reptile

179: Goanna

| wonko

Now I have been looking for a good lizard – sounds like a personal problem I know, but it is hard to get something with the right morphology (proportion and placement of body parts):

This model comes close – a torturous thing in parts that comes together with the most lovely legs (toes and all) and a sculpty tail – not sure about the head though, there is plenty of paper but a goanna typically has a much longer neck (although this model does have the beginnings of a lovely forked tongue also)

An interesting use of a hexaonal base and some lovely sinks and collapses – I could see this base as a useful starting point for a crocodile, as there is plenty of paper doen the back to crimp up some lovely bumpy bits. I think there were some inaccuracies in the diagramming, as the initial folding of the toes, according to diagrammed landmarks was less successful, but minor adjustments sort that out.

When I fold this again I think the resultant critter will be much better shaped, now I know what is going to end up where – still, an interesting fold.

You can try this for yourself: http://zingman.com/origami/oriPics/lizard2/lizard_diagrams.swf

125: Snapping Turtle

| wonko

The “Hare and the Tortoise” have a lot to do with what I was involved in today:

Our school had their inter-house cross country run. I was the far checkpoint and saw some hares and a LOT of tortoises – you get that, they are teenage boys after all.

This lovely turtle caught my eye for the shell, a delicate pleating pattern held in sort of 3d by side pleats, nice. It has all toes, a cute tail but the head (as diagrammed) is rather featureless, sadly – should I fold it again I think I would re-work the head completely as there is plenty of paper there to so some nice features.

Designed by John Szinger, you can have a go at this yourself here

113: King Cobra

| wonko

When I first saw this set of diagrams I thought I wanted to try it (common sense did NOT cut in at any stage):

Originally diagrammed for a 1×30+ square, and originally designed to be a massive sculpture with a 2m+ wide hood on a wire-frame armature, finding paper to suit was a challenge. I settled on white wrapping paper (used for “Last Waltz”) and cut the longest length possible with a 15cm square as the governing width – I managed 18 squares long, roughly 4/7ths the required length, and accepted that I would just be missing some coils of the body.So, over a 7 day period, doing a little (well, actually quite a lot) each day, I began the task of revealing the snake that was trapped in the long rectangle of paper. Starting with the HEAD (seemed like as good a place as any), keeping the rest of the paper not mangled was an issue on my work desk, so migrated to the dining table.

Having shaped lovely fangs, a prominent forked tongue and beady eyes, I then moved on to the first pleating marathon to form the HOOD – here scale was my enemy – the pleats necessary to stop the hood unraveling were accordion crimps with insane measurements like 2mm each – thank goodness for fingernails and my bone folder. I found I could only do these folds during daylight as overhead lighting on this paper made existing creases very difficult to see. At this stage the paper suffered paper fatigue and I strengthened the tiniest pleats with a little PVA glue – yes, I know this is cheating but I want the model to last, not fray and split.

After the hood was complete, the task of cross-pleating the BODY could begin – this was insane – the diagram said crease in diagonal 1/16ths – given that I had a 15cm width, I thought bugger it and creased in 15ths – so I could use a ruler as there were NO folding landmarks. Once the pre-creasing was complete, then alternate crimps (each 1/4cm) formed the scales – HUNDREDS of them.

The inherent beauty of the model was obvious – the diagonal pleating is architectural and although time consuming, the result is stunningly beautiful and very satisfying. Once scales were in place, right down to the tip of the tail, body SHAPING was next – carefully folding along the body to tuck rough edges under and round the body to make it snake-like. I put this off for a day or so because I was so pleased with the flat pleating and worried about breaking it to make it round. Additionally I added pleats on the inside surface to cause it to curve inwards, although it seemed to want to do that on its own accord.

All that was left was to devise a way of posing and displaying the model – I wanted it to have it’s head raised – that was the threat pose the model was designed to showcase – originally I fashioned a wire to make a sort of internal scaffold, but went to a craft shop looking for white plastic tubing to encase the ugly wire and found a “doll stand” in white enamel. $5 later and I have a permanent display for it.

This has taken me ages, and I doubt I will consider such a marathon project again. There was a LOT of repetition, which I suppose makes this model simpler, but at no time did I regret starting it and all the time I was folding I was excited to see what it would turn out like. I will probably keep this model, and with it’s nice stand it will probably find a way into our china cabinet (it currently sits atop it).

What have I learned from this model? Accuracy matters, patience is it’s own reward, small errors accumulate, near enough is NOT good enough and tea is a good folding accompaniment, beer is not.

If you have managed to continue reading down to here I thank you for staying awake. Polite applause is now appropriate.

103: Baby Loggerhead Turtle

| wonko

When our kids were little, we holidayed at Mon Repos near Bundaberg to watch the annual turtle egg laying and hatching.

This model reminds me of the lovely little turtle hatchlings we watched, in the still of the night, emerge from their underground clutch and waddle clumsily towards the ocean. In truth they were about this size and sadly, only one or two of the entire clutch of hundreds of eggs will survive to adulthood.

Nice simple model, busy day, you can make one too: http://donyaquick.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24#/d224qix

102: Gecko and Fly

| wonko

Now when I first saw this I thought there was no way I would be able to do it – such intricate pleating, not possible on A4 photocopy paper:

So I cheated, and cut a 40x40cm square of white wrapping paper and gave it a whirl. there is much to like about this model – the gecko’s placement above the fly, the tail, some of the feet.

This model took me ages – on and off much of the day. The result is lovely – considering getting it framed as it’s rectilinear format might suit a shadow box frame, Some distance may provide perspective. The fold was torturous, such pleating, unfolding and twisting in other directions, many times I thought the paper would disintegrate.

Fairly happy with the first fold – will not be repeating it. Diagrams only, not clearly drawn, some baffling maneuvers and even at this scale (the largest paper folded to date) some of the folds were microscopic.

You may, however, applaud discretely. I need a cup of tea!

85: House Gecko

| wonko

Recently I have noticed a proliferation of geckos around our house – after research it seems it is not a native but an introduced species. The “Asian Hose Gecko” apparently came over amongst ship cargo and now is over-competing with our native species:

I like these little fellows, even though they are illegal aliens – they eat bugs (we have not seen a roach or many moths for ages) but they get everywhere, crap inelegantly on everything and make a loud but cute “clucking” sound when they are randy – unfortunately this is usually in the middle of the night when all else is quiet and asleep.

This model was torture, and a result of poor planning on my behalf – I cut the largest 4×1 rectangle possible from an A4 page to begin this model and then realised that this was TINY (well, in fact, the model turned out LIFESIZE), given how much torsion the paper would need. The tail is lovely but was hard work, the pattern malformed the head (I dug some paper back out of the body to fix that) and the legs are clumsy (because my fat fingers could not detail stickey-outey bits that small and thick with any great precision (thank goodness for fingernails).

Taken from “Origami 4” by Robert Harbin, designed by Max Hulme, it is a little beauty nonetheless, quite chuffed it worked first-fold when in reality it looked like it was going to hell at a number of junctures. I must try this one bigger.

20: Crocodile

| wonko

…so I set out to find a crocodile, found one that will do as a first try, the base it is built from has potential, but the limbs and head are in the wrong proportions, will keep looking I think:He has all the bits a decent snapper should have, just not real happy with it (and yes, it is faithful to the pattern), I improved the body a tad.

Why a crocodile? Well, I was door knocking in a flood affected area, gathering information on what volunteers could do this weekend for householders and came across a family in a garage, in good spirits (no idea how they managed it, but there you go, human spirit hey) – they had concrete animals in their garden pre-deluge, as the flood waters rose, they retreated to their roof, and brought a concrete crocodile up with them. Rather cheekily, they said, as the waters rose above gutter level they positioned the concrete croc at the waterline, and dramatically huddled their family at the opposite corner of the roof so the overhead news helicopter would think they were being corralled by a crock – they chuckled about it when they told us. I love larrakinism – it can make an insufferable situation bearable.

You can make your own snapper here: http://www.craft-s.info/origami/videos/view.php?id=JBUnkhHnIXc&/How-to-make-an-origami-crocodile-1-2 … you know you want to.