This model is testament to the design genius of Neal Elias:
Taking the bird base, and a colour change, we fashion a jockey (with the cutest little cap) atop a rocking horse. I love the detail here and will probably fold this again, only with a slightly bigger bit of paper. Continue reading
Now it seems Beatrix Potter has gone out of favour in the age of political correctness, but there is no denying the charm of her stable of animal characters as they anthropomorphise through their day:
This is “Peter Rabbit” – well, more correctly it is supposed to be the rabbit from “Through the Looking Glass” but the colouring I used is more Peter that White Rabbit in my opinion. I have never really understood the Victorian tradition of partially clothed animals (he is wearing no pants, right?) but that is carried over to cartoon characters also which is a little odd. Continue reading
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
When a member of the British Origami Society, I purchased “Selected works of Neal Elias” and continue to find gems within it – this is one such treasure:
Modeled after a classical guitarist in 1970, this model starts with a 3×1 rectangle (8×23 to be exact) and, via miracles of box pleating (a pioneering technique back then) we tease an artist and his instrument. Continue reading
When planning origami models that will be good for permanent display, locks and paper tension matter as a model will try to unfold itself:
This genius design results in a fairly faithful swallow, the body is rounded, beak and head cleverly proportioned, tings and tail streamlined – it looks like it would fly. Continue reading
Trolling around in the members area of Origami USA, I found a model that looks like it is made of 2 separate pieces of paper and decided to give it a try:
This is Diego Fernando Becerra Ramirez’s “Spider On Leaf”, a clever use of paper that fashions, via a bird base, a spider and leaf, managing a colour change in the process. Continue reading
Now I am not really one for card-based rpg/gattle games – Pokemon, Yugioh, Magic the gathering, but I know they have a huge and passionate fan-base. Trolling through a Tanteidan I found a curious little skeletal character and decided to fold it:
A modular, in 3 bits (head, shoulders, knees+toes … everybody sing..), it struck me as a cutie little skeleton.
I then went on the interwebs only to discover this character is part of a vast universe collection of macabre boney critters that battle each other, almost certainly have anime series dedicated to them and a number of animated series in Japan. Continue reading
Those of you familiar with a traditional crane (Tsuru) will notice this one is a little odd – that is because it is folded on top of/inside a flapping bird:
This is an ingenious and complicated fold, for bi-colour paper that cleverly interweaves one model in the other. In the 3D photo below you can see the flapping action more completely – this model moves!
I realised I had never folded a traditional flapping bird, so this was a bit of a revelation – such a simple action model indeed. Continue reading
“He’s not a messiah, he is just a very naughty boy”. “Crucifixion? Good. Line on the left, one cross each”:
In my opinion, “Life of Brian” by the Monty Python team is close to perfect, such a beautiful play in an otherwise familiar ancient world, full to the brim with some of their cleverest work. If you take nothing else from that move, “always look on the bright side of life”. Continue reading
The Chinese Zodiac is rich with myth and legend, most cultures are full to the brim with such fancy. Chinese New year is based around the Lunar cycles, as such seem oddly placed to us westerners:
Moon cakes, yum cha, char sui hanging in a chinese butcher’s window, the red of firecrackers, the noise and smoke of a dragon dance – all wonderful to be part of. Most cities have a “China town”, in Brisbane it is a section of Fortitude Valley – these areas come alive at this time of year … mmmm, need some dim sum and a nice pot of jasmine tea. Continue reading
Chinese New Year seems more complicated then celebrating the end of a calendar year, my research suggests that today is Chinese New Years Eve:
This year the symbol is a Rooster, well more correctly a fire rooster, and this is the first in a series of folds designed by Mi Wu that perfectly capture the mood of a proud cock. Continue reading
It is a little known fact that people will believe just about anything. Tell them that a furry, egg laying, duck-billed, webbed footed, egg laying, pouch carrying mammal that lives in burrows underwater and protects itself with poisonous spines … and they believe it:
There are few things more distinctly Australian then the Ornithorhynchus (colloquially called a “Platypus”) and it seems in the origami world there are nearly none of them.
Stupid me, I did a poll on Fakebook about what I should fold to commemorate (or mourn, depending on your perspective) Australia day – today’s national holiday. Annoyingly the Platypus won hands down. Continue reading
Look away, look away … we are going to need a bigger boat:
Interestingly, people’s opinions of sharks in Australia, particularly by those who do not live here, varies from reality markedly. One would believe, if one believed what you see in the media, that sharks are a problem, everyone gets attacked – this is far from the truth.
Although this is a stereotypical tale of woe, I was interested in the folding sequence as each of the tree parts use different bases, wildly different techniques initially and yet there is consistency when you get to the final shaping. Continue reading
…you went in, the water was fine. You notice a nice fishy, it seems to want to be friends:
This is part 2 of a series by Fernando Gilgado, again, like part 1 it uses bicolour paper and clever colour changes to highlight details. Continue reading
It is a beautiful day, waters clear, the water beckons, it would be wrong not to go for a swim. You put your toe in, the water is lovely, swimming gives you a new found freedom:
This is part 1 of a 3 part story – what could possibly go wrong- we rarely see the danger, far off in the distance, and why would we consider it, we are ok, nothing could go wrong. Continue reading
