humanoid

771: (221/365) Boney McBoneface – Broad Shoulders

| wonko

When one looks at the symphony of bones and tendons that constitute human shoulders, one can only wonder why we then put it through contact sports like Rugby which so effortlessly re-arrange and break this complex calcium tangle:

This is Boney McBoneface’s shoulder assembly, an amazing mix of a vertebrae, lovely pair of integrated shoulder blades and a nicely perched collarbone.

It has fixing points for arms, integrates with the neck component, will provide a fixing point for the sternum (breast bone) and provides the starting point for the remainder of the spine. Continue reading →

770: (220/365) Boney McBoneface – Skull

| wonko

…so I am embarking on a mega-structure fold, the aim is to complete a humanoid skeleton. After crowd-sourcing ideas, I went with the name “Boney McBoneface” (or Boney M for short):

Alas poor Boney McBoneface – I folded him well

We start with the head, noggin, pate, gourd, dome, brainbox, melon, block, nut (feel free to insert other colloquialisms). As this megastructure involves a total of 49 sheets, and is logically grouped into joints (as a butcher would call the bits they render a carcass) and I decided to work from top to bottom. I felt there was too much folding of wildly different sorts for this structure to count as ONE fold … so sue me. Continue reading →

746: (196/365) Fairly Bloody Long Walk

| wonko

My lovely daughter walked for charity last year and I was so proud of her (secretly regretting not doing it with her). This year, the same walk is on offer at, thankfully, at a much cooler time of year so we are both walking “The Bloody Long Walk” in early August:

Today, as part of our prep we did a fairly bloody long walk, from Brighton to Redcliffe and back again to see how far it is (apparently about 26km according to Google).

I returned to an Origami master – Akira Yoshizawa – his little person, made from the frog base is genius – spirit of the subject, glorious simplicity and I managed to fold it in my state after today’s test walk. Continue reading →

736: (186/365) Stoopid Monkey!

| wonko

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 →

724: (174/365) School Holidays!

| wonko

After a brutally busy term, it is time to recharge, dance a little, be thankful for the good things that surround you:

This is Jeremy Shafer’s “The Dancers” – a charming little pleating exercise that takes a square (in this case a 15cm Japanese foil square) and, via a clever set of collapses, isolates 2 people, joined at the hand. Continue reading →

695: (145/365) Knight in Shining Armor

| wonko

Jono sent me a link to the new trailer for the coming series of Game of Thrones:

Seems like big things are set to happen in the seven kingdoms.

Knights in shining armor in this series are rarely shiny at all, often dirty, lacking honor and glory – such is the reality of war. Continue reading →

691: (141/365) Max Hulme’s Chess King

| wonko

Head of the house, monarch to be protected, fragile and nearly the least mobile, such is a Chess King:

I like this model, the crown is cute, as is his beard and robes – hiding the round figure of a largely sedentary piece.  Continue reading →

690: (140/365) Max Hulme’s Chess Queen

| wonko

Behind every good man there is often an even better woman:

The Queen in chess is a valuable piece, being the master of all skills, often the most deadly of opponents. Continue reading →

689: (139/365) Max Hulme’s Chess Knight

| wonko

…so, in a conventional chess set, the knight is a horsey, but in this chess set the Knight is the rider:

Not sure I am really happy with this, difficult to tell with this thick paper, but the head shaping is clumsy because of the layers. Continue reading →

688: (138/365) Max Hulme’s Chess Bishop

| wonko

Integral to the war effort, the church remains a dangerous player on the board:

This is Max Hulme’s “Bishop” – a lovely little Pontif-ish chap that is missing his golden hook and holy relic. Continue reading →

686: (136/365) Max Hulme’s Chess Pawn

| wonko

The next few posts will follow a theme, playing with the idea of a classic game, this is the infantry – the cannon fodder, there are lots of these to throw at the enemy:

Max Hulme has designed all of the pieces for a paper chess game, seems wrong to split them up. Folded from a 12×3 proportioned rectangle, a little grimacing face under  helmet emerges, then arms, finally the body. Continue reading →

682: (132/365) Sy Chen’s Hangman

| wonko

Struggling to make it through Friday, I stumbled across Sy Chen’s Hangman:

This paper puzzle allows you to gradually reveal parts of a hangman, suitable for a table top game. Continue reading →

681: (131/365) Tim Rickman’s Xenomorph

| wonko

I am so excited that there is a new Alien Movie out today – Alien Covenant. Although I would dearly love to see it right now, I will have to wait until I am less busy and tired:

Having already folded both Kade Chan‘s Xenomorph, Fernando Gilgado‘s Alien and Face-Hugger I was struggling to find something Geiger-related.

I was browsing google imaged and came across Tim Rickman’s “comic” alien and knew I needed to try it. Continue reading →

678: (128/365) Paper Ninja

| wonko

The internet is an amazing thing, no sooner had I folded a model by Oriole Esteve, then he contacted me via Fakebook and offered me diagrams for a bunch of other folds:

This is his Paper Ninja – a cunning little fellow that seems fairly stealthy. Continue reading →

666: (116/365) Parent Teacher Interviews

| wonko

As a teacher, we periodically get the opportunity to meet with parents of our students. Invariably they are interested in how their sons are going, how they went on the test and what can be done to continue to encourage them to give of their best:

I actually like meeting with parents – they are great allies in the battle to teach kids. Fortunately I teach a fairly interesting subject (IT), but can imagine it is a real battle in subjects the kids HAVE to do, as opposed to wanting to to it. Continue reading →