1064: Fergus Currie’s “Frustum”

| wonko

An invitation went out on Fakebook to join a “fold along” session with Fergus Currie and, although it was after 11pm local time I thought why not:

Fergus Currie's "Frustum"

Fergus taught the module then construction of a 4-part modular Frustum (a truncated pyramid) – an ingenius and “frustrating” model in that the lock between modules is accomplished using a “latch crimp” tab inside the bent gusset pocket, making the actual construction a little fiddly.

I found I needed to ease the 3rd and 4th modules in place using long-nosed tweezers, when it sits right it locks tight but requires a bit of a controlled jiggle to get it to be seated just right. The final module is a bit of a challenge to insert without dislocating the two either side of it.

Patience and tweezers finally won over and the top half finally was locked tight and tidy, then a simple weave on the bottom flaps complete a lovely truncated pyramid. Material thickness is an issue here – the tab-pocket system assumes material of negligible thickness. If you use heavier paper you need to fractionally adjust either the pocket depth or the tab length – fortunately there are a couple of fold junctures that make this easier.

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1063: Just Dandy

| wonko

Anyone who owns a lawn realises it is a constant battle to keep it mowed, tidy, healthy and weed free. In a tropical climate like ours, doubly so:

dandelion

So we have a dandelion problem – hundreds of the little buggers pop their flowers up after I mow and I am loathed to resort to spraying them, chemical solutions are my last resort. I googled the problem and found a no-bend weeding prong that seems custom built to pluck the little suckers root and all.

weeding prong

We ordered 2 (a his and hers set) on the off chance we both would want to do this, the arrived in pieces and after a simple set of instructions they were assembled, ready to go. In our first session on the lawn we easily filled a large bucket with extracted dandelions and realised this was a solution, albeit manual and long term.

dandelion scale

In the latest Tanteidan magazine, by pure synchronicity, there were diagrams for a modular dandelion designed by Toshikazu Kawasaki. I set about folding the pieces and, after a fairly simple set of instructions, the dandelion was assembled and ready to go.

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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1061: Bone Dragon

| wonko

Looking for a model to welcome in the new year, and also to further my Crease Pattern solving ability, I hoped this model would serve both purposes:

Bone Dragon

Part of a book I have helped edit prior to publishing, this is 1ctzH8jm0N2’s “Bone Dragon”, a CP and photodiagram sequence from the forthcoming book “Ori-Fancy 6”.

I started with a 90cm square, I divided into a 32 grid, then located the required diagonals, then begin allocating mountain and valley orientation to the creases before attempting the collapse.

Bone Dragon Views

There are lots of details here, and the initial collapse generates most of them – I buggered up the head collapse (rather I found the intricate point in point structure that would eventually become the horns too hard to do initially) but found it easy to do post-collapse, and was initially flummoxed by the feet structure until I realised a series of sinks needed to be closed-sinked, and another set needed to be open-sinks (hopefully this will be made clear in the final photo diagram annotations).

The body ends up being 30+ layers, making the necessary crimping for shaping really difficult with thick paper (I used natural Kraft paper) – there is a nice “bulk” to the body, and the body feels solid – thinner paper would make shaping less torturous.

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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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1059: Riccardo Foschi’s “Gnome on the shelf”

| wonko

One of many benefits of being a member of Origami USA (OUSA) has been the “Origami Connect” online classes program. For Christmas, members were treated to a free workshop with Riccardo Foschi, who taught his delightful “Sitting Gnome”:

Riccardo Foschi's Gnome on the shelf - folding along with OUSA

Due to the tyranny of international timezones, their 1pm EST workshop meant I had to join them 15 hours later (for me, 4am the day after). It feels weird to be in their future, but there you go. I set an alarm, made a cup of tea, folded along then attempted to go back to sleep again afterwards (fairly unsuccessfully, annoyingly).

Riccardo Foschi's Gnome on the shelf

This model is a lovely figurative representation of a gnome – hat, nose, moustache, beard, stubby body and stickey outey legs and feet – a little like the “elf on the shelf” idea – it is a pity he has no hands (I might mess with the design a little as there is LOTS of paper not doing very much that I may be able to encourage some arms from).

Riccardo was a delight, his models have a real cuteness charm, and he is very generous sharing CPs with the community, many of which I have folded, I love his design sense, and the fun his models are to fold – often cartoonish happy things they are.

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1058: Twister A

| wonko

Clocking on for another round of procrastigami, I decided to give the first of the “twister” series a go:

Twister A by Ilan Garibi - 2x2 molecules
Twister A – 2×2 molecules

This is “Twister A”, designed by Ilan Garibi, a lovely dimensional fold with a final twist to finish it off.

I have folded a few square twists, this one perches a twist on top of the intersection of opposing ridges, contains remarkably few folds on top of the base square grid.

Twister A by Ilan Garibi - molecule
Twister A Single Molecule

The basic molecule tiles awkwardly – because of the directionality (it forms in a clockwise direction) of the molecule, you have to reverse adjacent molecules if you want them to line up.

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1057: In ‘da ‘Hood

| wonko

Exploring Ilan Garibi’s lovely book “Origami Tessellations for Everybody”, the next “family” of folds starts off with “Childhood” and then evolves into more of the same:

childhood evolved
Childhood-Evolved (4×4 molecules)

This is almost a corrugation, as there are nearly no layers overlaying others – the surface treatment is deliciously dimensional, and the distortions are caused by paper tension and torsion of the underlying square-twists.

Childhood Molecule
“Childhood” molecule

I started with standard cotton-based photocopy paper (which for me is a LOT like thin Elephant Hide) and laid in a square grid. Both childhood and childhood-evolved use off divisions. I folded a regular division (halves or thirds), then halved until I was close to the required grid sizes, then sliced off unneeded units before laying in the wedge-shaped mountain creases.

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1056: Red Flower Tessellation

| wonko

Exploring the rich and intense world of tessellations, I decided it was time to try the second family of folds described in Ilan Garibi’s wonderful book “Origami Tessellations for Everyone”:

Redflower Tessellation Scale

This is ‘Red Flower’, the base fold of which there re many variations, but the base molecule is based on a square grid and (for single molecule at least) simple to pre-crease and collapse.

Redflower Tessellation Molecule

When you scale up, accuracy shows itself as important – slight errors mean that the internal collapses twist the whole sheet out of shape.

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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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1054: Brian Chan’s Eastern Dragon

| wonko

When a legend graciously shares hand-drawn diagrams for a lovely simple Eastern Dragon, one simply has to give it a go:

Brian Chan's Eastern Dragon

This is an “Eastern Dragon” – interestingly most people in the west believe you need to staple wings on such a critter so that it can fly. Our eastern cousins accept that this sort of critter can fly, wings are not necessary for this activity.

This design was recently shared, luscious hand-drawn diagrams from @brianchandesigns, a gracious and fabulous gift to the origami community.

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1053: Jake the Snek

| wonko

My Mum had a large carpet snake take up residence atop her hot water system. Apparently he (she? who can tell?) was gentle, sleepy and knocked off some terracotta plant pots in his quest for a coil-spot:

Gen Hagiwara's snake

Over a period of a couple of weeks, he moved about, basking, slithering and generally being a snek, then he buggered off (as they do).

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Exhibition

| wonko

Our local community Library has display cases, I have more origami models in storage that I can count any more so offered to provide some models for a month or so for a display:

Display cases

The interesting part of this was selecting a variety of models to demonstrate the breadth of the discipline. The challenge was to select only enough models to fill the small display cases.

Case 1

I decided on a varied collection of single sheet figures, modulars and old favourites, the mix is eclectic and dizzying.

Case 2

The exhibit is on display at least until the end of August, possibly longer.

You can go see it at Holland Park Library

The Last Dogfight

| wonko

A group of mates has, periodically over the last few decades, gotten together in a smoke-filled room to play a board game. Not any old game, but “Dogfight” – a dice-based, card controlled WW1 battle of the airspace over Europe.

Although most of the players were well passed their fifties, we squabbled like little kids, goaded each other fearlessly, preened and peacocked at our prowess and got nit-picky about the many nuances of rule variations hard won.

dogfight battle - endgame

It was honestly some of the best fun to be had, and the chaps were good sports, one and all. In January, one of our quartet passed away. “Dr Winston O’Boogie” (Michael) flew off into the sunset for the last time to great fanfare.

A quintuple ace in training

We have met since, dragging a young buck into the fold, and played until Michael’s house (the home of our epic aerial battles) was finally sold.

Tonight is our last hurrah!

Marc Kirshembaum's Biplane and Eduardo Clement's Avioneta

I have struggled to find a suitable way to celebrate such a wonderful partnership, but turned to Origami, as is my want. I wanted to fold BIPLANES for the original pilots, and a smaller plane for the new recruit, and have really struggled with these models. The Biplanes are designed by Marc Kirschenbaum. I wanted to fold them smaller but failed many times, only being able to manage them from 60cm squares (and not very tidily sadly) – red, naturally in honour of Von Richtoffen (or Snoopy, take your pick).

The smaller plane is “Avioneta” designed by Eduardo Clemente – a charming little fokker.

I hope the guys like them. I remain forever grateful for the opportunity to act like little kids when surrounded by the wonder and majesty of imagination, fun and friendship. Chocks away Chuck, fly true one and all.