714: (164/365) Michael LaFosse’s Butterfly for Tony Cheng

Continuing my exploration of the butterfly form, where better to look than a lovely papillon from Michael LaFosse’s “Butterflies” bible:

This lovely little flapper again uses bicolour paper cleverly, has a nice efficiency of final model size for starting paper size and was fun to fold. Continue reading

709: (159/365) Satoshi Kamiya’s Tsuru Rose

I am nothing if not determined at times. This  model has beaten me many times but, due to a perfect storm it seemed to just happen in my hands:

This is Satoshi Kamiya’s “Tsuru Rose” – an odd but beautiful combination of a Kawasaki rose twist in the body segment of a traditional Tsuru. Continue reading

708: (158/365) Nollentonk

When I was in Japan, I bought 2 origami books and have not really folded much from them to date:

The books are totally in Japanese, no English at all so I have NO idea who the designer of this model is.

Made from 4 squares of paper (back legs, front legs, head, tusks) and this is a little beauty. Continue reading

707: (157/365) Tumasek Butterfly

Browsing a BOS convention booklet, I came across a rather nice butterfly designed by Ronald Koh:

This is the Tumasek butterfly, I folded it in duo yellow/green paper making it a little like a cabbage white butterfly. Continue reading

695: (145/365) Knight in Shining Armor

Jono sent me a link to the new trailer for the coming series of Game of Thrones:

Seems like big things are set to happen in the seven kingdoms.

Knights in shining armor in this series are rarely shiny at all, often dirty, lacking honor and glory – such is the reality of war. Continue reading

689: (139/365) Max Hulme’s Chess Knight

…so, in a conventional chess set, the knight is a horsey, but in this chess set the Knight is the rider:

Not sure I am really happy with this, difficult to tell with this thick paper, but the head shaping is clumsy because of the layers. Continue reading

688: (138/365) Max Hulme’s Chess Bishop

Integral to the war effort, the church remains a dangerous player on the board:

This is Max Hulme’s “Bishop” – a lovely little Pontif-ish chap that is missing his golden hook and holy relic. Continue reading

686: (136/365) Max Hulme’s Chess Pawn

The next few posts will follow a theme, playing with the idea of a classic game, this is the infantry – the cannon fodder, there are lots of these to throw at the enemy:

Max Hulme has designed all of the pieces for a paper chess game, seems wrong to split them up. Folded from a 12×3 proportioned rectangle, a little grimacing face under  helmet emerges, then arms, finally the body. Continue reading

682: (132/365) Sy Chen’s Hangman

Struggling to make it through Friday, I stumbled across Sy Chen’s Hangman:

This paper puzzle allows you to gradually reveal parts of a hangman, suitable for a table top game. Continue reading

678: (128/365) Paper Ninja

The internet is an amazing thing, no sooner had I folded a model by Oriole Esteve, then he contacted me via Fakebook and offered me diagrams for a bunch of other folds:

This is his Paper Ninja – a cunning little fellow that seems fairly stealthy. Continue reading

674: (124/365) Red Leader Standing By

May The Fourth be with you.

Now I must admit to being one of the original Star Wars nerds, seeing the films when first aired a number of times – they heralded a new style of Sci-Fi, a place where space was common place, space ships were clean and villains announced their evil plans with enough time to allow the rebel alliance to thwart them:

The spacecraft in the Star Wars universe were unique and wildly illogical. I can remember seeing Tie Fighters and thinking wtf? Continue reading

669: (119/365) Lillian’s Butterfly

Dedicated to Lillian Oppenheimer, a luminary in the early ’70s Origami world, this butterfly, designed by Michael LaFosse is pretty neat:

Interestingly, not poles apart in technique from “Alexander’s Swallowtail“, I chose different colours and was careful with the wing formation so it was morphologically distinct. Continue reading

668: (118/365) LaFosse’s Origamido Butterfly

Continuing my exploration of Michael LaFosse’s Butterfly folds, I present the “Origamido” Butterfly:

Named after his signature brand of hand-made paper (of which I have a couple of sheets yet to fold), this little butterfly is lovely – the wings seem delicate and the body seems in proportion and is colour changed. Continue reading

659: (109/365) I WANT To Believe

Now I am not so conceited as to think that humans are the only intelligent life in the universe, but the more I understand about humans, the more I am convinced that the sure proof there IS intelligent life elsewhere is the fact that they have in no way attempted to contact us. Nothing. Not a peep:

I want to understand what form extra terrestrial life might take, but I am continually confounded by plethora of lifeforms on this planet.

I am sure that ET will not resemble the Sci-Fi little green carbon-based bipedal life we see in popularist imagery. Continue reading

648: (98/365) Floral Vase

It is rare that a simple bit of geometry is so lovely but this floral pot combines glorious proportion and an efficient use of the sheet:

A simple(ish) twirl causes the vase shape. I must work out how to fold this without the pre-creasing scars as I think this would look beautiful in large format hand-made paper. Continue reading