I have been searching for something “fishy” to make with some lovely paper gifted by a friend when Ronald Koh came to the rescue with some amazing mutant goldfish designs:
This is a Ryukin, and has a lovely 3d body, staring eyes and beautiful flowing fantail. Characterised by a hunched back, chunky body and pot belly, they swim slowly and provide decorative elements to any aquarium. Continue reading
As part of my JOAS membership, I get sent magazines with models to try – a really excellent collection of complex models from the worlds best designers. When I saw Satoshi Kamiya’s Dragonfly, I was really scared of it.
The level of pleat management and re-arrangement of flaps and layers is truly terrifying when viewed as a whole.
As a “treat”, to reward my marking progress (I am a teacher, I set assessment but hate marking it) I allowed myself to complete a couple of steps each sitting. This fold has taken place over the period of 3 weeks, a little at a time. the advantage of this method is that I did not get freaked out by what was to come, just concentrating on the couple of steps I was allowed to complete. Continue reading
Rowing is huge at my school – a veritable machine that hundreds of kids get very passionate about, a gear-fest like few others:
Seems the purpose of the sport is to put boys in lycra, sitting atop tiny fiberglass shells, armed with a paddle rowing furiously backwards across vast distances of water. The competitive nature sees rowers exerting huge amounts of energy, enthusiasm and biomass in singles, teams of 2,4,and 8 with or without cox against other equally keyed-up teams. Quite a spectacle.
Jeremy Shafer is a prolific and super talented Origami Designer:
When I saw his video of the Super Dragon Deluxe I knew I wanted to have a go – such a fun “cartoony” dragon with a lot of detail packed into such an accessible fold. Continue reading
I am on constant awe of folders from the Vietnamese Origami Group (VOG):
Hoang Trung Thanh’s Eagle 3.5 is an astonishing and dense fold that really tests patience, accuracy and paper but the result, even this partially incomplete rendition is lovely. Continue reading
To celebrate the 500th unique fold documented on this blog, I thought I would hold a guessing game whilst trying a fold I have been considering for a while.
This is “Horse Laugh” by Kunsulu Jilkishiyeva from Nicholas Terry’s “Drawing Origami Tome 1” – a fun fold that sees some amazing box pleating and layer management to make a really detailed head (with lips, teeth, eyes, the works), tail, rather lovely mane and some funky legs. Continue reading
I was itching to do a technical fold, and realised I had folded few from the “Bugwars” book I bought for Xmas, so thought “why not”:
This fold has taken an age. I must admit that initially I had passed this over because it looked too fiddly, the CP alone was terrifying. Continue reading
As you may have guessed from subsequent posts, I have been learning to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryujin 3.5:
After a year of lessons, learning bits of the model and patiently/painstakingly working on each of the elements of the design, I managed to combine all onto one model. Continue reading
Every so often a model emerges that has such a naturalistic form that so perfectly represents the subject. This lovely rabbit, designed by Ronald Koh is one such “must fold” figure:
This lovely model is a dense fold (the hind quarters are necessary layer-dense to form the necessary flaps for the head), so thin paper is best – I failed on a 14.5cm square of coarse hand-made paper – it was too thick and my fat clumsy fingers could not tease the details but 20cm+ squares of most papers should be fine. Continue reading
Sensei Cassidy was lurking, she did not want to impose, but she was carrying some origami-related paraphernalia and … well … origami:
She had this kit, based on Totoro (apparently a cult Anime film/ character/ universe/ thing), with some pre-printed paper and instruction sheet on how to assemble.
Initially I thought it wold be a cut/glue exercise, so smiled politely and said I would give it a whirl when reporting was done. On further investigation to my relief it was folding only, and some odd stuff as well.
The large character is Totoro, apparently, then there are 2 smaller characters of a similar shape, and then, for no explicable reason, a bus that is a cat (well, a catbus) – which apparently makes complete sense. Continue reading
I have been on holiday, 6 weeks is a long time between folds but I thought I would ease back into it with a simple model … then I saw Fumiaki Kawahata’s TRex and thought “screw it”:
Waiting in my kept mail was the last Tanteidan of the previous subscription, this little beauty on the cover and I thought – how hard can this be? Continue reading
I was asked if I could make a flock of birds designed to be attached to fishing line on the end of poles that seem to fly:
I remember a “seagull” by Toyoaki Kawai, in an old book I had so based a fold around that basic form. Continue reading
This morning I was greeted with the sad news that actor Leonard Nimoy had passed away. Our universe is a little dimmer, missing a bright and shining star. “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it”:
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015
Leonard Nimoy did for television and movie what few others have achieved: he demonstrated through his “Spock” character portrayal that a loyal, honest, ethical, objective, calm, logical, thoughtful, respected male alien could be an invaluable colleague and life-long friend. We can all learn from this – he challenges all males to do better.
I have been, and always will be a fan of that “green-blooded devil” and all that he stood for.
You too can fold a tribute – go here
On February 15, Chinese New Year kicks off – 2015 is the year of the Goat, but a sheepie is close, right? I thought I would take a preemptive strike given that I am sure to be really busy at work by then.
The latest Tanteidan magazine features diagrams for Beth Johnson‘s Sheep – a lovely 2 part model and I was itching to give it a go. Continue reading
I have been a fan of Star Trek since it was possible to be so, love the franchise, movies, series, the lot. I saw a diagram that resulted in an ATAT (All-Terrain Armoured Transport) – one of many fairly silly designs from The Babylon 5 universe, and with some shaming from a friend (thanks Dodes) I decided to give it a whirl.
If you were making a vehicle for battle, the last thing on the design bench (apart from a 2 legged chicken-like bipedal mobile gun turret) would be a quadruped.
Any Browncoat worth his part of the ‘verse would be able to ride their Viper Mark II with cables attached, tangle the legs and bring the thing down, like a heavy, falley-downey thing.
