Sometimes a modular is deceptively complex, this 6-part modular from David Mitchell is no exception:
Four cubes, interwoven in evil ways has done my head in for days now, I simply could not (1) imagine the shape it was going to end up; and (2) make the modules connect in ways that made sense. Continue reading
The dragon is a favourite subject for origami designers – most have tried their hand at one:
This is Joseph Wu’s “Eastern Dragon” – how can we tell it is an eastern dragon? It has no wings and does not need them to fly. It is only us silly westerners that decided to rationalise the dragon morphology.
I have been meaning to fold this for ages – nothing like a 365 challenge to bring out the models on hold. Continue reading
I quite enjoy folding modulars – the way they combine to make a larger form can be fascinating and this module is no exception:
This is Dave Mitchell’s “Artefact” module, it can be put together in 2’s and 6’s. Continue reading
Another paper plane – this one a lot like a single propeller Cesna:
An interesting fold, thankfully executed with thin paper (a sheet of purple hand-made washi from Daiso) Continue reading
Toys for people with ADHD are all the rage – people pay for things with switches, moving clicky bits and spinney things because, reasons:
This paper toy continues to be an enigma. Made of 4 modules, it is a twisty cube that also folds flat in a myriad of ways that break your brain. Continue reading
Spirals have most recently been explored by Tomoko Fuse, but lovely spiral shail shells have existed in traditional origami for a long while before that:
This is Eduardo Clemente’s snail, well, one of them. As a bi-colour model it cleverly manages the 2 colours ensuring the soft slippy bit of the snail is one colour and the rounded spiral of the shell is the reverse. Continue reading
I must admit to liking folding insects in Origami – something about the extreme paper wrangling necessary to separate out features from the sheet is a great challenge:
This is Eduardo Clemente’s “Mariposa” or Butterfly. An interesting fold indeed. Continue reading
It is rare that with relatively few folds the essence of a 4 legged beastie is so well captured:
This is a continuation of the exploration of Eduardo Clemente’s work, his simple pig, charming little critter it is. Continue reading
Yoshizawa Sensei once said “The Horse and the rider are not one, nor should a model of them be”, or words to that effect and I think this model is an interesting reflection of that sentiment:
This is Eduardo Clemente’s “Burro con Carro” which I think means “Donkey and Cart”. Fashioned from a 3×1 rectangle, the technique involves completely wasting the middle square to provide a join that more or less makes sense between the cart and the tail of the donkey.
The trouble is, the join is so thick that modelling the hindquarters of the donkey is compromised, the cart does not sit quite right and the front of the model is so light that modelling front legs and head/ears is flimsy and a bit of a fail. Continue reading
Sometimes tending the nest is more important than what is happening elsewhere:
This is Edwardo Clemente’s “Mother Bird” (I think that is what it is called, it is all in Spanish) and is a charming little bi-colour model that manages to tease a lovely flappy mother twitter bird, a pair of hungry chicks and a colour contrasted nest from a single sheet. Continue reading
Under the weather at the moment, folding while suffering a streaming headcold is not much fun. After 2 model fails, I thought I should go simpler:
I stumbled across an obscure book by Eduardo Clemente called “Papiroflexia”, it is full of historically revolutionary designs I must try. Continue reading
Modular stars are a thing, there are many beautiful ones including multi-sheet omega stars (8 pointers), but this little beauty is crafted from a single uncut square:
From a sunken waterbomb base we tease xyz planes then fashion points from their intersections – genius. Continue reading
I started this fold near the end of last year, shelving it when the marking hit it’s peak and realised I had not got back to it:
Playing around with a tiny (4mm) triangle grid, initially I was just testing my patience and accuracy to see how small and accurate I could fold the grid. The paper contains a lot of cotton fibre so is pretty tough and withstood a week of punishing bone-folder-assisted creasing before I then tried to work out what to do with it. Continue reading
Prehistory must have been an amazing time, evidence of such fantastical beasts continue to boggle the mind. The air was full of ferocious snappy things, land was populated by ferocious snappy things and the oceans were the same:
This is Lu Hao’s “Plesiosaurus”, a rich, dense and interesting fold that results in a serpentine necked swimming snappy thing after a complex process of hiding most of the sheet. Continue reading
There is a mystical beast called a Narwal – the unicorn of the sea:
I am lead to believe this is a real critter, and their nose horn seems (at least from photos I fond on Google) to be impractically long but there you go – evolution is an odd natural force. Continue reading
