fish

269: Brill’s Dolphin

| wonko

Now I am going visiting to the Sunshine Coast today, so thought something marine would be appropriate:

This lovely dolphin reminds me of “flipper” who appeared to frolic in the sea. The sad truth about captive dolphins however is that they lead miserable, confused lives and have a really short lifespan due to stress and noise in their tanks. There is increasing and justified pressure to release dolphins and orcas from captivity as it is inhumane.

The design for this model is ingenius, the body is triangular in cross-section, lovely tail flukes, sharp dorsal and pectoral fins and a beak, with open mouth.

It was difficult to photograph this model, so I perched it (via a blob of blutac) atop a mangled paperclip. Well dome Mr Brill

249: Vinco’s Fish

| wonko

Davor Vinco has made many elegant models, most with simple lines – I particularly like his fish:

The beautiful eyes have featured on an earlier model but I like the body shape of this fish, the way the fins lock and gill line makes the nead a different colour to the body (if using duo colour paper)

A fairly simple fold to give my tired hands a rest from yesterday, nice none the less – 3d enough to consider filleting.

It is child protection week so I must chase some design for that.

236: Sipho Mabona’s Koi Carp

| wonko

When I first saw installation art, in origami, folded and designed by Sipho Mabona, I knew I wanted to do stuff like that also – this koi is elegant and beautiful:

Lovely dorsal and pectoral fins, graceful tail and head complete with gaping mouth.

There is much to admire about this model – it is tricksey to tease the fish from a square and Mabona achieves this fiarly simply – very happy with this as my first fold, althought it was a little fiddly to do the mouth crimps at this scale (I used an A4 cut square).

I can imagine schools of these, and indeed that is how Mabona displays them – in slight size variations floating in groups as if being fed in a pond – lovely stuff, feel privileged to fold it.

You can have a go here: pdf

214: A Great White Pointer

| wonko

Apparently it is “Shark Week” – yeah, I did not know either until I looked it up.

This ferrocious little beauty is a variation of the blue shark described by John Montroll and Robert lang in their book “Origami Sealife” and there is much to like about the basic form (not sure the picture does it justice).

Lovely gills, beady eyes and toothless jaw, strong fins, shaped tail and a slightly 3d body make this model look like it should swim well and eat big chompy bits out of everything as it does.

Quite happy with this as a first fold – learnt lots along the way

120: Joisel’s Goldfish

| wonko

Ending such an EPIC month, I thought it appropriate to try a model from Eric Joisel – this is my first-fold of his Goldfish:

Now I know I could have modelled the body a little more, and Eric himself poses a design challenge to put in a nice Davor Vinco-inspired eye, but I am pretty happy with this as a first fold – I learned a lot by folding this, and next time I would make it smaller and much more 3d

Folded from an A3 cut square, using an odd asymetrical triple preliminary fold out of an eccentric pony base, the model has a certain fluidity to it, and seems to fold itself in places – true genius of design.

I like that the tail, although again asymetrical, is complete both sides, and there is lots of opportunity to pose fins, and shape mouth, nice

You can have a go at this, it is fairly straightforward (apart from when it is not) http://www.ericjoisel.com/ps_assets/pdfs/fish.pdf

74: Carp

| wonko

I realised I have not done many fish as of yet, so this little beauty will suffice as a piscean addition to the growing collection:

It is a Carp, but has shark-like lines also – good strong pectoral fins, delicious looking dorsal fin and strong tail flukes, with a little more paper mangling I am sure I could craft a lovely wobbeygong or gummy shark. I am happy with my first fold however.

With all that is going on around us – CARPe-Deium 😛

You can have a try for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgeD2uGQqPA

40: A Catfish

| wonko

This fish, designed by Davor Vinko has the most splendid eyes, and a nice 3D body, most impressed.
Why a fish? Well, it is the School Swimming Carnival today and I am at home being beaten up by a middle ear infection so I thought I would get as close to the spirit of the event whilst staying quiet and dry.

You can have a go at this model yourself, it is actually pretty easy once you get the 1/6ths sorted out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUcp0EiZ2xU