2×1 rectangle

406: Zombie Uprising

| wonko

Trapped in a particularly uninteresting supervision (I am a teacher, sometimes we have to supervise other teacher’s classes), I began bending paper unsure what I was going to make.

First I fashioned a hand, devising some lovely slender (skeletal almost) hands and looked at the paper I had left and then it came ot me – zombie hand emerging from a grave.

After much experimentation on the tombstone mostly, abandoning a full cross (yes, I did successfully box pleat one but in the end it seemed unnecessarily fiddly for the concept) I settled on a simple headstone.

This is the second time, whilst doodling, a new model has emerged (the other being superdude) and I am quite chuffed with it.

If you KNOW what you are looking at, it is obvious: basic scenario of undead digging themselves out out the grave; but honestly I had some hilarious guesses from passers by who noticed I was folding and wondered what it was.

I have included the dev sequence in 2 parts (partly because I wanted to document it clearly enough so someone else could have a go at it and partly because I wanted to remember how I did it – the box-pleat on the tombstone is neat, but I have not yet come up with a scheme to eradicate the seam down it’s face.

This is a little early for Halloween, but would love someone else to have a go at folding this to see if the photsequence is stand-alone or needs extra annotation.

Any takers?

376: Langton Willow III

| wonko

Ladies and Gentleffolk, if I may be so bold as to introduce to you Mr Langton Willow III:

…so I bought a lovely book about an Origamist I worship, Eric Joisel, and was scanning pages prior to an in-depth read and came accross what seemed like an impossibility – a dwarf in a box. There were some photos of a couple of versions of the finished model and some sketches of crease patterns that might have been used to make it and nothing else …

So I decided to give it a whirl. The crease patterns gave no clues on what were mountain and valley folds (fairly important if you are going to make the model) so I sort of “guessed” most, and added a bunch of lines that would make the folding easier later, so I thought. I chose a large format paper – 1.2m x 0.6m, and in brown paper – thank goodness as even laying in the creases (a 2.5 hour job) put massive strain on a number of key points.

When it came to the collapse I must admit to being nervous – odd in retrospect but I had pre-announced to the social notwerks that I was attempting it and that was a mistake because psychologically that meant I could not fail in my attempt.

Studying the illustrations carefully, it became clear that when Joisel had his first try, there were odd gusset pleats on the OUTSIDE of the box that the dwarf sits in, I figured with some deft folding I could remove them and tuck that paper inside the box.

I must admit to grinning ear to ear when I worked out how I could do that tidily. This model was a fascinating exercise in not rushing to set a crease. After getting up, making another cup of tea, doing something else, coming back, leaving it a while then returning to it etc. I found a tidy method of tucking away what seemed like acres of paper inside the box to leave … well .. the box.

Conceptually we have split a dwarf – the head/arms and the legs/feet are split apart and the paper for a box is inserted between – the only difficult is ensuring a box-like remnant that lets you also tuck the dwarf-bits inside.

Oddly, the proportions of the dwarf necessitate lanky legs and a gaunt head, but that is in-keeping with the overall feeling of the model. It is like the dwarf is trying to get out of the box – what he was doing in there in the first place is a mystery, but there you go.

I have to admit to being very proud of achieving this model – the result is delightful, there is an astonishing amount of paper tucked away to reveal a lanky dwarf with real character.  I have no idea what I will do with this chap – it was originally going to be something I tried for shits and giggles, fully expecting to fail but the grinning has not stopped. I have “cheated” by using a few paper clips to keep the box corners together but I think Joisel would forgive me that.

373: Mermaid

| wonko

When I first saw this pattern, I thought “oh no, more cobra pleating” and relegated it to the “not before counselling” pile:

At the moment the weather is wet, hot and the humidty is such that you could cut it with a knife and I got to thinking who would be at home in this sort of weather – the answer was obvious, a mermaid.

I have some offcuts of lithography paper, they just so happen to be as near as anything to 2×1, so this model works well on them – mind you, at this scale, the tail pleating is close to as fine as I can actually do with that paper – folding 24ths down to 4mm is not fun and the paper did not like it, humidity not helping at all.

In the end, we have a lovely figurative mermaid – slightly fishy, lovely flowing hair, hand modestly covering ample bosom and calm face. Her posture suggested reclining – I believe they “moon-bake”, not sure where I got that from but anyway I made a rock for her to luxuriate on and it sort of works.

I learned a lot folding this for the first time, and will probably fold it again, I think I can improve the upper body a little – we shall see. Happy with the result none the less. You would get a decent fillet off her I would guess – the other other other white meat?

The instructions (well, actually a fairly rough folding guide actually) were in French, with odd proprietary annotations but it was fairly obvious what was going where from the outset – ingenious and not dissimilar to something I was working on myself but abandoned because it got busy last year.

post-script: In talking to Eric Vigier on Facebook, he had this to say:

Yes it’s mine , and you’re right in your comment : “odd proprietary annotations” but for my defence it’s my first diag , made at hands in 2002, i’m always happy to see that I drew it for something , so thank you ! For the story, I met Eric Joisel in 2002, we became friends and met regulary at his home at this time and when he saw my mermaid he said me that he would like to do one since a certain time , so I gave him my diag and the result is the magnificent mermaid you try actually , that is the sharing way i like to see in the Origami world !”

How wonderful is this Internet-encircled world I ask you?

315: Lest We Forget

| wonko

Today was “Remembrance Day”, at 11 am on the 11th of the 11th, 2011 the nation stops to give thanks and praise to the fallen soldiers from all world wars:

This is Frances Ow’s “Star Medal” – a lovely paper decoration (made even lovelier by making it in metallic paper) that I thought was fitting as a tribute to the day and also to distribute to a bunch of WWI ‘Aces’ who meet semi-regularly to play an old school board game with vigor and passion.

The gold medal was awarded to the “ballsy-est” move in the game – a near suicidal strafe on enemy base, the rest of us got bronze. In retrospect I should have folded one in purple, or better still folded a “purple heart” as one of the pilots was severely under the weather. Made from a 2×1 rectangle, based on a hexagon, the collapse is elegant and pleasing, a masterful design.

I originally folded this a while back, holding off until today to publish (so sue me)

302: Pereira’s Jack In The Box

| wonko

If you were ever after proof that “magic happens”, here’s your proof:

This masterpiece of design by Hugo Pereira is a Jack-in-a-box, complete. those who have been keeping up with this blog will remember a previous Jack in the Box by Max Hulme and I must admit I like this one better.

The design engineering alone in this model is breathtaking, from the box to the spring and then to the jack, the details here are lovely and structurally amazing.

So many technical elements here, from intense closed-sinks, folds that cause automatic puckers in the spring and just when you think you are near the end a tight pair of accordion folds to make the arms in almost Elias style.

I am so stoked with this, as a first fold. After an hour of pre-folding, the actual collapse took relatively little time considering the complexity of the model. I had relegated this model the “yeah, prolly not” pile because it just looked too hard – indeed, some of the manoeuvres only make sense if you look before, after and what that part will eventually be used for.

Sense of achievement – tick 🙂

285: National Ride To Work Day

| wonko

I heard on teh radio this morning that it was National “Ride to Work” Day and narrowly avoided running over a flock of cyclists near the freeway entrance – it got me thinking what riding to work might be like:

I had a model I was looking for an excuse to try, and initially tried it on paper smaller than recommended (a 2×1 rectangle cut from an A3 sheet) only to find it sort of worked in miniature scale, but decided it needed to be bigger. Our school art department has this paper designed for lithography, thin, light, lovely.

I cut a rectangle 1m x 50cm and this is the resulting fold, quite magnificent if tiny given the huge bit of paper it started as. Quite wonderful if I must say so myself. Designed by David Brill, this masterpiece has much to love – the horse (or more correctly pony) is very horsey, and the integrated rider looks like he is riding – very clever indeed.

I was trapped at work, waiting for a meeting so had a little time to kill – so glad I killed it with this. this scale model lets me build character into the elements, the rider’s knees and elbows, alert horse ears and a mouth. The designer apologized for the thin front legs but I am prepared to overlook that minor detail – bravo Mr Brill!

277: Azalea

| wonko

I realise I have not folded many flowers – in my opinion not a lot of them look like flowers:

This azalea is pretty good – yes my first fold is a little wonky but I can see how if I were to fold it again I could improve it.

A nice design using Rhodes double-bird base, I can see applications for this flower and may try it again when I am less busy.

264: Stinkbug

| wonko

I mowed yesterday, and noticed my citrus trees were once again infested with stinkbugs:

I would dearly love a solution to this annual pest – not only do they smell, they damage the new growth of the tree and mark the fruit. Worse, I am allergic to the stuff they spray in defense when disturbed – I come up in horrible blistery sores that take ages to heal.

The trees are quite large, individually picking off the bugs is impractical, I am open to suggestions.

This little bug was very badly diagrammed (sorry whever did it), I had to improvise at many junctures and would fold it differently if I were to fold this again – you live and learn however.

Morphologically, this is a fairly good stink bug actually, just a pain to fold at this scale.

244: White Rabbits!

| wonko

A Pinch and a punch (well, more correctly a sink, pleat and reverse fold – lol, origamist joke there) for the first of the month:

This nice little rabbit is a clever use of a 2×1 rectangle and has a pleasing shape – heaps of modelling potential beyond the base fold.

Designed in 2008 by Hoang Tine Quyet, it is in my top 5 rabbit models already – such a cute tail and some flopsy ears also.

It was also Helpdesk Chris’s 21st Birthday today – yay – I made him a user-friendly computer guy, because, well, Chris is a user-friendly computer guy:

Happy 21st Birthday Chris, hope you had a fun day!

234: Goat

| wonko

A simple model for today:

A nice little goat – poseable, with some lovely horns, this goaty model is free standing and an interesting use of a waterbomb at one end of a 2×1 rectangle.

Staff meeting, late home, felt a little like livestock being led to slaughter, you get that. Top that off with falling asleep in front of the telly.

209 Elias’ Bull

| wonko

When I bought “Selected Works” by Neil Elias, I was delighted with teh collection of box pleating models from the founder of this technique

After watching masterchef tonight I thought “What a lot of bull” – judges and contestants sprouting such a lot of false sentimentality the model I decided to fold was really obvious (at least to me)

there is much to like about this model – it looks stroppy, like it is readt to charge – head down, horns to the front, nice. The hind quarters are also good except the back legs seem an odd proportion to the rest of the model. Knowing how hard it is to plan and design a mode however I will forgive Mr Elias.

Very happy with this as a first fold – I must explore more of Elias’ work, many amazing figures from an origamist before his time. Not a good sign that the wife could not pick what the animal was (I think it is relatively obvious – maybe that is just me)

185: Bald Eagle for July 4th

| wonko

After abandoning a search for a decent “statue of liberty” model, I decided to settle on an American Bald Eagle as a symbol of independence, what the 4th July is celebrated for in the US:

After looking around, I settled on a figurative bald eagle by Robert Lang from “The Complete Book of Origami” and happy with many aspects of this fold.

Difficult to complete with copy paper, the thickness and brittle nature of copy paper means that several steps are likely to distress the paper severely and the body thickness makes shaping late in the fold difficult – quite happy with this as a first fold. I added pleats on teh wings to suggest feathers as I thought the wings needed it, and modded the talons a little to make them less clumsy.

Should I fold this again, I now know what becomes what and so would approach some of the steps a little differently, but living/folding is learning – right?

173: Siberian Hamster

| wonko

Manuel emphatically suggests “Is no rat, is “Siberian Hampster, man is shop tell me” he insists – it cracks me up every time:

Fawlty Towers is not a show I can watch anymore, but a beloved memory is Manuel’s pet, “Basil” the rat, so I made one.

Curious and torturous fold this one – I stopped understanding the instructiosn and sort of winged it in all honesty – the Spanish with poorly drawn diagrams did my head in a bit, but I think I rescued a rat-like object from the chaos.

A deliciously complicated collapse does most of the work here, then it is mostly shaping – I made the mistake of using a 2×1 rectangle from an A4 page – it needed to be much larger, but you live and learn. When I fold this again I will be armed with the knowledge of what ends up where.

I can see much potential in this model – lots of paper for a nice tail, lovely head and ears, plenty of paper for legs – this base is a keeper.

158: Little Plane

| wonko

Stuck for something to do, honestly, so decided to try and make sense of a set of instructions in Spanish with hand-drawn diagrams and hola:

This is a little plane – most likely a cesna or similar – remarkably little effort to make a fairly detailed plane

Nice landing gear, good wings – it glides! No propeller or back tail flaps, but otherwise a satisfying model – amazing really because the instructions sort of run out well before a plane-like object is formed … so I “winged it” – hahaha – soz, it is late, I am tired and you should be impressed I folded anything at all.

When translating, I get to a point where it says “important it is that white side upmost is facing” … that would be FINE if I was not folding an all white model – lol. I have yet to learn to swear in Spanish, so I resorted to verbose and guttural Klingon.

152: A Magic White Rabbit

| wonko

I like this model – a rabbit sitting atop a dice (white spots on the white die – totally Zen)

Made with a 2×1 rectangle, containing a waterbomb and crafting the rabbit from what was left is neat

I like the ears, nose and posture of the rabbit, and the fact that the waterbomb base is neat (oft times I make them lop-sided) and am happy with this “white rabbits” for the first day of the month

Folded from my oldest Origami book “Secrets of Origami” by Robert Harbin, the model is actually designed by Fred Rhom.