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754: (204/365) Gaff’s Blade Runner Chicken

| wonko

My top 5 movies of all time includes the Sci-Fi classic “Blade Runner”. A couple of times during the movie, to confirm a character’s opinion of Deckard’s actions, his sidekick “Gaf” left an origami figure:

One was actually folded by the actor (Edward James Olmos) – a gum wrapper was fashioned into a Chicken. He said he did this as a way of staying in the scene without pulling focus, apparently the Director, Ridley Scott, noticed it and included it in the scene to counterpoint the main characters reluctance to get himself into danger, which later he does anyway. Continue reading →

752: (202/365) Riccardo Foschi’s Koi

| wonko

It was late, I was tired and I must admit to going to bed before folding yesterday. Full week, new levels of fatigue:

I found these diagrams on Pinterest – seems they are test diagrams (oops, sorry) but I love the shape and model structure. Continue reading →

751: (201/365) Pushing Shiz Uphill

| wonko

Sometimes work can be busy. When spares are sparse, classes all doing new/complex things and physical exertion hit their peak, sometimes you can feel like you are pushing shiz up hill:

This is a lovely little dung beetle, coveting it’s little ball of dung. It is a charming fold that I was unsure if I could complete with the size paper I started with.

Designed by Shinji Sasade, appearing in a Tanteidan I was leafing through, described entirely in Japanese so I hope I have fold it correctly. The dung-ball is a waterbomb, but the beetle actually locks into it – very cool. Continue reading →

747: (197/365) Root Veg

| wonko

Winter is for hearty food, stews and seasonal root veg:

With such open food importing and trade however we see every vegetable and fruit available all year round. Peru grows my Asparagus, Venezuela exports my Fennel and China supplies my Carrots at the moment. Continue reading →

746: (196/365) Fairly Bloody Long Walk

| wonko

My lovely daughter walked for charity last year and I was so proud of her (secretly regretting not doing it with her). This year, the same walk is on offer at, thankfully, at a much cooler time of year so we are both walking “The Bloody Long Walk” in early August:

Today, as part of our prep we did a fairly bloody long walk, from Brighton to Redcliffe and back again to see how far it is (apparently about 26km according to Google).

I returned to an Origami master – Akira Yoshizawa – his little person, made from the frog base is genius – spirit of the subject, glorious simplicity and I managed to fold it in my state after today’s test walk. Continue reading →

744: (194/365) Wizard’s Hat

| wonko

Anyone who has seen any of the “Lord of the Rings/Hobbit” movies will recognise the profile of this hat:

Gandalf the Grey wore a wondrous felt hat like this, Mike Luo’s “Witches Hat”. Continue reading →

743: (193/365) Sleepy Cat

| wonko

Origami cats are hard – their soft elastic ways are difficult to depict artistically with a medium as stiff and uniform as paper:

This is Christophe Boudias’ “Sleepy Cat”, a lovely model that I think manages to capture the posture of a cat that is cuddling up ready to sleep, tucking it’s little pawsies under its chin. Continue reading →

742: (192/365) Chicken or the Egg

| wonko

The age old questions, “what came first, the chicken or the egg” can be best answered with available fossil records as Dinosaurs came first:

Waterproof eggs, such a step forward, liberating egg laying critters from having to deposit precious and defenceless young in pools, streams or wet places and allowed full colonisation of the land. Continue reading →

739: (189/365) “Shoulda’ bought a Squirrel”

| wonko

Cautionary advice indeed for anyone who has seen the movie comedy “Rat Race”:
We saw our first live squirrels when we first travelled to the UK, in a lovely park in Holland Park (interestingly the same suburb name we live in now here in Australia).

Lovely little grey filly, impossibly fluffy tail, cutely flitting around in the underbrush. Continue reading →

737: (187/365) Penguin

| wonko

Reading through Origami Bygota, I stumbled across Ma Yong’s charming penguin:

Clever use of colour change goes part way to defining a penguin, but proportions and general morphology also helps. Continue reading →

736: (186/365) Stoopid Monkey!

| wonko

Australian politicians are a weird lot. Not “American” (shoot first then barbeque something) weird, just an odd lurch from crisis to crisis and stab your mate in the back for a shot at leadership kind of weird:

A recently deposed Prime Minister (Mr Tony Abott) is being a bit of an arse clown in the media, white-anting his own party and providing gifts for our hapless opposition in terms of instability and leaks. Continue reading →

735: (185/365) Flipper!

| wonko

What’s that Flipper? Timmy has fallen out of his boat and is surrounded by sharks? You get the coastguard and I will get the anti-shark spray:

An irrational tale of a Dolphin and his stupid pet human. I do not know about you but I grew up on cheesy American telly – Flipper, Brady Bunch, I Dream of Jeanie, The Munsters… all those shows now on high rotation on the dozens of cable channels that you flip through looking for something that is actually watchable. Continue reading →

733: (183/365) Panda

| wonko

Matt and Alix came over for lunch, so nice to have their company (BLATs and an amazing, experimental chocolate souffle):

We ate, talked, played Takenoko – a board game about Pandas and bamboo farming, such cute imagery. I want to say I won, but I played and did my best – that is always good enough. Continue reading →

731: (181/365) As Quiet as a ….

| wonko

Today’s fold suffers a little from scale, but is none the less a cute little mouse:

I must re-fold this model, there is huge potential for modelling, posing and character with this design, a clever little layer manipulation exercise. Continue reading →