paper

explorations of folding media

1078: “Tallneck” from Horizon

| wonko

There is a series of games in the Horizon series, set in a dystopian future where main opponents are robotic dinosaurs. My son plays, I am amazed by the complexity and richness of the game world.

I saw an origami “doodle” by Tetsuya Gotani of a “Tallneck” published on his instagram feed – a sort of brachiosaurus with a spaceship for a head. Thanks to the power of the internet, I reached out to see if he could give me guidance on how to fold one:

Tetsuyu Gotani's "Tallneck"

After a while, Tetsuya replied with a diagram series on how to fold it, newly drawn for me to test-fold. How amazing is that???

I hope he publishes the diagrams, the fold is challenging and the result is familiar to many gamers, and I am sure there would be interest from other origamists (and gamers) to fold it. The Horizon series of games has many robotic dinosaurs that would be perfect subjects for super-complex origami designs (hint hint!).

in-game image

I started with a 40cm square of metallic green/black duo paper (I think it was shadowfold??), that was really thin but strong (it needed to be, because of the torture and final torsion of the outer layers over a bulky solid body. Characteristic of the game critter, spikey bits and a flat-top head emerge from deft manipulation of layers. The bulk of the paper lies in the neck, making thinning it difficult, and the resultant model has a neck that is a little too thick, compared to the slender game critter’s – but this is a minor quibble.

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1076: Qwnn the Quokka

| wonko

It is always interesting to receive the latest JOAS Tanteidan Magazine:

Yoo Tae Yong's "Quokka"

On the cover was a model I immediately knew I had to try – Yoo Tae Yong’s “Quokka”.

Yoo Tae Yong's "Quokka" - view

As far as I am aware, this is the first Quokka design, and wow, what a beauty. The model is fully featured – in proportion to a real Quokka, and even has a pouch.

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1074: Little Dragon

| wonko

One of the things I am doing more and more is being involved in the editing of pre-publish origami books. I was approached by Peter Buchan-Symons on his forthcoming book “Fantasy Origami”:

Peter Buchan-Symons' "Little Dragon"

I have folded many of his models testing as I check sequences, but seriously love this little guy – such a clever use of paper.

I folded this little dragon on a 21cm duo Tuttle print (although it is suggested that the first fold should be 25cm+) and the sequence is wonderful, complex and exacting.

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1072: Fergus Currie’s Compound of 3 Cubes (Escher’s Solid)

| wonko

I sat in on a fold-along on Fakebook a few Sunday evenings ago where Fergus Currie demonstrted the folding of modules for this beauty – I got a little lost but on re-watch managed to nut out what was what:

Fergus Currie's Compound of 3 cubes (Escher's solid)

This is a compound of 3 cubes – each rotated on top of each other – when you see it you see it. It is comprised of 48 modules – 2 different shapes, 3 different colours (8 of each).

The folding is exacting, the angles and constructions accomplished and sophisticated, the tolerances for error are small. I think I was a victim of paper thickness when I folded mine – I used bond A3 photocopy paper because I had some lovely strong colours. The result of this choice was that layers get thick, some of the axes are not as crisp as I would like them to be, but it is finished, having taken a seeming age to fold and assemble.

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1070: Massimo’s Western Dragon

| wonko

It is not every day you open your email and find a gift from a design legend. Friday Francesco Massimo sent me the diagrams for his Western Dragon, and I knew what I would be folding this weekend:

Francesco Massimo's "Western Dragon"

Having folded many dragons (western and not), I was keen to explore the morphology and layer management of this new model, and pretty soon realised paper selection is REALLY important for success with this model.

Essentially a “birdbase”, 2 structured have been grafted on (a Lang “KNL”-style dragon head, and a luscious set of wings), meaning that the “legs” would emerge from the centre of a tangle near the middle of the sheet, accumulating layers as they were formed.

Francesco Massimo's "Western Dragon" views

I decided to fold a maquette from thin crispy Kraft paper first – there were LOTS of baffling manipulations and I did not feel confident to risk nice paper on a first fold. In wrestling with the maquette, I “made good” the wing connection and body trimming, learned about initial angles of things like the neck (deciding I did not like the designed angle, changing it in my final fold), and the sequence for the collapse of the head – the pre-creasing strategy is prone to gross inaccuracies that impact the look and sit of the features, so adopted more of a CP mentality when I knew what was being used for what.

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1069: Starlight Kusudama

| wonko

Each year for the last 10 or so, as part of the “getting to know you” phase of a new year with my pastoral care group, we fold a kusudama together:

Starlight kusudama construction

The idea is simple, invite kids to sit, learn how to fold a module, then teach it to another mate … resulting in enough modules to assemble a megastructure.

Starlight Kusudama finished

This year I chose a 30 module designed by Vladimir Frolov, a Russian designer, a lovely starry ball.

The metaphor is really simple: “The WHOLE is greater than the SUM OF IT’S PARTS”

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1068: Russian Lilac Module

| wonko

I stumbled across the instructions for a glorious checkerboard kusudama designed by Andrey Ermakov, an insanely talented designer from Russia:

Russian Lilac unit designed by Andrey Ermakov
Russian Lilac unit

I decided to try and make ONE module – an exhausting process that starts with a HEXAGON initially divided into a 16 grid, then you dance through moves that flash and hide the reverse colour of the paper until you get this lovely pattern. This took me in excess of 2 hours!!! For ONE unit!!!!! You then crenelate and interweave them to make a spikey ball, tucking in tips to complete the tessellated surfaces.

Russian Lilac shaped to allow others to interlock.

Had I no life, and a LOT of paper, I would consider making all 30(!?!?!?!) of these things necessary to make the most complex spikey ball there is – a beauty that is not within my reach (for now) due to time pressures.

It is a timely reminder that astonishing and beautiful things come from Russia; ugly political and military action does not diminish this fact.

1067: Watermelon Colours

| wonko

So to avoid doing the growing list of things I should be doing, I decided on some procrastigami:

Xander Perrott's Laveau

One of the many “I must fold these” models from Xander Perrott’s forthcoming books, this is “Laveau”, a lovely 30 unit spikey flower ball that makes good use of duo paper.

Each unit, based on a 1:root(3) rectangle, folded from Tuttle Vibrant duo, I chose limey/crimson paper and began folding – I always love the almost meditative state you enter when unit folding on a production line – much the same as gridding before box pleating and tessellations.

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1066: Star Virus

| wonko

As part of the privilege of test-folding models for a forthcoming book, I also had access to brilliant new designs. I decided I must fold one of these for myself:

Xander Perrott's "Star Virus"

This is “Star Virus”, a relative of “Space Virus” that I had already folded (from his previous book) waaaaay back in 2020 at the beginning of the global pandemic.

The form of this kusudama is glorious – star-shaped protuberances from a glorious faceted sphere – reminiscent of the most popular visualisation of the Covid 19 virus, I decided to fold it in royal purple and yellow because Covid is mutating all the time, and this I see as a mutation of the original in every way.

Xander Perrott's "Star Virus" view

They say “if at first you don’t succeed, mutate and try again” seems to be the pandemic trajectory – this model has modules that are refined, positively lock and the whole spikey ball was such fun to fold.

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1065: Folding the Washing

| wonko

I am always looking for folding (and prograstigami) projects, my friends often )helpfully) suggest I “fold the washing” – my question to this is always “into what?”:

Motoo Ohguchi's Shirt

This lovely little colour change model is in the latest Tanteidan Magazine (one of many advantages of being a member of JOAS.

Designed by Motoo Ohguchi, I decided to punish a lovely 21cm square of Shibori duo paper, and set about the exacting divisions, colour reversals and smoke and mirrors that form the shape and details.

The layers get really dense, so thin paper (or going large) are solutions – I tried it on 15cm Kami and struggled to shape the collar and other details at this scale and thickness.

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1062: Omicron

| wonko

Having recently purchased a bumper pack of 6″ duo paper, I was itching to fold something with it. Given we are in a new wave of Covid-19 (Omicron), I thought a virus-like kusudama was in order:

Xander Perrott's "Minaret"

This is Xander Perrott’s lovely modular design “Minaret”, a 30-piece ball of wonder.

Each piece is based on a 1: root(3) proportioned rectangles, intricately collapsed into beams with tabs/pockets on each end.

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1060: Second Stellation of a Cuboctrahedron

| wonko

To celebrate the release of his lovely new book of modular polyhedra (must get me one), Fergus Currie offered an early morning (for me at least on the opposite side of the planet) workshop on how to fold his second stellation of a cuboctahedron:

The second stellation of a cuboctahedron

I set an alarm, awoke at 1am and folded along with Fergus.

I like this modular a LOT – each vertex is a single piece of paper – it works well with paper that has only one side printed or printer paper. The design is ingenius, the angles odd and exacting but you get into a groove and they make sense in the end.

The second stellation of a cuboctahedron VIEWS

I went into production line, and using the template to establish the initial odd division, I found that using a fine ball stylus and ruler it was easier to lay in the intermediate creases with the accuracy to make the vertices crisp and accurate.

Once I had 24 units, I then interlocked them in groups of 3 using the narrow tabs and pockets – these interlock really tightly and I could not imagine trying to do these later. I then joined the triples as they tile on longer tab-pocket sets that slide together with a little encouragement. Eventually the units combine to become this wonderful spikey ball with unique geometry.

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1055: Hermann the Hermit

| wonko

Looking for something to de-stress and unwind to after a brutal term, I turned to “The Works of Satoshi Kamiya II”, and a model that I was astonished to find I had never tried – his hermit crab:

Satoshi Kamiya's Hermit Crab face to face

Starting with a 70cm square of natural/white Kraft paper, the fold was challenging as you allocate one side of the sheet to the crab, the other to the shell. Via a fabulous fold sequence, you tease legs, claws, antennae, eyes and mouthparts while delicately colour-changing the rear and then spiralling a shell as his home.

Satoshi Kamiya's Hermit Crab views

This is, (der), genius design – I always am amazed with Kamiya designs, and the elegance of the developmental sequence – as if the journey is every bit as delightful as the destination.

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‘Sus

| wonko

I am trying to get my brain back – the term has been brutal so I decided some paper therapy was in order. I originally folded this model back in 2011, on tiny paper, and the resultant mess was posted as part of that year’s 365 challenge.

I had vowed to re-fold it with better paper, and I decided to do that today.

Pegasus - a proud horsie

I cut a 50cm of pearl coloured Lithography paper, and carefully followed an instruction set that only lasted 103 steps or so (quite quick for a Kamiya model).

I love how this horse seems to emerge from an otherwise non-descript tangle, with glorious and sensibly placed, appropriately muscled wings.

Pegasus, wing view
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Riccardo Foschi’s “Mushu” – revisited

| wonko

I have discovered I a very low tolerance of boredom, I neeeeeed to be doing something most of the time. When my students are doing assignment work I make myself available for consultancy and need tasks I can drop in an instant so I can help them – origami is often my goto:

Riccardo Foschi's MUSHU

This is a re-fold, but I like it more than my first fold. I chose 5 sections (that together become a 10:1 proportion rectangle) for ease of transport during the folding process. White/natural Kraft paper (23cm on the narrow), and some care and attention to accuracy. This little beauty is the result.

MUSHU scale

It is rare to see happy dragons – they usually are trying to be ferrocious and scary – this dragon reminds me of a puppy, a mischevious ball of energy that is waiting for you to throw the drool and scorchmark-covered stick again.