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458: Lang’s Flying Grasshopper = Jemima Cricket = WTF# 20

| wonko

Sometimes I just need to fold, it is difficult to explain but I find great clarity in wrestling with complex geometry. We ALL have much to learn GRASSHOPPER. 

Having bought Robert Lang’s “Origami Insects Volume 2” I thought it was high time to fold something from it.

Lang’s models are great technical exercises, amazing manipulations of the plane to the extraordiary.

I am also searching for a model to use a sheet of Origamido paper I have on, but will not use it as a first fold – it costs too much.

There is lots to like with this model, and it was a good WTF exercises – sadly my origami friends probably recognised it immediately and my other friends had no clue.

Continue reading →

457: Happy Book (WTF#18)

| wonko

Fernando Gilgado is a legendary character folder, I have made many of his models, this one is a charmer:

from one sheet of paper, you get 6 pages, a hard cover, arms, legs, a smile and eyes peeping over the top – neat

So, as I mark furiously (having run out of the ability to put it off any longer), my procrastigami takes hold and I started bending something. I also wanted to try out my new self-healing craft mat (the green griddy thing) and have discovered that folding from an iPad or other tablet is better than a book because of the pinch-zooming possible to help old eyes see details of diagrams. Continue reading →

Smee

| wonko

The link between a boy and his pet is a special one, even if the pet is a hermit crab named “Smee”

When I heard Sam had suffered the loss of Smee I remembered the pets I had also said goodbye to, tough gig indeed.

I remembered I had folded, as part of the 365 project, a hermit crab – never quite mastering the fold so was determined to re-attempt it (with a few more years skill under my belt) Continue reading →

454: Unryushi Darkness Dragon 2

| wonko

I was given a beautiful sheet of Unryushi tissue by a friend. The arrangement (in case YOU want to take part also) is if you give me nice paper, I will make you something out of it.

I prepared the paper by Methyl Cellulosing it to a clean window:

This make it crisp and strong, then, in a dragony frame of mind, I used Tadashi Mori’s own folding tutorial to fold a Darkness Dragon 2.

I had already folded the Darkness Dragon 1, but this model was a refinement I had not tried. There is a killer collapse after some exacting pre-folding – a sort of all these folds happen at the same time whilst inside a bunch of others, but the sense of it makes for a lovely body.

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453: The Age Of Aquarius

| wonko

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!


I saw a crease pattern whilst trolling through the Origami Forum that looked like it was relatively straight forward to lay out on a piece of paper, based on fairly well controlled 64th grid with some fairly straightforward easy to locate landmarks and so thought I would give it a go.

It took nearly 2 days to lay all the creases in to the crease pattern – wiggly lines in one corner were punishing and at the time I had no idea what were to be mountain and valley folds so just made sure they were good creases reasoning they would reverse effortlessly.

Continue reading →

452: Smile!

| wonko

In the olden days children, photographs were taken with a specialised piece of equipment, usually by a professional, using FILM:

In those days, you posed the shot, measured light levels, pulled focus and ensured the picture was worth taking before you wasted the plate – photography was expensive and much more of a science (some would also argue much moe of an art).

In the modern idiom, nearly every thing has a squillion megapixel camera, you point, shoot 60 frames, pick the least worst, apply a filter and upload it on Instagram and have your “friends” praise your artistry. Continue reading →

451: Tarsier

| wonko

I had a small but lovely piece of elephant-dung paper – now this is not as gross as it first sounds, the paper is cleaned fiber retrieved from elephant dung – yeah, ok, it does not sound any less grotty – lovely textured irregular and lumpy paper though it was:

I needed a model, Sebastien Limet’s Tarsier seemed most logical (given I had not folded it before and I thought folding it near life-size might be an interesting challenge).

There is much to love about this model – apart from the delicious expressiveness of the face, delicate grip of its primate hands or the prehensile grip of its tail, this is a real charmer.

I like that the face is implied, but I can see lovely big innocent eyes, sensitive ears and all the hallmarks of a delicate but mischievous “bush baby” which makes these little chaps endangered in the wild because rich folk sentence them to long agonizing deaths as pets outside of their native habitats. Continue reading →

450: Montroll’s Hippopotatomus

| wonko

It is a little recognised fact that the animal that has killed the most people in Africa is in fact the Hippopotamus:

I stumbled across this delightful model while leafing through “African Animals in Origami” – a much worn volume when looking for something to try from my invalid chair.

I had a gold (more correctly bronze) foil square and was wanting to fold something “yoshizawa style” – free form hand-held rather than on table or other flat surface – the challenges with this style are accuracy and precision, the payoffs are often more fluid, softer curves and lively asymmetrical poses.

I like this model, although he reflective paper makes discerning details difficult – she has a wry grin, 2 lovely tusks on her bottom jaw, lovely ears and a fine rump after some 3d modelling.

448: Cutting a Rug

| wonko

I am old enough to remember the “good old days” when partners dance WITH each other as opposed to the modern trend of dancing AT each other:

Flicking through a yellowed and falling apart copy of “Origami 4” by Robert Harbin, I came across a Neal Elias figure I had not remembered nor tried.

Using duo coloured paper, from a simple bird base, we tease a dancing belle and her suave suited partner as they “cut a rug” together. Continue reading →

446: Sunny’s Giraffe

| wonko

Sunny’s birthday is coming up and she loves Giraffes:

In browsing for a suitable model, I discovered a Tanteidan containing a Satoshi Kamiya giraffe that I had not folded, so it seems it was meant to be.

I lke this model a lot – it is full of the essential giraffe features, economically uses the sheet and contains some wonderfully complicated folds. Continue reading →

WTF (What’s That Fold?) # 12

| wonko

I have a stack of Lotka that is just waiting to be folded into beautiful things, so I looked for something that would be suitable as a WTF (because it has been a while and my procrastinator is running on full right now):

Taking the largest square I could from a barely rectangular sheet, I pre-creased then began collapsing

Continue reading →

445: Mother of Dragons

| wonko

I was paper shopping, as you do (my daughter calls me a paper nerd) and stumbled across a hand-made sheet of blue embossed Lotka that reminded me of dragonscale:

She who must be obeyed (SWMBO), an avid gamer and tamer of Dragons, had asked for a dragon so I put 2 and 2 together and got 17, well 5 to be precise. I have been exploring dragon-form, with the current Weyr (or wing) containing 5 dragons so far (Darkness Dragon by Tadashi Mori, Fiery Dragon by Kade Chan,  Green Dragon by Piotr Pluta, Riu Zin 1.0 by Satoshi Kamiya and nearly a Western Dragon by Shuki Kato)

After examining the paper, and its fold receptivity, SWMBO decided on a Fiery Dragon so I start bending, patiently (the paper is more like fabric so although you can crease it, it tends to want to unfold again.

Continue reading →

444: Wolf Spider

| wonko

I have these lovely bits of Lotka and was looking for something to be my first fold with this new paper:

I chose Brian Chan’s Wolf spider partly because I had not folded it before and partly because the “milk chocolate” fibrous nature of the paper reminded me of the natural colour and texture of the spider itself.

The first cut is more painful than the first fold on a sheet that is roughly rectangular – the issues with most hand-made papers include rough edges, uneven thicknesses, odd fibre bundles in unfortunate places and a lovely mottled colour distribution.

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443: Gettin’ Crabby

| wonko

As a member of JOAS (Japanese Origami Society) a present arrives in the mail every now and then – the Tanteidan magazine. Although it is written in Japanese (and I can not read Japanese) there are lots of fun things to try, occasionally amazing models to try:

Now I know I should be marking, but I have all this amazing paper and when presented with a folding challenge I get a little OCD about it.

This lovely crab, designed by Jason Ku, is a mathematical masterpiece – teasing the legs and claws from edges of the paper, shaping the carapace and the final, tidying does not just happen by chance. Continue reading →

442: Ryujin 1.0

| wonko

Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryujin series is legendary in the Origami Community. Starting at the relatively simple 1.0 (folded here),  the next iteration is 1.2, then a new morphology 2.1 culminating in the insane 3.5:

Whilst I am not sure I have the time nor skill to even attempt 2.1 (let alone 3.5), my attempt at 1 is chronicled here.

After finding much discussion about it on the HK Origami Forum, and only being able to find a blurry (published by Satoshi himself deliberately blurry) I reasoned “how hard could this be?” Continue reading →