wtf

798: (248/365) The Elephant In The Room

| wonko

In a fit of elephantine existentialism, one must ask an important question: “What makes a good Origami Elephant?”:

This is Paul Jackson’s “One Fold Elephant” – is it a good elephant and how would we know? What are ESSENTIAL characteristics that a model should have to be considered elephantine? Obvious characteristics of an elephant (well, for anyone who has ever actually seen one) could include discernible TRUNK, big(ish) flappy EARS and a big solid BODY. We could visually recognise an elephant with way less information than that so why do we require mind-popping details implicit in super-complex paper renderings of elephants when something much simpler does the job.

Purists would argue that all origami is, in essence, figurative representations of real objects. Thereby origami models are in effect are so many levels of abstraction from the real thing that there are no valid metrics that apply the the “goodnicity” of the rendering. Continue reading →

782: (232/365) Wedge Flex

| wonko

Topologically convoluted geometric modulars confuse the brain – shapes that morph into different shapes in stable but seemingly unpredictable ways are fascinating:

This is a wedge-flex – a modular hinged construction of a series of triangular prisms (wedges) that fold, bend, twist and re-align in interesting configurations. Continue reading →

762: (212/365) Free Hugs

| wonko

Anyone who knows me realises I am a HUGE Alien fan (well, except for Alien 4 – The Apology) so I find it irresistible when I find an Alien-related fold:

This is Makoto Anzai’s “Face Hugger”, a snarly hand-inspired ovipositor that is the precursor to a chestburster. Similar to Fernando Gilgado’s model, this one has a different fold morphology. Continue reading →

755: (205/365) Gaff’s Blade Runner Unicorn

| wonko

Returning to Blade Runner, there has historically been much discussion about the humanity of the central protagonist, Deckard:Ridley Scott has recently confirmed that Deckard is a Replicant, a point visually reinforced by his recurring dream of “Unicorns” (unreal beasts).

Near the end of the movie, an origami Unicorn is left at the door of his abandoned apartment, presumably by Gaff (although Edward J Olmos says he was not the folder, Scott clearly liked the idea of the echo of an idea). 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 →

740: (190/365) Rubic’s Cube

| wonko

Long before there were “fidget spinners”, Pokemon and “Pogs” there was a craze that swept me away when it first hit the market. A Hungarian designer called Erno Rubic devised a cube, subdivided up into 3x3x3 cubies that all slid on each other in layers:

I instantly had to have one (well, in truth I had 9, including a triangular, circular and 4x4x4 one that I still have). Continue reading →

706: (156/365) Finger Gyro

| wonko

A craze among the young kids at the moment is the “fidgit spinner“, that little toy that … spins, and … well, that is just about it:

According to some fairly shady “research”, these toys improve concentration, and that may be correct for a limited number of kids with specific learning issues, but, yeah.

Enterprising businesses sell these, advertise “tricks” you can do with them, and offer ways to pimp out your rig in ways that, well, make it more fully sick. Continue reading →

701: (151/365) Queenslander!

| wonko

…a little known fact, up until the night of the day this fold was supposed to be folded (last night if I am honest, missed a day, catching up, sorry) I had NEVER watched a Rugby match. Ever:

So I was over at a mates place, we were supposed to be playing a board game but apparently State of Origin was on, so they watched and I did too. Continue reading →

660: (110/365) Riki Saito’s Alien

| wonko

It is late, I am tired, the first week back at the start of the term is exhausting but this little alien is looking after me:

Folded from Japanese foil, it compliments yesterdays model. Incidentally today is a few days after the 56th anniversary of humans in space as Yuri Gagarin first left our atmosphere  Continue reading →

612: (62/365) Minecraft Golden Snitch

| wonko

Potter Nerds and Minecraft Nerds unite, for I present to you a “Minecraft” style cubey golden snitch:

This buzzy little bugger would be difficult to catch in a full on game of Quidditch indeed. This is Riccardo Foschi’s “CuBird”, an interesting little CP that collapses with a little wrangling to make a lovely little cube and enough paper to fan out a quite solid set of wings. Continue reading →

600: (50/365) A Shedload of Models

| wonko

For those of you keeping up, you will notice SOME of the posts on this blog have numbers. The first number (in this case 600) represents a catalogue of sorts – it documents the number of new models that I have never folded, before documenting it here:

Jo Nakashima’s “6” is new for me, the “0” is a refold but, yeah, 600!!!! Continue reading →

586: (36/360) Gaikotsu Figure

| wonko

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 →

584: (34/365) Tadashi Mori’s Facebook “Like”

| wonko

Social media, gift that it is, has fundamentally broken two concepts I think. The “friend” and the “like” now no longer mean what they used to, and culturally I am not sure we are not really ready for that change:

The “friend” has come to mean some random that stalks you, watching what you do. Continue reading →

571: (21/365) OMG!!!!

| wonko

Needless to say the media is abuzz with reactions to Trump’s inauguration. Let us hope that the he does not become the “Bane” of their existence (even though part of his speech was plagiarised from the Marvel Universes’ fictitious tyrant presidential coup, I am sure this is merely coincidence):

One has to have hope in the power of intellect, value of human dignity, common sense and sane application of spray tanning solutions. Continue reading →

No Dragon, Just Head

| wonko

Determined not to let Shuki Kato’s “Western Dragon” beat me, I decided to isolate the part of the model that I had failed on each of the 4 times I have attempted this nightmare of bent paper – the head:

Using the crease pattern, I isolated the corner that is the head and made that section HUGE, then ignoring the rest of the model (that I have successfully folded twice) I only did instructions that effected the bit of the crease pattern that I had on my 60cm square section.

Yee gods! Continue reading →