462: Samurai Helmet Beetle

| wonko

Having ordered the book “Origami Masters Bugs – how the bug wars changed the art of origami” I was itching to fold a bug:

Robert Lang is a master paper engineer, I have a few of his books – this is from Origami Insects Volume II and I decided to give it a try – it was way outside my skill ability so I sort of resolved to keep folding until … I couldn’t work out what to do next, if that makes sense. In the end I managed all of the detailing (although some not very elegantly).

The resultant bug is astonishing – the legs are jointed and end in claspers, the head, cephalothorax jointed, it has antennae, horns and is really bug like. Continue reading →

461: Lang’s Butterfly

| wonko

Originally I was approached by a blog reader who wanted to know how a particular part of this model worked. Given I had never folded it before I had to admit I did not know, but would love to find out:

This is a torturous model by Robert Lang from his book “Insects and their Kin” – torturous because most of the detail originates in the MIDDLE of the sheet, via some astonishingly complicated manipulations. We tease 6 legs, abdomen, 2 antennae from the middle of the page, leaving large expanses of largely un-folded paper for the 2 pairs of wings.

I have wrestled with this for an age – not sure the instructions are very clear (particularly layer management late int he piece) and certainly are not noob friendly.

As a first fold I am very happy with the result – not sure I wold fold it again, I do not really like the way the body sits and the clumsy layering at the wing junctions but it was a fascinating exercise in accuracy none the less. I say clumsy but I know of the design genius to engineer such a shape, so please Mr Lang do not rake this as a criticism, I remain in awe of your paper prowess. Continue reading →

460: Torus

| wonko

Christmas is just around the corner, so I was thinking “wreath” shapes and stumbled across an astonishing torus made entirely of Tom Hull’s “Phizz” units:

The structure is based on twisted units that combine in 5’s (a pentagon has positive curvature), 6’s (a hexagon has zero curvature) and 7’s (a heptagon has negative curvature).

The inside has 10 heptagons and hexagon spacers, the outer rim has 10 pentagons with hexagon spacers and the rest of the shapes are hexagons.

This shape does my head in – heptagons take up more paper yet less space in the shape … huh? Negative curvature makes the inside of the donut by making a series of “saddles” which is pretty neat. Continue reading →

Hideo Komatsu’s Owl

| wonko

You find wisdom and counsel is the most unexpected of places, people can be wise beyond their years and offer you more support and encourage than they realise.

I was asked to fold an owl, simultaneously, for two completely different purposes. (1) A good mate wanted to give an Owl to someone who had helped him out with some well chosen words of wisdom. (2) During the World Origami Days event organised by MiniNeo, I was challenged to fold an Owl by Sebastien Limet. Continue reading →

“You Shall Pass!”

| wonko

Sometimes we all need a little magic in our lives:

If anyone can get us past the Balrog and on beyond Mount Doom, Gandalf can.

Made from a square (and the scrap cut off to make it a square to make the staff) for a friend who, like all of us, is a valuable and important part of this world.

459: Electra

| wonko

Browsing an amazing book by David Mitchell called “Paper Crystals”, I spotted an interesting modular ball based on pentagons tiled with triangles named Electra.

Coupled with the original model was a suggestion that it was possible to make a 60 module version consisting of pentagons surrounded by squares separated by triangles. Continue reading →

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 →

Chiyogami/Washi Hex-Boxes

| wonko

When life gives you Chiyogami or hand-made Washi, with a relatively simple twist you can turn it into a hex-box: 

Lovely hand-printed Washi (swirls of fibres, block printed 20+ years ago) and modern Chiyogami (machine made but lovely) are actually fairly difficult to work with because you cannot see the creases and Fujimoto’s hex box establishes a bunch of landmarks to form the base-creases.

This is not a first fold, but the form and ingenious locking mechanism, slight variation to form lid and base make this one of my favourite folds – a jewel box when made from lovely paper.

Want one? Buy some nice paper (A3 or A4 work just fine, this is folded from a “golden rectangle”) and I will make it for you (or teach you how to make it yourself if you are near) – have your people call my people and we will make something beautiful together.

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 →

456: L’essence d’un escargot

| wonko

I was exploring a corrugation technique I last used with Eric Joisel’s Bandoneon and stumbled across a sort of plan to fold Joisel’s Snail:

You start with an extraordinarily long (my estimate – 3.25m) and narrow (in my model 9cm) strip of paper, then start folding slanted lines (using a 3:1 gradient) in both directions

Continue reading →

The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Parts

| wonko

You may remember I recently folded a Chuka Ryu, and it had a particular spiral bend to it…

… that spiral corresponds to the diameter of the white keep precisely – one sits inside the other.

This now tells a totally different story – what is happening here?

Add your narrative suggestions to the comments section.

455: The White Keep

| wonko

In days of old, when people of a township were threatened they retreated (as their last best hope) into the Keep – a heavily fortified “core” of the castle that was designed to withstand the most vigorous of attacks

So I had this odd but interesting idea that it should, given the right size of paper, be possible to fold an entire castle from it. After being inspired by Gachepaper and his exploration of Lotka I decided to give it a whirl

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.

Continue reading →

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 →