As far as I can tell, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are dumb:
On this blog, NFTs stand for “Newly Folded Things”, but in the imaginary world of cryptocurrency and blockchain, NFTs were going to be the next big thing.
…until they were linked to money laundering, and people buying them realised that all they were actually buying was an entry in some blockchain register, not the “like, really cool, next level bored ape…man” [I assume that is how “the kids” now speak]
This NFT Bored ape was designed by Viswa Sarathi, and I stumbled across the design leafing through an edition of “Origamiaze – The Indian Origami Magazine Issue 02 December 2022” (yes, I was amazed there was one also)
Folded using duo Ikea Kraft paper, it was a fun (if wildly inaccurately diagrammed) fold – on re-fold I think I would refine the expression to make the ape even more bored.
Wrapping up an editing spot on a forthcoming new book, I decided to fold Tu Kaiming’s design for a Flying Western Dragon:
It is rare to see a dragon posed mid-flight, and I like the approach taken here.
Oddly, it is usually westerners that think dragons need wings to fly – but they bring a dynamism that it is difficult to achieve without them. I also like the styling (ribs and other details) – the ribs remind me of the Xenomorph I just finished also – a nice detail. The head is simple, horns suggested – a nice balance of form and function.
Using a 50cm square of rust-coloured Satogami (my first sheet from a paper pack I got from Origami-shop.com) the base creases are easy but the model escalates pretty quickly to become a tight bundle. The Satogami took the contortions and flex tension pretty well (even during a dense “turn this part inside out as a complex reverse-fold sink). Satogami is a heavy paper with an interesting subtle texture – I must use it some more.
It is clear that Origami is currently experiencing a Renaissance – so many new designs emerging from everywhere, it is also wonderful that we are getting to see new designs from all over the world.
I have long been drawn to the particular thrill of Science-Fiction based horror – few franchises do it like Alien:
This Xenomorph, designed by Kade Chan (you too can have a go at folding it here) was folded from a 60cm square of Crumpled VOG paper – a rare find in my stash, near last remnant of a purchase some 10 years ago when you could still buy VOG paper.
My previous fold of this model was in crispy Kraft in 2013, and I had always meant to return to it and fold a presentation fold. With the release of “Alien Romulus” in cinemas, I figured the chest burster was about ready to pop.
I first folded these little critters, designed by Robert J Lang, using a square cut from an A3 printer paper sheet back in 2011 as part of my original 365 project:
Remarkably, even with that terrible paper, all the features of the critter were present however not very refined.
Australians call these “Slaters”, but they also go under the name “wood lice” because these little isopods are found in decaying vegetation – which is why I decided they should be folded from Mango Leaf paper. It makes this fold a bit “meta” in that the critter is folded from mulberry paper that contains leaf litter.
The fold sequence is exacting, forming trapezoidal molecules for each of the 14 legs, along with antennae and a rather beautiful segmented shell. This model appears in a few of Robert’s books, I folded this one from “Origami Insects 2” – a rather splendid volume from Origami House in Japan. bought from Origami-shop (even though, strictly speaking, it is not an INSECT….).
I decided to fold two so we could see one open and one curling up into a little armoured ball – they do this when in danger.
Our current car is old, but a lovely tiny Mitsubishi Colt (that looks a LOT like this model), and … eventually … we will need to replace it but, annoyingly Mitsubishi only make HUGE battleships now – not everyone wants a battleship!!!
The life of a male praying mantis is not all beer and skittles – inattentive and less nimble males often become a post coital snack for their partners in a brutal twist on “the circle of life”:
This is a pair of Satoshi Kamiya’s Praying Mantis, and this may well be my longest fold (in total elapsed time) to date. Two and a half years ago (the year before I had retired), I sat down with a crispy 55cm square of Kraft paper and began folding the maquette for this model (the brown one). I was stressed, it ate up an afternoon and calmed my racing brain but I got tired, lost my place and then mental fog set in and I could not for the life of me work out how to do the next step (making the little barbs on the inside of the front legs).
Determined to return to it the next day, I tucked the model into the open book I had in my book stand, put it away and … ignored it for 2.5 years. I am not sure my book “Works of Satoshi Kamiya 3” appreciated being splayed open for all that time and is now, finally, resting closed with the rest of my Origami library.
I finally had the “perfect” mantis paper – pre-coated green Unryushi tissue from Kami paper store, purchased a month or so ago when we were in Melbourne. I cut a perfect 50cm square from this deliciously thin and crisp paper and began folding. I was fired up to return to the partially finished but stalled fold and give it another go – how hard could that be?
I folded the green up to where I had stopped with the brown, then realised the next step was actually pretty simple (just not clearly diagrammed – representing such complex 3d manipulation in a series of line drawings is really hard, I know), so was able to take both the maquette and green production fold all the way to the end of an astonishing 271 step sequence.
The design is genius, and relatively efficient – interestingly there are triangle sections of paper folded away into the middle legs that is the only “waste”. Via a torturous process of isolating, crenellating and thinning the entire morphology of a lethal stick insect emerges from the tangle.
As an apex predator, the praying mantis is the perfect killing machine. Large swiveling eyes, sensitive antennae on a fully articulated head, complete with chomping mouth parts. Perfectly proportioned and armored thorax sporting 2 sets of thin legs and a pair of lethal clamp-like razor fists. Wings and a lovely plump pleated abdomen finish the features of this astonishingly complete insect – all from an UNCUT square of paper – just wow.
It is a well known fact that Australians MADE up the illogical collection of animal parts we then called a Platypus:
Ducks bill, fur, poisonous spines, webbed feet, lays eggs, feeds young milk, lives under water … LOL … then only people silly enough to believe this are tourists, right?
One of many benefits of networking at an origami conference is that you get to mix in the real world with talented designers – if you are lucky they share their designs with you.
Looking at my “must fold when time” pile, I remembered a diagram destoned for a Peter Buchan-Symons “Folding Fantasy” book:
This lovely duo colour dragon is designed by Matthew Dunstan, and is an interesting variation of a classic birdbase with some grafts for the head.
An intense little fold in places (the head in particular is really fiddly and thick), I really like this little western dragon with good proportions and a unique character.
I folded this from a 35cm square of Duo Kraft paper – a mistake in retrospect, it would have been easier (less finger bruising) with a larger thinner sheet. Originally I planned to fold it with my Shadow Thai, but I think it is too thick … now I know how the fold works I may still give that a go.
EDIT:
Folded with a 40cm square of origami-shop Duo Thai paper, with some extra detail and shaping, this little beauty is a treasure indeed
Cruising the channels on Origami Dan, I found a CP for a fold challenge I had missed, but decided to give it a whirl anyways:
Designed by Scott Okamura, this seemingly impossible fold featured a traditional Tsuru (crane) folded in the middle of a large page of duo paper – the surrounding paper is then formed into a box.
As lightning crackled from the raging thunderstorm above, the electrodes sizzled, the smell of burning flesh hung damply in the air as the creature stirred on the table, accompanied by a mad cackling laugh interspersed with hysterical cries of “It’s Alive!!!”:
Apologies to Frankenstein lovers, but let us face it, this model is a bit of a Frankenstein. It is the result of putting a Satoshi Kamiya RyuJin 2.1 dragon head on a classic Tsuru (Crane)’s body. Nuts – right?
I first saw the CP (Crease pattern) for this on one of the Origami Discord servers I frequent (RyuCentral), and thought … how odd, how hard could that be??? Stupid man!
Dividing the paper into quarters and half along one diagonal, I reserved 1/4 on the diagonal for the crane and then set about laying in the graft CP for the dragon head in the remaining 3/4. It needed a 23 division grid that intersected at the square opposite the crane. Accuracy was the key. Grid laid in, I then started setting the pre-creases necessary for the head – stupid man, fucked the first set up twice (because I did not count), finally, pre-creasing done the collapse began.
I have folded many Ryu Jins, many versions, many times, so it was like returning to an old friend, interestingly muscle memory helped me not find the horrendously complex manipulations difficult at all (or maybe my subconscious was blocking the trauma) but to my surprise the accuracy I obsessed over early on paid off later allowing a pretty tidy collapse and NO damage to the reserved 1/4.
With the head collapses through early base, late base and shaping, I isolated and shaped the little arms and then set about working out how to fold a crane with the head as the head. Annoyingly I chose the wrong orientation first (der) and the head was upside down and backward. Just when I thought I would have to perform an infamous “neck twist” (interestingly NECESSARY on full RyuJins), I tried unfolding the crane and reversing all the creases (ie. folding it inside out) – to my delight that solved the problem (and THEN I remembered CPs are usually drawn WHITE SIDE UP – what a dickhead!!!).
Colour-change models are astonishing to me, designing models that use colour change are something special:
I have folded a number of different models like this, nothing quite like it however – what sets this model apart form any other is that each “tile” on the board is a seamless square.
Folding this from a SINGLE UNCUT square ends up being a bit of a brain-fuck. The paper was blue one side, white the other (actually cheap and nasty 70cm wrapping paper from my local dollar store). Distributing the “colour” is achieved, mostly, by bringing the sheet edges up through pleat bundles using a variety of techniques.
You can see the final location of the 4 corners of the original sheet in this development photo:
Planning/designing of a model like this is beyond me – pre-preparing the colour changes means that every bit of the paper has a job – either visible “tile”, spacer, flipper, mover etc to get the bits of colour to get where they need to go. Fold accuracy is the make or break of such designs – novices who use a “near enough is good enough” approach will not succeed here.
I was asked to test fold this, by Steven Casey, prior to publication. The diagrammed sequence is intense, starting with a 40×40 grid. Most of the folding is working on the wrong side, creating interacting pleat stacks that sit flat but that strategically manipulation pleat order. The run towards the “checkerboard” effect happens around the edges first, they they are migrated further towards the centre (although really only in a 4-unit strip around the periphery.
1: Knock knock. 2: Who's there? 1: Amos 2: Amos who? 1: A Mosquito. <insert hysterical laughter of a little kid (me) amused by the first dad joke he can remember his dad telling him> True story.
I have bought many sheets of the most amazing paper, all dutifully stored in my “cave”. Over 10 years ago, I purchased a full sheet of black Unryushi single tissue because I HAD to have it, but having NO plan to use it.
Unryushi tissue is beautiful, painfully thin (24GSM) but gloriously adorned with visible mulberry fibres. It comes being about the stiffness of facial tissue – I misted a large window with water, rolled the sheet onto the wet glass (shiny side down) and then added a coat of MC (Methyl Cellulose) to the back side, removing air bubbles from the centre out.
Even wet, the Unryu is really strong, but to make it foldable I needed to crisp it up. I managed to cut a 60cm square, leaving a >12inch selvage for another project.
The latest Tanteidan magazine had a enthralling Mosquito design by Yoshio Tsuda and I knew I NEEDED to try it, but lots of the model is 12+ layers thick, I knew I needed some crazy thin paper … hence the Unryu. I decided to fold Version 1 of the Mozzie, knowing that Yoshio also published a crease pattern for his revised design – that will do for another day.
Good paper is such a blessing. I took a long-stored square of olive Vietnamese Dó paper and attempted to fold a “Temple Dragon” – got most of the way through and realised the paper was too small/thick to complete it. Rather than bin the model, I carefully unfolded it, ironed it flat and … the paper had a new life:
Folding paper can damage it – wood-fibre-based paper takes damage (I call it paper fatigue) because the folding process can break the fibres along the crease. SOME paper has strong, flexible fibres that bend but mostly do not break, and Dó paper (made from bark of the Rhamnoneuron balansae tree) is astonishingly resilient.
The colour reminded me of something, as a kid, I used to see all the time – green tree frogs. Naturally I returned to Robert Lang’s “Origami Design Secrets” and re-folded his Green Tree Frog – I no longer had in my stored folds a copy of this lovely model so figured it was time.
Perusing origami books, as you do, I chanced upon a delightful little pelican:
Designed by @tommy03, making use of a beige/white duo 6″ kami square, this delightful model captures the essence of a pelican better than any other I have seen.
“What a wonderful bird is a Pelican – whose beak can hold more than it’s belly can.” – A rhyme my mum used to say to me as a little tacker – hoping to gift this to another mother tomorrow.
There is so much happening in the world of Origami design, it is amazing to see new models emerging of every subject imaginable. I am working on editing/test-folding a bunch of Chinese diagrams currently, and thought I should fold this beauty to check on the sequence in the diagrams:
I started with 2x 45cm squares of Kraft – intending to fold BOTH the landed and flying versions of this model (yes – 2 different forms in the same model!), reached a part of the diagram I could not get past – I ruined, ragequitted and snowballed one of the sheets in frustration … only to realise the impasse just required a different view of the model.
Plunging on, through a challenging sequence, I muddled to the end and the result is quite amazing. I like that someone has focussed on the “on the ground” version of a model usually depicted in flight with wings extended. These critters were land dwelling, occasionally in the air, and their body morphology is full whack – prolly why they no longer exist (except as remnant critters like bats). Tapejara’s were thought to be particularly agile fliers and formidable predators, remnants of these have been found in Brazil.
This is part of an astonishing collection of new designs coming soon as a book from origami-shop.com and showcases some amazing layer /sheet management. I _almost_ want to go back and now fold the flying version of this model … almost.
Fun, challenging fold. I think folding this critter much smaller represents a huge challenge – the pleats that form the back legs/toes at this size ended up being 4mm – my fat clumsy fingers struggled to fold these accurately (and you form these pleats part way through the sequence – not in pre-creasing). Going smaller will be “interesting” for a more nimble folder.
