to iBaby’s first tweet, and are confident she will post photos of herself on Facebook for her legion of iGen friends to drool over whilst they are teething.
Can you join with me in wishing Amanda, Travis  and accompanying iBaby all the best in the exciting journey towards parenthood.
It seemed to be well received, quite happy the speaky part is over however.

July, Done and Dusted

| wonko

Huge month, so much happening and some awesome folds contained within:

“simpler” models are now nearly all used up (unless you can suggest some interesting ones), got the ball-breakers left so some interesting and time-consuming models ahead I guess.

Who would have thought I would actually make 7 months of this insane project … that leaves only … 5 *sigh* more to do…

203: Skateboard

| wonko

Pressed with something to make and tired and shagged out after a busy week I stumbled across this model and thought I would give it a go:

I have seen kids using a mini-skateboard (tech deck I think they are called) and am amazed that this model is a fairly complete imitation of one, including wheels, trucks and deck.

Originally (the dev shots) I used a square from an A4 page – this resulted in a deck that was nearly 20cm long, so re-made it (the other shots) with a 1/4 A4 square and it is perfect in scale

I like how the wheels are made from curls of flaps formed from side sinks, it is fairly faithful – nice work Mr Trollip. You should definitely try this – you will impress the teens no end with you leet paper skills.

201: Winged Heart

| wonko

Apparently, according to JJJ at least, it is LOVE WEEK – awwwww

So I folded Frances Ow’s winged Heart (partly because it is late, I am tired and sometimes a simple fold is ok – ok?

An effective fold, in duo paper the heart is one colour and the wings are another – nice.

197: Scissors

| wonko

I remember when I was in my early teens, I used to be forced to go to a barbershop just off the main street of Nambour (yes, lived there for a while) and the barber, a Maltese man with a thick mustache and little head hair (which is about as unlucky an omen as a thin chef I think) used to cut my hair:

“Short back and sides, with a surfie front” he used to call the hairstyle inflicted on me when all my mates had the finest “mullets” you have ever seen. Those were the days.

As I get older, there is less for the hairdresser to remove, more of it grey and less of it growing on my head – you get that apparently.

I was trolling to Netherlands Origami Society website (yes, these groups of paper benders are everywhere) and came upon a suggestion for scissors based on a stretched bird base, so I thought it appropriate today as I have just had a haircut and, being winter, my head is now cold – FML.

I have been told that the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is about 3 weeks – we shall see.

196: A Werewolf

| wonko

Now I have been a great fan of “Being Human” – particularly the character that plays the werewolf George:

I found this astonishing model by Kade Chan purely by accident – I was googling the telly show to see if there were more episodes planned and found reference to this neato origami model of a werewolf, complete with staring eyes, pricked up ears, ferocious claws and a lovely tail and I knew I had to try it.

This is such a well designed model – entirely doable with copy paper (I used a square cut from an A3 sheet) – with some precision and patience the body comes together without fatiguing the paper too much and astonishing detail is possible because each part is only a few thicknesses of paper, except the arms with are a little bulky towards the end when shaping the shoulders.

I particularly like the claws – scary things they are, with each finger posable and a snarly opposed thumb.

I could only find a vague photo sequence so had to guess in some stages by looking backwards and forwards towards the finished fold to work out what to do at times. This IS amazing, yes, you are right to be impressed – I am.

I will accept a round of applause, and cash to accompany any orders you have for me to fold you one of these.

A Mess of Messerschmitts

| wonko

Battle lines were drawn, with dusk approaching and a thick fog rolling in (or was that cigar smoke?) four valiant pilots entered the melee hell-bent on seeking glory.

So we played 4 person Dogfight – first game was a team challenge – Johnny Razor Eyes and Rampaging Roy versus the veteran VonHammer and rookie Juan Morego. Annihilation is close to the ugly truth as the filthy Hun were trounced, retiring humiliated to their bases to rally their troops.

The fog thickened, the schnapps ran freely and a last battle hatched: Because of the conditions it was impossible to tell who was friend and who was foe, so it was condition red, shoot on contact – last man standing.

Massacre was close to how the battle was later recorded in the avionic history books – rookie Yuan found his mettle, swooped out of the thickening fog to take plane after plane – not used to playing with others he kept on his radio to ensure his compatriots stayed back at base – he was going it alone.

With a full compliment of ammunition and aerobatic tricks up his sleeve he released the first salvo at VonHammar’s final plane to discover his worthy foes plane was out-classed on this occasion. Amazingly (well to me at least) without loss of a plane, Juan was the last plane in the air when the fog lifted and the smoldering wrecks (of people and planes) were tallied up.

Great fun – many thanks (and respect in memoriam) to Paul, Tim and finally Mike for a fun evening.

Valiant pilots seen here in repose, reeling from the devastation and inspecting their new aircraft – the Messerschmitt, heralding a new age in air warfare.

Six Months Revisited

| wonko

So it is a little way into the seventh month of this 365 day odyssey and my son wanted to lay out a full six month’s worth of models … well, because he could really – who am I to argue:

I must admit to getting a little dizzy looking at this mass of paper and time. It took an hour to lay out (a little longer to put away) and each model is an amazing slice of my life:

So much paper, I have enjoyed it so far, hope you are hanging in there as there are lots of hoopy folds to come.

186: Teddy Bear

| wonko

I once had a friend that could comfort me when I was sad, that I told all my secrets to, that kept me company when the lights went out, that never complained or criticised me, that joined in on all my adventures, that I loved completely and unconditionally. This is Ted, my bear:

So a friend of my wife is having a baby – what better to welcome the little one into the world than a bear:

So I have had this design for ages and wanted to try it out. Scale was important, as I was going to mount it on cardstock with some double-sided tape, the height is 1/3 the original square size, so … easy. After performing my “first fold” on an A3 cut square of copy paper, I then fashioned a 26cm square out of brown paper from the baking drawer in our kitchen for his little brown brother.

A fairly difficult fold to complete with copy paper – thicknesses make subtle details clumsy. Surprisingly, brown paper (you know, the stuff you line cake tins with) folds beautifully – is strong and thin, must remember that.

I like how the finished model has character – I have now folded a few of these and each one has it’s own unique posture and facial expression – a lot like real teddy bears I think.

You may collectively go awwwwwww now 😛

June, Done and Dusted

| wonko

Now where did that half of a year go – I cannot believe we are at the end of June already – it is fascinating how you notice the passing when you are tasked with something every day:

Some amazing models again this month, and now I am almost on the downhill stretch I am looking for interesting models to fold – i have no shortage of candidates but am trying to avoid simple things or familiar ones – for the most part i have folded stuff so far that I had not folded before – all good experience.

I am a little concerned that my storage box may not be big enough – 6 months of models almost fill it: