45min

270: False Teeth

| wonko

Anyone who knows me realizes the terror I experience when visiting the dentist:

Don’t get me wrong, our dentist is awesome, and very aware that I have an irrational fear that I cannot control when being worked on.

A red frog (chewy lolly) was the latest culprit, taking away most of a huge filling on one of my molars so today I face a molar re-build and thought origami teeth – there’s an idea.

This delightful model is a compact little box pleating exercise designed by Robin Glynn. When folded from an A4 cut square they turn out essentially lifesize, although they have much fewer teeth than a real set, they are demonstrative of form and look a lot like those chattering teeth wind-up toys sold in joke shops.

Quite happy with this as a first fold.

267: Nollentonk

| wonko

When my sister was little, she used to call elephants “Nollentonks“:

No idea why, the name just stuck. My daughter also likes elephants so i am on the search for a good one. This little beauty measures in at 8cm trunk to tail.

This is John Montroll’s African Elephant. A lovely model that I now regret folding at this scale (I am running short of A3-cut squares, so used an A4 instead). Getting the elephantine proportions and general shape were tough work at this scale, but the model is a good one and the inner nollentonk shone through in the end,

Lovely ears and tusks, waggly tail and nice solid body make this model a winner, one I will fold again.

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.

259: Stag

| wonko

Barbz asked me to make a deer, I decided to look for a stag (antlers etc) and found one by Neal Elias:

I like this model – out of a severe box pleat a fairly graceful body, legs and head with lovely ears and antlers emerges.

This was a tough fold – the thicknesses near the nead are really difficult to fold, but the result is quite satisfying as a forst fold – hope you ike it Barbz.

I have also found a bunch of deer-like animals, will experiment more with the form.

258: Rodin’s Thinker

| wonko

When I think of my mate Mike, I think of Rodin’s “The Thinker”:

There are many reasons, including his stunning good looks, poise but most of all because he is a thinker – he considers everything deeply, his responses are considered, balanced, always truthful and often factual 😛

This is a Neal Elias designed model, interesting use of an off-centre waterbomb base and trademark elias stretches to make the arms, I think it is particularly clever that the pose is fairly accurate, it is self-standing (well, ok, sitting), complete with all the body bits and perched on a pedistal to finish.

This is the second model I have folded from “Neal Elias – Selected Works 1964-1973” compiled by Dave Venables, purchased through the British Origami Society. As a founder in the box-pleating techniques that have been more popular in recent years, the shape is figurative yet evokes the object it was mimicking well I think.

I Think, therefore .. umm … what was the question?

255: Turtoise or Tortle?

| wonko

I have never been able to discern the difference between a tortoise and a turtle:

Sure there are superficial morphological differences but they both are reptiles, both carry their shell around etc.

This is Robert Lang’s turtle and it is a lovely, simple, figurative model that abounds tortoisness. I like the simple curve of the shell, the hint of claws and the expressive neck/head.

I deliberately folded this small scale for two reasons – (1) I used to have a “penny turtle” called, sadly enough, “Myrtle” – I actually found her in a creek near home (I grew up in Maleny); (2) shits and giggles – you get that.

Slow and steady wins the race is where I was going here – hare and tortoise/turtle/whatever – so much to do, so little time, procrastinator set on full and we are away.

247: Alix’s Giraffe

| wonko

Now I have been on a mission to find and fold Alix a giraffe for her birthday (Happy Birthday Alix!) and the model had some criteria:

  • * it needed to look “giraffey” – so many do not
  • * it needed to be achievable with  square of cardstock I found in a Landsborough scrapbooking shop (don’t ask) – the giraffe hide was tough to fold, so the model had to be simpler- No margin for error, you cannot re-fold this stuff as the design is only screen printed on so cracks when you fold it
  • * it needs to stand freely

Voila! We have a Giraffe – I found these instructions on the interweb but no credit was given to the designer – can anyone help me here?

I rejected models by Peter Engel, Robert Lang, John Montrol for one or all 3 reasons above having folded them and barely achieving an acceptable model using plain copy paper (which is much more forgiving that the giraffe print I had).

It was an interesting investigation – there will be more giraffes to come – the challenge is to adequately represent the “spirit” of the animal rather than necessarily be accurate with the morphology as they are such an odd collection of animal bits really (almost as odd as a platypus). No model I found had the lovely long knobbly kneed legs and the vaguely trapezoidal body for instance but various models had aspects that looked correct.

To get the long neck and distant body when using a square so much paper has to be tucked away that it gets really dense, but it ends up with lovely ears, and vestigial “horns” which I have never worked out what they do.

Hope Alix likes it;

Happy Fathers Day also to all those Dads out there, hope you also have a good day.

235: Charlie the Unicorn

| wonko

Now I have been told off by Dr Winston O’Boogie for folding creepy crawlys and scary things and was told I should concentrate on unicorns and rainbows:

This is John Montrol’s Unicorn – a relatively simple fold with a nice horsey shape.

So much paper folded inside, it ends up having a plump body and very thick legs and a lovely twirly unicorn stickey-uppey horney thing

This will do me for unicorns for the moment, although I will be on the look out for another one as the horse shape is one much folded by origami designers as it is quite difficult to capture the equine profile.

231: Tomoko Fuse’s Snail

| wonko

Now I found a collection of spirals and boxes by paper legend Tomoko Fuse, and the snail looked hoopy, so I decided to fold it:

A relatively simple fold, with an elegant curved pleat forms the shell and a simple shape for the foot topped off with lovely eye stalks.

If I was to fold this again I would use less symmetrical pleats, so the creases get closer together as the shell gets smaller, still it is a lovely bit of geometry.

Was puzzling what to do as today’s fold, glad I chose this.

228: Wilbur, the Narcoleptic Cat Sidekick

| wonko

As mentioned previously, Captain Fainty has a sidekick:

Now it must be said that this sidekick is more of a liability than an asset – as is true for all cats really (let’s be honest), and there is little evidence that this sidekick is even remotely interested in being labelled as such. There is even less evidence that this sidekick has actually performed even the minimum of sidekick duties – you get that apparently.

This is a Joisel fold, and I will probably fold it again now I know what goes where, but I am fairly happy with this as a first fold – he looks like he is slinking – something cats are wont to do, prior to a bout of narcolepsy.

A relatively simple fold with lots of potential for modelling and expression, the posture is lovely but the legs are a little dense and fiddly at small scale.

214: A Great White Pointer

| wonko

Apparently it is “Shark Week” – yeah, I did not know either until I looked it up.

This ferrocious little beauty is a variation of the blue shark described by John Montroll and Robert lang in their book “Origami Sealife” and there is much to like about the basic form (not sure the picture does it justice).

Lovely gills, beady eyes and toothless jaw, strong fins, shaped tail and a slightly 3d body make this model look like it should swim well and eat big chompy bits out of everything as it does.

Quite happy with this as a first fold – learnt lots along the way

211: Cello

| wonko

If I were asked to pick a stringed instrument that I love the sound of, it would have to be a Cello:

The tones and resonance from it’s timber soundbox are lovely, soulful and evocative if played well

I have had this design for a while, and thought it wise to try it out on a larger format paper (as the creasing to suggest shape, wooden workings etc are quite difficult to place) and am happy with this as a first fold.

The trick is to try to keep the front face as crease-less as possible so the shape creases stand out, fairly happy with how this turned out, hope you like it too, (if there is anyone actually keeping up and reading this junk that is)

184: An Alpaca

| wonko

I thought I would try something simpler, so found what looked like a mostly harmless little Llama model designed by Jim Adams:

On paper, this model was straight forward – in practice however the thickness of layers at the tail end made this model impossible to fold using copy paper (I tried, breaking one of my own rules, it exploded – well, split and the tail broke off, so I started again) so I used a square of tissue foil – even then the tail was too thick to be elegant, pity – the diagram makes it look crisp and slender. I guess if one used large format foil it might be easier – not sure the overall model proportions warrant that treatment however.

Some interesting applications of sink, crimp and double-rabbit ears – it suggested double rabbit-earing the rear legs – already needle thin, I merely reverse folded them and think that is a better result. Pity they are so thick else I would have added hooves also.

Although it is diagrammed as a Llama, I think it is more like an Alpaca (mostly because I wanted to use “an” in the title and “An Llama” does not seem right – yeah, I know, tissue thin reasoning there but you get that)

178: Scuba Steve

| wonko

Now I was watching this stop motion animation by Sipho Mabona, and saw a humanoid emerge from a sheet of paper, so began doodling with a square of parchment not really having any plan. Oddly a figure emerged with what looked (to me at least initially) like a shell on his back.

Immediately I thought of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” but my son said version 1 looked a lot like a skindiver (he has diving qualifications so I was not going to argue).

Surprisingly, I was able to fold it a second time and discovered a bunch of paper that was useable for a facemask, a nice 3d head, was able to fashion a pair of airtanks of his back and some lovely flippers and…

“Scuba Steve” now lives – I have NO IDEA where i got the name from, but depressingly when I googled it it seems associated with an Adam Sandler movle – my bad. The name stuck.

I am actually pretty proud of this model – i knew where I was going and, without reference to anything else I have folded (well, maybe the arms and legs are influenced by the Hoodie) I think this is pretty neat.

A PADI AOW diver in Florida offered to professionally diagram it for me (which is kind of cool, we shall see if that results in anything – he is a renowned origami author, fingers crossed).

Here is an interim set of instructions: scubasteve (PDF)

Addendum: Version 4 has been submitted to OrigamiUSA and 4Esquinas (the Latin American Origami Society) also seem interested in publishing it – we shall see. Interestingly because it has already been mentioned online, Creased magazine does not want to touch it – curious but fair enough.

176: Triceratops

| wonko

Now I am not sure if a Triceratops actually looks like this, not having actually seen one myself:

Even fossil records are a little bit hazy on these things, but this is a lovely model none the less. Nicely detailed head, reasonable body proportions and some real solidity to it – a rhinocerous would be afraid of this beastie.

A fascinating application of the offset preliminary base, with some neat swivel folds and one or two interesting sinks, I am very happy with the first fold of this model.

Not sure who the designer of this model was, collected it as a PDF ages back, but it is a keeper.

Why a triceratops? Well, most people who know me think I am a bit of a dinosaur myself at times – you get that, fair call.