There are only a few origami figures I MUST have in my collection – Steven Casey’s “Echidna” is one of these:

This adorable little monotreme is covered in one of my favourite square-grid tessellations, but skillfully crafted to allow all the other body bits to be where they need to.

I bought the British Origami Society booklet describing how to fold this treasure as soon as I knew it existed, and have folded it a few times now. Some sequences are nightmare fuel – this one is just so enjoyable to fold.

I recently received a shipment of paper from Origami-shop.com and in it was a 65cm 11 colour pack of the NEW Shadow Thai paper. I last bought it in 40cm square form but it was THICK so to my delight this version is thinner and takes complex folds really nicely. I chose this fur-like colour because it most closely matched the quill and hair colour of an echidna.

The short-beaked echidna has a smaller snout, head less separated from the body and is overall smaller – I tried to incorporate some of those features into this version – making the snout shorter afforded extra paper that I then colour-changed into a little tongue which I thought appropriate.

I like how the tessellation for the body has strategic gaps allowing seams to form a rounded body – the placement of the front and back legs with their 3 toes each is also wonderful. The body locks together really positively but as this will be a display piece I added some tiny glue spots to keep the locks in place – prolly overkill but … meh.

The thin Shadow Thai is lovely to fold, takes creases really well, has a black mulberry sheet with brightly coloured mottled overbeaten pulp sprayed on one side – the colours are just so luscious.

I am not looking forward to giving this little chap away, but that time will come when I have finished the 5 aussie animal series I have started on.