848: (298/365) Dogfight

| wonko

I am blessed to have friends who occasionally gather around an original board game from the 60’s and pit plane against plane in a WW2ish game of “Dogfight”:

Tonight it was the valiant PDub against the Von Richtoffen Brothers, with much valiance on both sides, some gutsy moves and a bunch of squabbling like 4 year-olds.

Cards, dice, strategy, attack but in the end, the Von Richtoffen brothers were victorious, only after sustaining tragic losses of a triple-ace in training and a double-ace in training by a plucky little airman who went down in a blaze of glory. Continue reading →

847: (297/365) Tigger

| wonko

Perusing my copy of Drawing Origami – Tome 2, I noticed a lovely little tiger designed by Oriol Esteve:

This teensy weensy tiger is very cute, has resplendent stripes and terrific proportions from paws to tail. Continue reading →

846: (296/365) Peacock 1

| wonko

I gotta learn to be more careful, the previous post (which I removed the number from) turned out to be a refold from my first 365 (years ago) that I had forgotten about (I got the fold sequence from somewhere else and did not twig to the duplication … so sue me 😛 ) Fortunately a follower pointed this out:

This is Jun Maewawa’s “Peacock 1” – a lovely exercise in Miura Ori corrugation folding for the tail and some interesting layer management to form legs and head among it. Continue reading →

Triceratops

| wonko

EDIT: as a kind reader pointed out, I have already folded this model, so it cannot count as one of the current 365. It is a relief on 2 fronts (1) Someone is reading and (2) This fold of this model is vastly superior to the original

Some call me a dinosaur, they may be justified but if I am even half as cool as this Triceratops, then it is all good:

Designed by Jun Maekawa, this delightful little dinosaur is one of my +favs so far in that it has all the triceratopsy features (3 horns, flat plate head, stocky body, lovely proportions) and still remains simple enough to achieve easily with a 40cm square (prolly smaller with more nimble fingers)
Continue reading →

845: (295/365) Leaf Katydid

| wonko

Insects seem to be a fascination among origami designers – at the height of “bug wars” when designers were competing for the most intricate designs that were  complex, had lots of legs, were thin and realistic renderings and really pushed the boundaries of existing techniques:

This astonishing model starts as a frog base. Through a torturous set of point isolation and narrowing, we get the impossibly thin legs and a lovely set of antennae. Halve this, now fold that in half, then do a double rabbit ear, now halve that … thank goodness for thiiiiin paper and accurate folding. Continue reading →

844: (294/365) Our House, is a very very very fine house …

| wonko

It seems to be the season for buying houses. A couple of my work colleagues have, individually, in the last little while purchased houses:

The “Great Australian Dream” apparently is to own your own home – this seems irrefutable proof that it is still entirely possible. Continue reading →

843: (293/365) Origami Architecture

| wonko

I was doodling with a 17cm square, divided into an 8×8 grid and collapsed, via a photodiagram (and a bit of wrestle-magic) into a curious but possibly useful surface corrugation/tessellation:

With an exercise in patience, fold accuracy and layer management, a “swastika”-like collapse becomes a sunken 4 segment recess, then the edges tidy up with some propagatible pleats, making this tesselatable. Continue reading →

842: (292/365) Divided Bowl

| wonko

Doodling with a traditional birdbase, I noticed a way to open it up so there were 4 equal sized partitions that I could get to go flat:

Researching a little, it seems Jun Maekawa pioneered this, and also suggested a lovely corner locking mechanism that made the whole structure quite stable.

I can see this as actually useful – it is really efficient as a use of paper so you could feasibly make one that is the right size for nuts, lollies etc for parties.

841: (291/365) Shuriken

| wonko

Now I am pretty sure that “ninja stars” were not really a thing, but – meh:

This rather charming woven six-pointed star is an interesting exercise in re-working a square into a windmill-like hexagonal base. Continue reading →

840: (290/365) Gaff’s Electric Sheep

| wonko

Origami has featured in cinema in many ways. The Blade Runner franchise uses origami figures to accentuate certain story points and the most recent movie features an elderly “Gaff”, in a retirement home, folding a sheep:

After some research it seems the model was a tweaked Jun Maekawa model. tweaked because the original has curled horns that would make a quick-shot less clear on screen. Continue reading →

839: (289/365) Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport!

| wonko

I am always on the look out for well designed Kangaroos:

Interestingly, the best ones are often designed by people who do not have them around. This delightful 2-part model is designed by Kunihiko Kasahara, from the book “Origami Made Easy”. Continue reading →

838: (288/365) Maine Lobster

| wonko

A 365 Challenge is a mixture of blessing and curse:

The relentless schedule amidst a full time job and part time life is challenging at times. I started this model last weekend but ran out of weekend before it was finished. Continue reading →

837: (287/365) Jackson’s Chameleon

| wonko

Looking for a nice, rich, challenging fold for the day, I knew I needed to try a model from Robert Lang:

This is his model “Jackson’s Chameleon” – a deliciously complicated model with all the chameleonic bits you expect.

Working with a slightly un-square square of light green washi, the pre-folding is fascinating, layer management and seemingly impossible moves abound – there were many times I thought I had screwed up, only to find out that it worked. Continue reading →

836: (286/365) Pteranodon

| wonko

I for one think collectors of fossils need to be really careful piecing together extinct animals from scant remains.

Many a time illogical collections of bones have been cobbled together to bamboozle the public and, at first glance, a Pteranodon seems about illogical as a platypus. Continue reading →

835: (285/365) Coyote

| wonko

It is a full moon, 24 miles south of the OKish Corral, and the local Coyotes are howling:

This rather cute wolf/dog/coyote…thing is a rather nicely structured quadruped that I think is a useful base for modelling other such critters.

It is part of a collection of wolves/howling things I looked out for when a particular house at school decided to use a howling wolf as their mascot this year. Continue reading →