domestic

203: Skateboard

| wonko

Pressed with something to make and tired and shagged out after a busy week I stumbled across this model and thought I would give it a go:

I have seen kids using a mini-skateboard (tech deck I think they are called) and am amazed that this model is a fairly complete imitation of one, including wheels, trucks and deck.

Originally (the dev shots) I used a square from an A4 page – this resulted in a deck that was nearly 20cm long, so re-made it (the other shots) with a 1/4 A4 square and it is perfect in scale

I like how the wheels are made from curls of flaps formed from side sinks, it is fairly faithful – nice work Mr Trollip. You should definitely try this – you will impress the teens no end with you leet paper skills.

197: Scissors

| wonko

I remember when I was in my early teens, I used to be forced to go to a barbershop just off the main street of Nambour (yes, lived there for a while) and the barber, a Maltese man with a thick mustache and little head hair (which is about as unlucky an omen as a thin chef I think) used to cut my hair:

“Short back and sides, with a surfie front” he used to call the hairstyle inflicted on me when all my mates had the finest “mullets” you have ever seen. Those were the days.

As I get older, there is less for the hairdresser to remove, more of it grey and less of it growing on my head – you get that apparently.

I was trolling to Netherlands Origami Society website (yes, these groups of paper benders are everywhere) and came upon a suggestion for scissors based on a stretched bird base, so I thought it appropriate today as I have just had a haircut and, being winter, my head is now cold – FML.

I have been told that the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is about 3 weeks – we shall see.

195: The Eiffel Tower

| wonko

Vive le France – it is Bastille Day and I ask what is more quintessentially French than “Le Tour Eiffel”:

I resisted the obvious froggy references and went straight for a cultural landmark – albeit a fairly ugly bit of schrapnel left over from a world expo.

I like this model – partly because I folded it via a general principle rather than an exact pattern and the technique of “benching” the model is useful for other things I have planned.

Surprisingly, this model is quite rigid after the bottom layer is scalloped – must make another one for the French department, although I am disappointed they did not offer crouissant or other baked treats to celebrate.

186: Teddy Bear

| wonko

I once had a friend that could comfort me when I was sad, that I told all my secrets to, that kept me company when the lights went out, that never complained or criticised me, that joined in on all my adventures, that I loved completely and unconditionally. This is Ted, my bear:

So a friend of my wife is having a baby – what better to welcome the little one into the world than a bear:

So I have had this design for ages and wanted to try it out. Scale was important, as I was going to mount it on cardstock with some double-sided tape, the height is 1/3 the original square size, so … easy. After performing my “first fold” on an A3 cut square of copy paper, I then fashioned a 26cm square out of brown paper from the baking drawer in our kitchen for his little brown brother.

A fairly difficult fold to complete with copy paper – thicknesses make subtle details clumsy. Surprisingly, brown paper (you know, the stuff you line cake tins with) folds beautifully – is strong and thin, must remember that.

I like how the finished model has character – I have now folded a few of these and each one has it’s own unique posture and facial expression – a lot like real teddy bears I think.

You may collectively go awwwwwww now 😛

180: Rocking Horse

| wonko

Now I have been a customer of Rocking Horse records in Brizvegus for as long as I can remember – they stock an important mix of local releases, electronica, avant-garde, metal, obscure and dance music ephemera that appeals to me.

They are in trouble – difficult to compete with torrents and copyright theft (I know many young people who have never purchased music ever, but have iPods full of the stuff). I decided to visit today, purchase a bit but sadly everything is on sale – not a good sign. Today’s model is a rocking horse:

This little model actually rocks also, very tidy (if torture to get all the paper inside the body and leave the rockers largely fold free so they, well, rock…

I like the body proportions – very horsey – and the weight distribution is also good – very well designed model by Ronald Koh (the same guy who designed the King Cobra)

Precision was important here, and a little luck – many of the folds were judgment calls, no landmarks are trickey if you have not folded a model before and do not know what ends up where.

Happy with my first fold, fingers crossed that a good record store can survive – brissie would not be the same with out it.

175: Tick Tick Tock

| wonko

I find it interesting that time seems to pass so much slower when you are doing something you really do not enjoy:

My “Theory of Temporal Perception” explains that time like that which crawls past during an exam supervision, say, is noticed minute by minute, tick by tock.

This is a cute action model – it moves – the pendulum swings and actually makes a “tick tock” sound due to an ingenious rabbit-ear fold at the back creating a flipping flap.

There is much to like about this model, including the fact that the time on the clock is 3PM, meaning it is time ot start mid-semester holidays – woo!

174: A Quill

| wonko

Now in bygone eras (and magical schools) people used to sharpen a goose feather, dip it in ink and write with it – they called this contraption a Quill:

I was browsing for feathers, no iea why, when I stumbled accross a Vietnamese origami forum that had a rather lovely feathery pen thing, so decided to inflict the design on a nice piece of pearlescent white paper I had

fairly simple fold, with some fiddling around to get the nib shapely, in the end quite a nice fold.

Why a quill? Well, we are hours away from some announcement or other from J. K. Rowling about the Harry Potterverse, so I thought it appropriate.

164: Queen Anne Table

| wonko

Now I put my hand up as a staunch REPUBLICAN – I have never seen the sense of a colonial country holding on to a token monarchy. It would be different if the monarchy were actually USEFUL to us, like a table:

Strong, supportive, present, made of something sustainable and central to daily life, a table is central to any home. This is a “Queen Anne” style table, designed by Robert Harbin, folded for our celebration of the Queen’s Birthday (a public holiday for us – one good, tangible thing that benefits us I suppose).

Nice exercise in petal folding, there are a few variations possible to transform it into a square table – quite like the polyhedral form however. Folded from “Secrets of Origami” by Robert Harbin, a treasure trove of old-school origami designs.

139: Playing cards

| wonko

An odd-proportioned rectangle first drew me to this model – 1.5:1; that means slicing off 1/3 from one side:

Two figures, standing (oddly) beside a lovely card table, pack in hand

This reminds me of a Neil Elias figure, but is cunningly (and surprisingly simply) crafted by Eugeny Fridrik.  I loved how the table appeared out of a gusset – seemingly by magic.

You too should have a go at this model – here. I had to do a little papercraft from some of the offcut paper to make the card hand, and there is a nice little pleat keeping it on each figure’s hand – very tidy.

138: Flu Jab

| wonko

This afternoon I went to get my annual Flu Jab:

I am told it is “just a little prick with a needle” but I am sure the bloke who injected me does not like to be referred to that way 😛

I thought I should go original design also, not thinking I needed a pattern, so did a little free-form shaping, some simple pleating and crimping. I am fairly happy with it – it looks syringe-y and a little 3d too which is nice – not very tidy on the reverse side and the needle looks not very sharp.

133: Brill’s Bottle

| wonko

I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy:

A fully formed container, neck, base, hollow and interesting

I like this design, and was sure it would not work – forming the neck and pleating the base to seal it make it a very clever model indeed.

Folded from the aptly titled “Brilliant Origami” by David Brill. Looks like a spirit bottle – it suggests you fold it out of clear material and put a ship inside it – that would be cool also.

Hope you like it – not bad for such a tired brain.

129: Making a Spectacle

| wonko

Now I had this idea that with box pleating it should be possible to make life-size spectacles:

So I set about experimenting, discovered that I could form 6×6 lenses, a nose bridge and some reasonable length arms with a 4×1 rectangle cut from an A3 sheet:

Quite cool – an original invention, chuffed with the result. hope you like them also – the ultimate in UV protection (and all light for that matter)

Don’t pretend like you do not want to look this cool 😛

And for those faithful following this nonsense, here is my crease pattern/plan so you can have a go yourself:

128: Mother’s Day Brooch

| wonko

Mother’s Day is a chance to do something nice for Mum, because…. When your Mum is going to be overseas, it takes planning for that to happen:

This first fold was completed a couple of weeks ago – snail mail to the UK is slow, so I needed to make the coloured ones for cards in time for them to arrive today:

I made a card for each (Mum and Mum-in-law), hope they like them. The coloured roses are rather special – made from imported Yuzen Washi, mounted on to blank cardstock I think they look lovely.

This is a variation of a camelia fold I have yet to try. With 2 colour paper the leaves would be one colour and the rose another, neat:

Designed by Sy Chen, YOU should have a go at this yourself – it is simple and the result is lovely. I am sure your mum would love it – go here for a video demonstration

118: Grammophone

| wonko

In simpler times, music was encoded onto black plastic discs as bumpy valleys a needle would bounce along to extract the sound. In even simpler times that sound was amplified by a large cone, no electricity involved at all:

These days it is all iPods, mp3s, downloads and stealing music – sometimes the older, simpler times were best – certainly stereo turntables create a lovely chocolatey sound that modern digital sampling techniques have lost.

Why a grammophone? the kids at school perform in the formal concert tonight – the symbol of music for me is “His Master’s Voice” which was a grammophone with a dog looking quizzically at it.

This is an interesting box-pleating exercise that at almost every step looked like it was going to hell in a hand-basket. The final opening of the cone was a revelation.

Amusingly my daughter saw on my screen the words “Pagina precedente” and “Pagina successiva” and immediately assumed I was looking at something naughty – when in fact the instructions were in Italian. Folded in 1/12ths, with an interesting collapse to put the record on the turntable first, I like this a lot and hope you do to.

You can have a go yourself also: http://www.origamidauria.it/diagrammi/diagrammigrammofono/grammofono1.htm

115: Anzac Digger’s Slouch Hat

| wonko

Now I know what I was going for here, but could not find anything that quite did the job. An iconic symbol of our diggers, the “slouch” hat is a distinctive Akubra with one side of the brim held up by a “rising sun” badge, the other flat(ish) and a sort of dimpled crown. Why a slouch hat? Well, today is Anzac Day and whilst I struggle to be involved with any military action (and doubt I would be brave enough anyway) I can only admire those who put their life on the line for something they believe in (or are ordered to do).

I fold this in memory of Bill O’Donnell, and the plethora of service personnel who are now only with us in fond memory.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.


Now I think I have the “intent” of this hat, if not the polish of a published design. I found a rough “bush” hat, based on a waterbomb base by Darren Scott and sort of improvised from there with the basic form

I am sure, if I had pre-planned a little better, I could have used the gusset on the raised brim side to form a sunrise badge (and indeed, if you look carefully you can see the frayed remnants of a failed attempt).

Raising a circular crown was not something the flat paper wanted to support, forming the dimples was difficult as each curve made the brim curve oddly, but I think the profile is right.

Hope it is a fitting Anzac tribute.