45min

332: Elephant

| wonko

You know when you get a song stuck in your head, and it will not go away? Usually the song is totally daggy but so solidly lodged in your psyche that it effects your judgement:

“Baby Elephant Walk” is stuck in my head at the moment – I will excorcise it with some Rammstein later but for now my mind turns to folding elephants. This is my first fold of John Montroll’s Elephant (taken from his book “Origami Sculptures”).

Not really happy with it – an early inaccuracy compounded through the model making the legs asymmetrical and the shoulders gape – you get that sometimes. I quite like the head/ears/trunk and the rear has modelling potential. I will fold this again, when I have more time, if I remember (unlike an elephant, I forget things all the time).

331: Happy Hogswatch!

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I have been a fan of Terry Pratchett’s writing for as long as it was possible – his amagination and ability to tell engaging stories is breathtaking:

I thought it apt to celebrate “Hogswatch” – a Discworld event (and the name of one of the dozens of novels set in this amazing imaginary world). I am constantly amazed and amused with the stable of characters, situations and his turn of phrase – if you have never read a Discworld novel then you must, you really must.

This delightful model is my favourite pig so far. designed by Adolfo Cerceda, folded from “Secrets of origami” by Robert Harbin, my oldest (and a bit fall-aparty) hard-cover book.

Complete with a lovely fat face, saggy jowls, nice ears, trotters and a curly tail, this compound model (uses 2 bird bases) is fantastic – very happy with it – he makes me hungry for bacon – is that wrong?

We shall soon be considering Ham, turkey and all the trimmings, with the festive season fast approaching, hope your Hogswatch is a good one.

326: Rough End First

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All too often we feel like we are dealt the “rough end” of the pineapple:

It is a curious expression that, I think at least, has something to do with inserting said pineapple in a pineapple-unfriendly place (makes my eyes water just thinking about it).

This is a pleated structure designed by David Petty and it contains techniques I will use elsewhere.

You can see the pineapple-like structure (squint, close one eye, through a mirror) … yeah, there it is and this design is meant to be folded with duo coloured paper, as the top would then be a different colour to the bottom – neat.

I have seen much larger paper sculptures using this “stretched pleated rib” technique and now I know how they were made, which is a good thing.

Paper and folding is taking up waaaay too much of my life right now – have other things I HAVE to do but will somehow muddle through,

322: Fledgling

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Comes time in the life of all magpie chicks, when pin feathers have moulted and the adult feathers, shiny and new are through, untested. The fledgling inches to the edge of the nest, mindful of the effects of gravity. With encouragement, and a gentle nudge, the fledgling spreads its wings, tenses the flight muscles it has been exercising more recently. In an act of self belief, it launches into the great blue yonder:

This is Jun Maekawa’s Crow (or similar, cannot read the Japanese, sorry) – I like that this bird looks like it needs to grow into it’s feet and wings – much as I imagine a fledgling does.

Why a fledgling? A new batch of year 12s launch itself into the real world today. Their future is entirely in their hands, the potential is all there, they will make of it what they see fit. I hope they look after each other, and themselves, that they make the world a better place to be and never forget that they can make wonderful things happen if they can be bothered.

Happy with this as a first fold, lovely feet, nicely proportioned body, economy of use of paper, great design.

321: Zombeh!!!

| wonko

I love it how you can have a serious and in-depth discussion with students about Zombies:

They are experts – both the “undead” and “infection” zombies could, like, totally happen – yeah, and it is well understood how to dispatch them.

Having not long finished an adaptation of Jane Austin’s classic tale “Pride and Prejudice (and Zombies)” I am in touch with my undead self.

Well, in truth, I am a little undead zombie myself – marking does that to my brain, with perilously close deadlines and waaaaay too much to actually do before it, I neeeeeed braaaaaaiiinnnsss!!!

This is Jun Maekawa’s Zombie – well, I assume that is what it is as the book I got it out of is entirely in Japanese and I cannot read it, so, yeah. I love this posture of this model, the hands reach out sinisterly and there is just enough of a facial expression to know he is gunning for your fresh brain.

Glad I used a scrap of lithography paper for this model – copy paper would not have let me puff out and flatten the face before disintegrating.

319: Performing Seal

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The crowd gasped and applauded enthusiastically at the task do deftly performed by the seal on display. The seal sighed, feeling that the humans watching it were easily amused and so concentrated on the mathematics of parabolic hyperflexion and existential philosophy to pass the time until the next fish was tossed her way:

This is Fred Rohm’s “Performing Seal” an old-school model that is clever none the less. Perched atop the nose of a reasonably nicely formed seal is a beachball – all ONE piece of paper, some nice bending in this.

This and the “Magic White Rabbit” both make use of a blended waterbomb, should I fold this one again I would ensure it is less square.

Quite ingenious, we use a 3×1 rectangle and tuck most of it away to leave the seal.

I have never understood the justification from animal trainers – the whole “reinforcing natural behaviours” falls flat on it’s face with these sorts of tricks – still, so long as the crowd loves them it cannot be all bad – right?

318: Dromedary

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On review, I have not folded many camels – I have no idea why this is:

This is John Montroll’s “Dromedary”, a one-humped Arabian camel and there is much to like about the model, if not my first fold of it.

Lovely ears and face, curious sunken hump, legs more or less in the right place.

I might fold this one again, I learned much on the first time through, and it was a mashup of his “camel” instructions to a modified base, so I did not really know what was going to be what until fairly late in the piece (hence the disoriented development pictures).

Busy times, lots to do, spent waaaay too much time on this, you get that.

312: Gerboa

| wonko

Now in arid areas of Australia life is hard. Some animals never drink, some come out an night, some live underground – the gerboa does all these things and more:

Sometimes called the “Kangaroo rat” because of its rather splendid tail and hoppy back legs, it has always fascinated me.

When I saw this model I knew I would have to try it – copy paper, to be honest, is a terrible media for this but I soldiered on and am actually very happy with this as a first fold.

An ingenious use of the bird base, I will fold this again – it is poseable, has lots of character and the most lovely feet and tail – very clever design.

297: Taxi!

| wonko

In old Chinatown, when someone wanted to travel in style, they hailed a “coolie” pulling a rickshaw:

This picture was common in days gone by, these days the hustle and bustle of bicycles, motorbikes and tuk-tuks has replaced the hard work.

This is Neal Elias’ “Coolie and Rickshaw”, designed in1967. An ingenious box pleat using a square and tidily fashioning a running man and a 2 wheeled buggy behind, replete with lovely conical hat, wheels and canopy.

I have been wanting to try this for a while, just because really. Taken from “Selected works 1964-1973” by British Origami Society. I am happy with this as a first fold. I modified the body and legs a little to add a sense of movement, and re-worked the wheels so they were round (the original design had them nearly square).

293: Kawahata’s TRex

| wonko

It was late, I was tired, and this model did not come easily from a baffling set of instructions:

I will fold this again, but for now this is my first fold – rough but the vestiges of a row of teeth, sort of arms, nearly toes and a good tail/body – plenty of scope to improve.

Folded from “Origami Fantasy” by Fumiaki Kawahata, this model is tough at this scale.

292: Montroll’s Rhino

| wonko

I have been exploring the work of John Montroll, and came across this little beauty:

A lovely Rhino, dual horns, lovely ears and a splendid tail, I am impressed with the rhinocerosness of this design, you get a sense of the armor-plating, power and posture of the beast.

Some clever pre-folding and some interesting sink folds to tease stickey-outey bits from flat edges, and the collapse for the head is interesting indeed.

Happy with this as a first fold, my pick of the rhinos folded so far.

290: Dachshund

| wonko

Awoke with a banging headache, have laid low for most of the day, decided I needed something simple:

Little did I realise how un-simple this model was. Not hard, just lots of steps really and the end result is a lovely “sausage dog”.

John Montroll is a design genius, and this model uses his “dog base” to sculpt a rather nice dachshund from a square – lots of modelability, plenty of character.

Taken from his book “Origami Sculptures”, this is a keeper, hope you like him too. It uses a stretched variation of his dog base. Try it: sausage

Nice to see readers having a go. Here is Everett’s fold:everett

287: Fuse Box (Small Flowers)

| wonko

Tomoko Fuse is a genius in designing intricate boxes:

this is called “Small Flowers” because of an incidental pattern the overlapping edges make, sort of looks like aflower. I made it in colour only because a monochrome version would not have been remarkable.

The lid and the base are each comprised of 4 pieces of paper, an interlocking modular that is fairly rigid and would make a nice stocking case or filled with some sweet treat.

Why a “Fuse Box”? Well, Energex had a transformer on the street go pop and our school spent the day without power – all interesting. I thought a paper play on words might be fun.

278: Passing Notes

| wonko

Now those who know me realise 2 things – I love music but I cannot read those little black dots on the lines for nuts:

It was doubly problematic when I was in a choir as all those around me were able to sight-read and I … sort of … faked it (I have good pitch and developed a skill of singing along).

It was/is a frustration that is heightened when I am confused, tired, stressed and … well … pretty well all the time really.

This model, designed by Jeremy Shaffer is a neat little cluster of notes and is very tidy, considering it came from a square there is lots of tough hiding of paper inside to make a polished model.

WHY fold this? Well, today JJJ released a new radio station – “Unearthed” that promises to give a whole bunch of unsigned bands a place for their music to be broadcast – this is a wonderful thing IWHO.

271: Pelican

| wonko

I have been looking for a nice pelican (yes, I know that is an odd thing to say, but good pelican origami models are hard to find):

This is the best I have found so far, and although it is not free-standing, contains much that is pelicanny.

Lovely bill, nice feet (if a little thin and spindly) and the vestiges of nice wings, I think I will keep looking.

Folded after returning home from a conference (lots of nice people sharing). Busy times, sometimes you get that.