fantasy

485: Segway

| wonko

…so I am a teacher, and I teach senior students:485SegwayTheChaps

I have, on occasions, joked about how cool it would be to own a Segway – my classes are physically far apart and getting between campuses takes time, hence the idea that a PTD (personal transport device) would be cool. I _never_ in my wildest dreams imagined my students would do anything about this pipe dream – let’s face it, we all say things in jest.485SegwayAmbush

It was an ambush, total surprise – I think I was the only one who knew nothing. It still gives me goosebumps thinking about it. I was teaching my year 11 class when the whole year 12 class arrived headed by Tom on a Segway. They had crowd-funded a second hand one as a end of year gift – wow, just wow!.485Segway

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484: We are Groot!

| wonko

Not sure if you have seen it but I enjoyed “Guardians of the Galaxy” – nice escapist buddy movie whose adventure that does not withstand much scrutiny from a plot perspective. Love the characters, particular Rocket Racoon and Groot.484WeAreGrootView

When I first saw Groot on screen, I knew he was perfect origami material, resolving to design something similar to my tree model for him, but Luciffer Chong beat me to the punch with his simple yet effective Crease Pattern.484WeAreGrootView2

I see influences all over for this model – lovely joisel-like hands, Acuna-like arm formations, I am sure I will fold him again – might be fun on some rough textured hand-made paper also. Continue reading →

481: Two Dollar Dragon

| wonko

…so I am folding this crazy big dragon at the moment – insane 2mx2m square to make something ridiculously time-consuming.  A work colleague of my wife gave me a pair of raggedy USD$1 greenbacks and asked if I could do anything with them:481TwoDollarDragon

I ironed the notes to crisp them up and flatten the worse of the existing crumples (they are old notes, one nearly falling apart) and began bending a Won Park creation I had been itching to try.481TwoDollarDragononRyuJunScales

The fold is very dense, helped and hindered (in equal measure) by the robust note paper, and the level of detail here is nuts – the head has 3 sets of horns, eyes, 2 fangs, bottom jaw. Each foot has a set of claws, the body has dorsal spikes and the tail has an ornate tuft. Continue reading →

Ryujin 3.5 (continued)

| wonko

After much care and attention, diligently following expert lessons (courtesy of MrOrigami’s Daniel Brown), I have managed to successfully navigate lessons 1-11 in what promises to be an ever intensifying journey towards understanding the whole model. This is PART 2 of a previous post. Part 3 also exists.

Along the way I have learned a LOT about myself – patience is it’s own reward. If at first you do not succeed, try, try and try again (something I needed to do for lesson 11 – which I folded 4 times until I got it right, each attempt taking me 12ish hours)

tryagainsml

I can see why Satoshi Kamiya (the astonishingly talented designer) has not folded lots of these – the detail (and there is LOTS of details here, most you cannot see) needed to let the paper sit correctly whilst transitioning between elements is breaking my brain.

So far, I have learned elements of the design in isolation:PatternLessons1-11

The lessons after this appear to tackle larger and more complex chunks – the aim to get all pieces to co-exist on the same sheet.

Interestingly, although it is time consuming, I am finding the process fascinating, each piece gains a sort of momentum that propels me on to finish it and get it right, and I look forward to the next part with a sort of morbid curiosity.

I bought some WIDE Kraft online (90cmx30m) and, depending how it behaves, intend to laminate 2 strips together to make a square nearly 2m x 2m as my first attempt of the whole model – no idea if that will be big enough, we shall see.

The Lessons continue. Continue reading →

478: Ku’s Fairy

| wonko

Often I find highly technical folding is mentally cleansing – that complete absorption in meticulous detail lets you lose yourself:

Jason Ku is an engineer and origami artist unlike any other – having marveled at his bicycle, I was determined to find something else of his to try.

I had dismissed this fold, featured in a Tanteidan convention book I peruse periodically as too hard, but given my skill level has raised (attributable directly to my structured wrestling with Kamiya’s Ryu Jin), I thought I would give it a try.

To my astonishment, the folds came quite easily, breathtaking collapses and “unfold everything and re-fold it this way” moments seem just to work themselves out and the result is pleasing to me at least. Continue reading →

Ryujin 3.5 Lessons from a Master

| wonko

I am honored to have been allowed to learn how to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s  Ryujin 3.5 by an extraordinarily talented folder who goes under the name “MrOrigami”.

When finished, it should look like this:

He sends me lessons, I must complete them neatly and photo-evidence back to him before he sends me the next lessons.

This blog post chronicles my progress so far. It is a long and winding road towards folding the whole thing from one square of paper – that road consists of a myriad of skills, techniques and components all designed to tuck away 70%+ of the sheet revealing just the dragonny bits.

The Crease Pattern is terrifying (but if you look closely you can see head, body in 2 sections, claws and tail … well, I can):

I hope I am skillful enough to learn how to fold it … we shall see. Explore PART 2 of this project. Continue reading →

468: I am Pegasus, My Name Means Horse

| wonko

I am old enough to remember when a folk singer named Ross Ryan released a campy song about flying horses, and given that is an ear-worm of a song and it has just turned “Year of the Horse” for Chinese New Year, I thought it was an omen on what next to fold:

This is “Pegasus” by Dong Viet Thien from my newly arrived VOG2 origami book. A lovely use of a square, with some of the largest wings of this style of model I have seen.

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465: Green Dragon

| wonko

Now I know you are thinking this is not green, but the design is named “Green Dragon” by Piotr Pluta:

After I made the double-sided double tissue I had been looking for a fold that would suit such a busy paper – it sort of looks like dragon skin/scales so the idea took. Continue reading →

“You Shall Pass!”

| wonko

Sometimes we all need a little magic in our lives:

If anyone can get us past the Balrog and on beyond Mount Doom, Gandalf can.

Made from a square (and the scrap cut off to make it a square to make the staff) for a friend who, like all of us, is a valuable and important part of this world.

457: Happy Book (WTF#18)

| wonko

Fernando Gilgado is a legendary character folder, I have made many of his models, this one is a charmer:

from one sheet of paper, you get 6 pages, a hard cover, arms, legs, a smile and eyes peeping over the top – neat

So, as I mark furiously (having run out of the ability to put it off any longer), my procrastigami takes hold and I started bending something. I also wanted to try out my new self-healing craft mat (the green griddy thing) and have discovered that folding from an iPad or other tablet is better than a book because of the pinch-zooming possible to help old eyes see details of diagrams. Continue reading →

The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Parts

| wonko

You may remember I recently folded a Chuka Ryu, and it had a particular spiral bend to it…

… that spiral corresponds to the diameter of the white keep precisely – one sits inside the other.

This now tells a totally different story – what is happening here?

Add your narrative suggestions to the comments section.

454: Unryushi Darkness Dragon 2

| wonko

I was given a beautiful sheet of Unryushi tissue by a friend. The arrangement (in case YOU want to take part also) is if you give me nice paper, I will make you something out of it.

I prepared the paper by Methyl Cellulosing it to a clean window:

This make it crisp and strong, then, in a dragony frame of mind, I used Tadashi Mori’s own folding tutorial to fold a Darkness Dragon 2.

I had already folded the Darkness Dragon 1, but this model was a refinement I had not tried. There is a killer collapse after some exacting pre-folding – a sort of all these folds happen at the same time whilst inside a bunch of others, but the sense of it makes for a lovely body.

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453: The Age Of Aquarius

| wonko

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!


I saw a crease pattern whilst trolling through the Origami Forum that looked like it was relatively straight forward to lay out on a piece of paper, based on fairly well controlled 64th grid with some fairly straightforward easy to locate landmarks and so thought I would give it a go.

It took nearly 2 days to lay all the creases in to the crease pattern – wiggly lines in one corner were punishing and at the time I had no idea what were to be mountain and valley folds so just made sure they were good creases reasoning they would reverse effortlessly.

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449: Chaka Ryu

| wonko

I stumbled across low res hand-drawn diagrams of a Ryu (Chinese dragon) and with a cursory glance said “why not give that a go”:

Two weeks later and a whole bunch of improvising helped me realise that may not have been a wise choice but I have something that is at least based on Hoang Trung Thanh’s model but not faithful to it.

On folding the range of pleats I added a ziggy zaggy spine, decided on 3 rows of scales and invented a method of locking the leg units (each leg is a separate sheet of paper) into the body pleats. I also stuffed the body (with neutral facial tissues) for a little shape and added a nice row of belly scales which I think make it look pretty nice.

The head instructions were un-followable (to me at least) so I sort of wrangled a new head with some lovely horns and a nice open mouth. Continue reading →

445: Mother of Dragons

| wonko

I was paper shopping, as you do (my daughter calls me a paper nerd) and stumbled across a hand-made sheet of blue embossed Lotka that reminded me of dragonscale:

She who must be obeyed (SWMBO), an avid gamer and tamer of Dragons, had asked for a dragon so I put 2 and 2 together and got 17, well 5 to be precise. I have been exploring dragon-form, with the current Weyr (or wing) containing 5 dragons so far (Darkness Dragon by Tadashi Mori, Fiery Dragon by Kade Chan,  Green Dragon by Piotr Pluta, Riu Zin 1.0 by Satoshi Kamiya and nearly a Western Dragon by Shuki Kato)

After examining the paper, and its fold receptivity, SWMBO decided on a Fiery Dragon so I start bending, patiently (the paper is more like fabric so although you can crease it, it tends to want to unfold again.

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