To celebrate the 201st fold in this challenge, I was looking for a shellfish-based fold – not sure why but there you go:
Leafing through a Tanteidan Convention book, I came across a “Scallop Box” design designed by Akiko Yamanashi. Continue reading
crustacean
749: (199/365) Oyster Box
David Mitchell is a legendary origami designer, responsible for countless geometric wrangles:
This is an “Oyster Box” – a box that resembles a bivalve, that locks together rather satisfyingly and opens to reveal a spacious interior. Continue reading
736: (186/365) Stoopid Monkey!
Australian politicians are a weird lot. Not “American” (shoot first then barbeque something) weird, just an odd lurch from crisis to crisis and stab your mate in the back for a shot at leadership kind of weird:
A recently deposed Prime Minister (Mr Tony Abott) is being a bit of an arse clown in the media, white-anting his own party and providing gifts for our hapless opposition in terms of instability and leaks. Continue reading
725: (175/365) 145 Point Sea Urchin
So I ended up scoring an unexpected free afternoon so decided that serious paper torture would be fun:
Gridding then a breathtaking collapse took 4 hours to begin with. I knew I was up for a marathon fold to finish. Annoyingly I did not get this finished before fatigue took me – sometimes you get that. Continue reading
721: (171/365) Kythera Dreaming
A colleague recently spent an extended time back home on Kythera, a lovely island in Greece:
Returning to work is never easy after such time away, but I can feel and understand her longing to return. This shell is meant to evoke dream memories of Kythera. Continue reading
647: (97/365) Yabbie
Small, delicious crustaceans abound all over the world, in Australia we have the Yabbie:
Found in freshwater dams, billabongs and rivers, yabbies are treasured as an Australian bush tucker. Continue reading
594: (44/360) Shore Crab
A folder I follow on Facebook asked for volunteers to test his diagrams for a new crab design so naturally I put my hand up:
This is Tuan Hoang Pham’s “Shore Crab” design, a delightfully dense creation that is morphologically fairly close to a ghost crab in my opinion. Continue reading
Smee
The link between a boy and his pet is a special one, even if the pet is a hermit crab named “Smee”
When I heard Sam had suffered the loss of Smee I remembered the pets I had also said goodbye to, tough gig indeed.
I remembered I had folded, as part of the 365 project, a hermit crab – never quite mastering the fold so was determined to re-attempt it (with a few more years skill under my belt) Continue reading
443: Gettin’ Crabby
As a member of JOAS (Japanese Origami Society) a present arrives in the mail every now and then – the Tanteidan magazine. Although it is written in Japanese (and I can not read Japanese) there are lots of fun things to try, occasionally amazing models to try:
Now I know I should be marking, but I have all this amazing paper and when presented with a folding challenge I get a little OCD about it.
This lovely crab, designed by Jason Ku, is a mathematical masterpiece – teasing the legs and claws from edges of the paper, shaping the carapace and the final, tidying does not just happen by chance. Continue reading
395: Showing Off
Our local council library has a large glass display case that usually has things on show for a month. I cautiously asked one of the librarians if she thought some origami would interest patrons and she was very enthusiastic:
There are around 200 models now on show at Holland Park Library for June and I am quite chuffed about that.
Dragging 3 large tidy-tubs of models, most of which I had left over from the 365 Origami Auction, they fill the case rather completely.
You can see models designed by me amongst designs by such luminaries as Kade Chan, Robert Lang, Eric Joisel and many others.
In addition, I was asked to run a workshop in the first week of my school holidays for interested folders (10 years old and up) – see the Holland Park Library website for details and bookings if you are interested.
The only question that begs answer is what the floop I do with these lovelies AFTER the month on show? Suggestions welcome … dear reader?
380: Project Davros
I had this idea in my head that is should be possible to fold a DALEK (you know, that improbable plunger-wielding arch nemesis of Dr Who) from a single sheet of paper:
I began over a two week period to explore the morphology of a Dalek, to come to the conclusion that it is most certainly possible, and that this attempt is very nearly it.
I decided to start with an A2 sheet, figuring that it would be bent in half eventually and curved to make the recognisable armature and leaving paper for eye, manipulators and a nice domed head. Numerous trial scraps of paper were mangled to test various collapse/crinkle ideas that in the end informed the final shaping. The odd shape, the necessary texturing (bumps are essential, apparently, to Daleks), the position of the eye stalk in relation to the plunger/laser hand thingies proved very troublesome with this shape paper and, in retrospect, it would have been better to start with a square – live and learn I guess.
I learnt a lot about myself in this fold – resisting the urge to set a crease is HARD, regretting a misplaced crease later is worse. I found I could, in my head, envisage something and then create it within the limitations of paper fairly faithfully. A LOT of maths-type thinking went in to the original sheet division and that both helped and hindered in the final model as I found taking the highly geometric shapes and making them more organically round was very challenging.
In the end this is NOT a great dalek, it is however a fantastic start. Should I attempt this again I now know more about the final shape to plan better for it – I assumed, you see, that it would sort of just “sort itself out” – this was far from true – much time was spent looking at the mess I had made and working out how to make it less messy (or just hide it and deny it was there).
The final model is not pure origami – given the time and paper torsion, I had to help some parts stay together with little buts of stickey tape on the inside – some of those fine pesky pleats splay over time I found. With different paper (tissue foil for instance) the folds would stay folded a lot better I would guess.
Given this is my FIRST FOLD of this design, and I was working to designs in my head, it was very satisfying. Should I attempt it again I would do it slightly differently, arrange things on the sheet with the final shaping in mind a little better. I think Davros would be proud of my efforts at resurrecting the master race however. Good work if you bothered to read this far, say HI to your mum for me.
276: Nautilus
Tomoko Fuse is undeniably a genius, her work with exacting spiral forms unequalled:
This is her “Nautilus”, a lovely recursive form that, after the pre-creasing, almost folds itself.
Elegant and graceful curve, perfectly planned pleats and a tidy shell end make this model a keeper for sheer geometric beauty alone.
I want to pretend that I go tthis first try – truth is I folded a set of folds wrong way round first go (bloody Japanese instructions), but restarted because I wanted to make the model (so sue me)
Will be folding this again – would love to fold this in large format, will see how I go. really happy with this – who said geometric sequences were not beautiful (it is just mathematicians that wring the joy out of them :P)
268: Hermit Crab
When I first saw this design I put it in the “yeah, prolly not” because it looked hard:
A twisted shell, claws, legs, eyes on stalks and a seemingly impossible series of paper torture instructions. Previewing instructions, many of them made no sense until you were in the moment – the impossible collapse to get the legs and claws together was so poorly described I just sort of improvised, symmetrically, and it turns out what I did was what I was supposed to – psyche!
I am really chuffed that this model worked – a real challenge to manage the paper fatigue as some of the major axes are bent, swiveled and stretched to the point of splitting, fortunately I was able to shepherd the paper through to the end.
A trecherous fold really as, just when you think you are on top of it, the instructions require you to fold it inside out – arrrgghhh! It makes sense, the critter needs to be inside the shell but I wish there was another method to get there as I nearly tore it asunder in an attempt to turn it inside out without losing the already folded body – ended up unfolding it nearly completely and then re-forming as best as I could inside.
Quite happy with the result, it does look hermit-crabby, although it looks like he is ready to trade up to a larger shell.
232: Face-hugger
My second favorite sci-fi film of all time (Alien) brought new forms of terror to the screen:
In a well tried formula, a nasty makes itself on board a spaceship firmly clamped to the face of an inquisitive explorer (John Hurt), implanting an egg in the host’s tummy before scaring everyone and dropping dead. The newly hatched nasty then systematically, and with great suspense, eats everyone – you get that. This prototype xenomorph is all the more terifying because, based on Geiger illustrations, organically modelled after a sinister hand.
I like that there was always a life-cycle implicit in the Alien films, and that there was an innate social order amongst the xenmporphs also.
This model was a little trickey to fold – I had to nurse the copy paper as at many junctures it looked like it would disintegrate – I managed the fold without any paper fatigue I am proud to say and it is a worthy proto alien to compliment the adult I folded earlier in the year
Insectoid, reptilian, with gripsey fingers for walking, prehensile tail to wrap around the neck of the victim, off lung sacks for gas exchange, a well thought out model indeed (even if the instruction annotations were bewildering – thankfully I am confident enough to improvise when I cannot make head nor tail of what is supposed to go where)..
217: A Little Crabby
I have been a little crabby lately – not sure why:
Times are busy, change is inevitable and I am not sure I cope well with it at times (prolly less well when I am tired)
This is a lovely fold, based on a waterbomb base and teasing 8 legs from one set of flaps and claws from the others – very clever and not too difficult really (compared to others I am contemplating) – some neato pre-creasing makes most of the folds before you need them.
Sleep, chocolate and tea – perfect remedies for those times when you get a little crabby also.