Naturally, I blame Canada, as any good Southparkian would:
This is Inayoshi Hidehisa’s Maple Leaf chopstick holder but I rather think it works (at this scale at least) much better as a bookmark. Continue reading
554: (4/365) Shuki Kato’s Simple Dragon
There are many subjects for origami models that are sort of a “holy grail” of folding, dragons are one such thing:
This is Shuki Kato’s “Simple” Dragon – the term simple is a relative term, naturally, as most of Shuki’s models are not for beginners and this little charmer is no exception.
I decided to try it on 50cm Daiso origami paper, fully expecting the paper to fail (as it is fairly ordinary wood-pulp paper) but I managed to coax it into a relatively huge dragon that has simple features but recognizably dragony morphology. Continue reading
553: (3/365) Yamaguchi’s Giant Panda
Apparently Pandas are endangered – seems they have lost their mojo (or are perhaps shy and do not like being observed so closely by people):
This is Makoto Yamaguchi’s Giant Panda – a lovely 2 part model made for bi-colour origami paper, folded from one of my Tanteidan Magazines. In deciding whether I would attempt another 365, I began looking through my stack of JOAS and BOS magazines and found dozens of un-attempted models – that sort of greenlighted the project to an extent. Continue reading
552: (2/365) Tiny Snek
…so apparently, like, on the internets and stuff, Tiny Sneks are a thing, right:
This is Gen Hagiwara’s cartoon snake, a cute little model with lovely googly eyes and a smile.
I made it tiny… because. Continue reading
551: (1/365) Mummy Star
When my sister in law went to Nepal, she found some rather charming Lokta paper, hand-made with block printed gold floral designs. She carefully transported it back with her for me to wrangle. I had a modular in mind and the orange Lokta seemed the obvious choice:
This is Miyuki Kawamura’s Mummy Star, a startlingly complicated modular in 30 pieces. The technique of folding splayed fans, then folding them back on themselves gives the appearance of “wrapping” or bandages I suppose (think Mummy Movie). Continue reading
No Dragon, Just Head
Determined not to let Shuki Kato’s “Western Dragon” beat me, I decided to isolate the part of the model that I had failed on each of the 4 times I have attempted this nightmare of bent paper – the head:
Using the crease pattern, I isolated the corner that is the head and made that section HUGE, then ignoring the rest of the model (that I have successfully folded twice) I only did instructions that effected the bit of the crease pattern that I had on my 60cm square section.
Yee gods! Continue reading
No, They Do Not All Workout As Planned.
I _want_ to pretend that every bit of paper I touch turns into a magnificent model that everyone gasps at, but that is FAR from the truth. This is my FOURTH attempt at Shuki Kato’s “Western Dragon”. It joins a LARGE collection of landfill (discarded unsuccessful models) and was responsible for many BAD WORDS but I have just about calmed down and will lick my wounds before re-engaging with the demon paper.
This is a western dragon because, apparently, people in the west need “wings” to make a flying dinosaur make sense. In the East, wings are not necessary because they just fly – humans do not need to wonder how.
This is the furthest I have gotten with this model, and managed to wrangle all parts of the model (first attempt 2 years ago) but I did not achieve the head – it is supposed to be a glorious 12-horned snarling grimace (as opposed to the crumpled mess I made). Continue reading
Orchid Shadowbox
I love models by Robert Lang, I find I fold them when I need order, therapy, calm. This is a collection of his Orchids, described in his book “Origami Design Secrets”. Something about the mathematical elegance of this flower lends itself to careful modelling and pretty staging. I had a bunch of opalescent 6″ squares in delicate pastel colours so originally folded separate flowers and tried to attach them in a sort of free-form montage.
They look better on a stem, so re-thought the mounting, used florist’s wire and tape to build a plausible “spray” and (shhh) used some craft glue to affix the flowers to the ends of each stickey-outey bit.
Working to the diagonal here, with an odd number of blooms works quite nicely I think, coupled with the corrugated (I folded a fan) hand-made gold-flecked tissue the total scene is quite pleasing. Continue reading
550: Multi-Stage Clover Tessellation
This torturous little bugger of a tessellation seemed to eat paper like nothing else:
Shuzo Fujimoto’s design of a clover-like tessellation that spreads from a central point is an interesting exercise in layer rearrangement, resulting in a lovely eye-popping pyramid-like structure that has dimensionality. The resultant folded form is much less than a 1/4 the size of the original sheet and is very dense in places and is naturally concave on the underside. Continue reading
549: Fluffy the Cerberus
Fans of Harry Potter will recognised “Fluffy” the 3-headed dog, Hagrid’s pet (oops, just outed myself as a Potter nerd).
This is Satoshi Kamiya’s “Cerberus”, a rendition of a mythical beast that is an amazing design that in the end is really really fiddly.
548: Making Your Dollar Go Further
My son and his partner (Hi Matt and Alix!) came back from a recent trip to Canada and the US and had some greenbacks left over in their wallet.
They are paper, you can fold them, there is a whole branch of Origami that does this intensively, led by artists like Won Park.
Stellated Washi Icosahedron
When friends travel, often they find lovely small bits of Washi. Packs of this are full of a myriad of lovely traditional prints, rich colours often embossed and overlayed with gold.
The tricksey bit is to work out what to do with it – given it’s size and often the overpowering beauty of the design.
Continue reading
3D Photography Using Fyuse
A friend (waves at Roland!) excitedly showed me a new app called Fyuse that allows you to scan objects and create interactive 3D photos of them.
For ages I have been increasingly unhappy with flat photos of really complex origami models and this tool seems to solve that problem, so long as the lighting is ok.
Unlike panorama software where you pan scenery and it stitches a long photo into a surround-scape, with Fyuse you focus on the object, moving the camera around it.
You can change the camera angle and do other things to enhance the photo but it is pretty neat – I will definitely experiment with it more.
If viewing this page on a mobile device, tilt and the images move with you in a sort of augmented reality sort of a way – otherwise drag with your mouse pointer to view these models for all sorts of angles.
I like that you can use a flash, move the model as you pan and that it allows you to see the nooks and crannies that would otherwise not be represented in a conventional flat photo
547: Stellar
As part of the school’s social justice program, I was asked to come up with a fold for a bow tie that I could teach year 7-10 boys and girls from 3 schools on a Friday afternoon:
Based in part on a technique used by many, but first seen in a video, I devices a way of using a square, hiding raw edges and basing most of the folds on halves (figuring boys could actually fold things in half fairly easily). Continue reading
546: Château Chinon Tessellation
Another time sponge, based on a square grid initially that was torturous to fold and pre-crease. Based on Eric Gjerde’s tessellation molecule, it is an amazing use of paper that features largely an “all at once” collapse.
Many tessellations sit flat while you do them, their interim stages are still flat – not this mongrel. Once you start, you gotta finish and then work out how to flatten – interesting but not very portable in the end. Continue reading