I am old enough to remember the “good old days” when partners dance WITH each other as opposed to the modern trend of dancing AT each other:
Flicking through a yellowed and falling apart copy of “Origami 4” by Robert Harbin, I came across a Neal Elias figure I had not remembered nor tried.
Using duo coloured paper, from a simple bird base, we tease a dancing belle and her suave suited partner as they “cut a rug” together. Continue reading
Most parents know little girls go through the “I want to be a Ballerina” stage:
This is a wonderful thing; dance, culture, beauty and movement are all things that make our lives richer. Few go on to be professional ballet dancers (more’s the pity, few fit the fragile stick-insect archetype) but learning dance improves coordination, flexibility and overall fitness.
A lovely little lady called Kit has started ballet – she is gorgeous and will be fabulous, so thought it appropriate to celebrate by designing an original model inspired by the work of Stephen Weiss (girl in a dress) and Claudio Acuna (hoodie) that captures the special elegance of a child and her first tutu.
Anyone who knows me realises I am a huge fan of the Alien movies, the first one is, for me, close to perfect science fiction horror:
I had been aware of Kade Chan’s Alien design for ages, had the crease pattern and wrestled many times trying to make it with no luck. I had relegated this to the “give up on it” pile – there are a few that have just beaten me for the moment.
Kade posted a near complete video tutorial, suddenly this model was back on the radar. The video is pretty clear – you should have a go – it is NOT a beginners model but the techniques for forming the main features are pretty clear.
So I set about a test fold, in Litho paper – the paper gave up half way through, splitting on most major creases, but I learned the basic collapse and some of the featuring before it gave up so resolved to fold it with something more durable.
I cut a 55cm square of Kraft paper off the roll and, very carefully, began folding. This, like most models, relies on accuracy for things to work out – a part of a mm out here and it compounds when you do accordion pleating, and this model has so many layers because of the amount of the sheet that is hidden.
I like that most surfaces provide layers that you can then texture in the modelling, sculpting them in graded steps to create carapace, armour and small beautiful details like the rib cage and prehensile tail.
The alien as envisaged by the movie franchise took on shape and general morphology from the host it bursts through the chest of – this one is fairly certainly humanoid and so posing it I found myself anthropomorphising its stance a little. I used a little MC to ensure the pose was rigid, clamped details in place until the paper was dry, then mounted him on a textured circular base and am quite chuffed with the result.
This was WTF (What’s That Fold) #2 – stay tuned for more paper bending
“Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse; and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the high stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible.
“When it reached the tree and was level with Frodo the horse stopped. The riding figure sat quite still with its head bowed, as if listening. From inside the hood came a noise as of someone sniffing to catch an elusive scent; the head turned from side to side of the road.” – “Three is Company,” Fellowship of the Ring, p. 84
I hate it when things beat me – I find it really hard to let it go:
On my FOURTH attempt, I managed to fold Jason Ku’s amazing model of a Dark Rider (version 8.1) – another character/thing from Lord of the Rings. This is getting to be a habit but is part of the build up to the release of the first part of “The Hobbit”, and I am a bit of a fan.
This fold took me an age (about 6 hours of actual folding) – determined to be accurate, take my time and complete each step as neatly as I could, this strategy paid off through stonkingly complicated twists, crimps and spread-squashes as you coax a square of paper into a possessed horse with a robed rider.
I am particularly proud of the hands/gauntlets – my variation on Jason Ku’s design, I think it looks better. there is so much to see in this model that it is difficult to photograph it and do it justice.
A huge piece of Kraft paper (60cm square) results in a decent sized model (14cm at its tallest) with amazing detail. My only criticism I guess is the flimsiness of the front legs – completely unable to support the bulk of paper above.
I mounted this model on a simple wire armature, so it can stand – he sinisterly looks like he is reaching for something (the one ring, naturally) and I like that the robes look full but are empty.
I masterpiece in design, there were many times I just had to walk away, unable to fathom what the next step meant or how I was going to achieve it. Kraft paper is remarkably forgiving and there was nearly no paper fatigue near the end. Not sure how you could actually fold this model with thicker paper as the centre gets very dense and shaping requires you to wrangle upwards of 20 layers.
I am totally chuffed to have achieved this, my first successful fold after so many failures – one I even had the paper disintegrate in my hands due to fatigue. I found myself having to look forward to how the manoeuvre looks when done to work out some of the ore complex swivels, reverses and open sinks.
As awesome as this model is, this design is NOT a beginners model – the instructions need interpretation as many steps require many new folds to happen at the same time (some without reference). Indeed I look at my first successful attempt and notice a bunch of things I will do differently next time I fold it.
No idea what I will do with this model, but I am pleased I can now mentally tick this one off in my folders bucket list.
Determined to try something harder, I had flagged satoshi Kamiya’s Minotaur a “must try eventually”:
I also wanted to try my new “envelopener” – an ingenius paper cutter from The Origami Shop that splits a page on a crease – being frustrated at not being able to cut a straight edge easily on large format paper.
This lovely mythical beast is part man part bull but Satoshi takes this to a new level, making the man beastly as well.
So much paper is worked here, starting with nearly a metre square, the resultant model is barely 15cm tall and so dense in places that detailing was very difficult. I love the expression of his face, the arms and hands, hooves and fantastic tail.
Such innovative use of the sheet, you do not realise that the arms end up being about 30+ layers thick. I have seen this model folded by others and it was standing – mine, made from 35GSM brown Kraft paper does not (without the assistance of a wider armature stand I made for him)
As a first fold, I am very pleased with how he turned out – I might fold him again, one day, as I learned a lot from this fold.
Trapped in a particularly uninteresting supervision (I am a teacher, sometimes we have to supervise other teacher’s classes), I began bending paper unsure what I was going to make.
First I fashioned a hand, devising some lovely slender (skeletal almost) hands and looked at the paper I had left and then it came ot me – zombie hand emerging from a grave.
After much experimentation on the tombstone mostly, abandoning a full cross (yes, I did successfully box pleat one but in the end it seemed unnecessarily fiddly for the concept) I settled on a simple headstone.
This is the second time, whilst doodling, a new model has emerged (the other being superdude) and I am quite chuffed with it.
If you KNOW what you are looking at, it is obvious: basic scenario of undead digging themselves out out the grave; but honestly I had some hilarious guesses from passers by who noticed I was folding and wondered what it was.
I have included the dev sequence in 2 parts (partly because I wanted to document it clearly enough so someone else could have a go at it and partly because I wanted to remember how I did it – the box-pleat on the tombstone is neat, but I have not yet come up with a scheme to eradicate the seam down it’s face.
This is a little early for Halloween, but would love someone else to have a go at folding this to see if the photsequence is stand-alone or needs extra annotation.
Any takers?
I was reading the chapter on “box pleating” in Robert Lang’s “Origami Design Secrets – 2nd Ed” (one of my cherished origami books) and came across the chapter “homework” which is this Organist seated at her Wurlitzer:
This model is astonishing for a bunch of reasons. The design is clever – one piece of paper to fashion the player and the instrument, the details of both the player and instrument are well controlled, efficiently use paper and are clearly recognisable.
I upscaled, starting with a 128x32cm piece of brown Kraft paper, used a tape measure to lay in the landmark creases (although I could have folded them, it would have resulted in much more disfiguring creases in the end model so I am glad I did). In retrospect, working much smaller would have been very difficult with my fat, clumsy fingers as some of the pleating becomes very fiddly indeed (32nds and 64ths)
Initially, working with paper on this scale is problematic – simple things like “fold in half” take on epic proportions and introduce inaccuracies which seem slight at the time but compound in such a convoluted model.
There was an “ahh” moment when the box that is the body of the organ swings into place, making the keyboards and footpedals slip into place that was very satisfying.
I enjoyed folding this model, probably will not fold it again, but learned a bit about paper properties and wrangling pleats that will make future folds better I think.
What to do with her? there is the question – the resultant model is quite large (16x14x14cm) and in some places one layer thick (others much more so), but it is stable and surprisingly strong. It even has a music stand atop the organ that even “Barry Morgan” would appreciate. Suggestions?
There are many of what i would term “legendary” folds in the origami community – few more daunting that Brian Chan’s sculptural masterpiece “Attack Of The Kraken”:
I first saw pictures of this model when trolling around the internet looking for paper challenges: one piece of paper, you bend both a masted ship and a sea monster ripping it asunder – impossible surely. Amidst the turmoil there exists tiny details also – one tentacle contains a shard of ship rigging, another grasps the terrified yet defiant Captain – look closer, is that Captain Jack?
Annoyingly there seem to be no instructions on how to fold this thing – there was, however, a crease pattern adapted from a schematic Brian Chan tantalisingly left beside a display copy of his model so I started working on that. I photo-enlarged sections of the crease pattern and repeatedly folded them until I had discovered what to fold, in what order to make that section of the model work Continue reading
I have been exploring the wonderful work of Victor Coeurjoly, in particular his human figure (hombres) work which is very distinctive.
I came upon a crease pattern in his Flickr stream and knew I had to try it. I have been exploring these guides more and more as I find super complex models exist only in this form sometimes – doing the whole instruction/diagram sequence is hard work if you are busy and creative:
I am pretty sure he uses tissue foil (really thin, metallic-backed paper) and methyl cellulose (an “acceptable” paper stiffener and setting agent) to keep the limbs thin and posed but the style is amazing.
I set about using normal paper, failed miserable because there are 4 places where the creases become so intense that the paper just disintegrated. I tried a chunk of litho paper and it was better (if a bit thick to do the final limb and torso modelling, but demonstrative of form none the less. Continue reading
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?
Ladies and gentleffolk, may I introduce to you Master Fagus Poplar, Scruffy to his friends:
this little chap is but 20cm tall, toes to tip of hat and is quite lovely, in the eyes of the folder.
Folded, from memory, trying a new technique for coat, shoulders, hat and arms, I quite like the fact he is waving. My hope is that he will stick around at the Origami exhibition that opens in the Holland Park Library this month. Continue reading
Ladies and Gentleffolk, can I introduce to you Master Bartok Yew, “Snapper” to his closest acquaintances
“Snapper” is one of the first ever tourist gnomes, traveling far and wide. His memory is probably the third worst ever recorded and so always travels with his camera (hence the nickname which describes his habits of continually happy-snapping
Young Bartok was folded in Yorkshire, from a square of wrapping paper left over from … Well … Wrapping. He was achieved with no glue or other aid, but I did add a button to keep his jacket closed tidily (dress sense he picked up from Pierre, a distant relative).
The camera is an invention and, given more time and paper would be much more stable. Together he looks like a real tourist
…and I should know what a tourist looks like, I have been spending 6 weeks being one.
Bartok was last seen mooching around in Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, probably sponging off some unsuspecting family for board and lodging. We hope his well and does not run out o ffilm any time soon.
….Puis je vous présenter Monsier Pierre Mâché, my first internationally folded gnome:
You see, we are currently in Paris, on a vacation that has been in the planning stages for years, and we had an astonishing meal at a local restaurant Les Enfants Perdus, and I noticed they topped their tables with a square of sueded cream colored paper.
In my best French, I asked pour Le paper sur la table and they gave me a fresh one to fold. The paper was stiff but really strong, so I was able to model this guy a lot more than I usually can, or maybe I am just getting better.
I like how his posture worked out, he definitely looks French and is gesturing as if to express exasperation that he cannot understand us odd Australians, we get that a lot.
We will leave him as a gift to our hosts here in Paris, the apartment we have rented from them is wonderful, very well appointed, comfortable and essential to us keeping going each busy day.
Au revoir Paris, our first visit has been magical
Ladies and Gentlefolk, may I introduce young Squiffy Larch, “Woombye” to his friends:
During a mad weekend, we visited Woombye Pub for a fantastic lunch and I noticed they put on their square tables, a beautiful big square of brown paper.
Naturally I put 2 and 2 together and got 7, and decided it needed to be folded into a gnome, and Squiffy was born.
The paper is amazing, takes folds well, is tough and the resultant gnome is the largest I have folded so far.
Quite happy with the face, he has a lovely grin amongst a full beard, noble nose and a quaint, slightly sozzled look in his eyes. His hands were crying out for something drink-related so I invented a beer stein and all was good.
Will organise to send Squiffy to Woombye – he belongs in a bar. He is very happy (that will be the pint he is working on) to be joining the ranks of the “other” seven dwarfs.
I was determined to test whether my first fold of this nightmarish, but charming, fold was merely a fluke or not, so I set about folding it from a 3×5 cut from an A1 sheet.
The geometry for this model is amazing, and the challenge is to only put in the folds that are necessary to achieve the collapse – an interesting challenge indeed as construction lines, preliminary constructions and fold-flow ons are difficult to control with such large format paper.
I love the result, given this paper was thinner than the original #365 fold, the features and structure are much more considered and I think he has a lot more character in his face and pose.
This is one of my favourite folds from last year, and now I know it was not a fluke, I can fold it with confidence when I need to.
He is now on proud (temporary) display in the Library, with a suitable verse before him.
