353: Lang’s Praying Mantis

| wonko

Wow. You know, sometimes a set of instructions for a model are so well designed that it is a pleasure to fold – time just … goes – so it was with this little beauty:

Robert Lang is a design genius, using mathematical and art sensibilities he has distilled what is essentially “mantis” and worked out ways of folding away everything but this essence.

Six beautiful legs, front two “prayey” ones with claspers, glorious head with inquisitive antennae, approporiate proportioned body and, well, wow, just wow.

I am not going to pretend that I did not struggle with this, but after yesterday’s model I was determined to go for accuracy, so necessary with so many accordion pleats. The legs are soooooo thin – painful to fold but amazingly brown paper survived without any paper fatigue.

I am so please with this model – all aspects of it. I folded opened-out paper clips into the legs to give them strength so she can stand freely and so the “knee” joints stay bent – 20+ layers of paper are really hard to bend and I envisaged accidentally snapping off a leg whilst trying to shape it.

I will fold this again, should I ever get some more suitable paper – needs to be tissue thin but really strong – normal paper will just not work. Bravo Mr lang, your figure is a masterpiece and I for one feel honoured to have folded it.

352: Satoshi’s Ancient Dragon

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Some folds are good for telling you that you still have much to learn – this is one of them:

An ASTONISHING model, that took me an age to almost achieve, so many different techniques and punishing to the paper. I started yesterday morning with a 60cm square of brown paper determined to keep folding until either I totally buggered it up, the paper disintegrated or it worked.

As it turned out, errors (small inaccuracies) in folding early on, and a few misinterpretations of unexplained folds meant that later stages were more complicated and hence less tidy.

I have learnt a lot from this fold – there are some breathtaking manoeuvres and heart stopping moments when you turn the page and the next instruction is “unfold everything” but in the end I am satisfied that I got a vaguely “ancient dragonny” model and more importantly I now know what goes where. I will fold this again and am sure that second time around the result will be tidier but take a moment to consider the details:

8 horns, skull, eyes, jaw on the head alone, lovely toes, 4 of them on each of 4 feet, amazing wings that look like they are flapping, leathery scaled body (a ridgetail, for sure – Potter fans agree?). The body, at it’s thickest, has over 40 layers which makes some of the shaping and final modelling tough work. I am at a loss to know what sort of paper you could do this with – I am however amazed with the brown paper – it did not tear or fatigue even once – long after the folder had sworn, stormed off only to return later and keep trying.

I am really glad I tried this model, a useful reminder that I am no master of the art, merely this guy who bends paper,

351: Diaz’s Stallion

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Roman Diaz is one of many talented Spanish origamists and with this model he captures something of the proud noble stallion:

there is much to like about this model – apart from it being a nifty use of the fish/camel base, the posture, proportions and attitude evident in the horse are present in this little model. He is also free-standing, on 3 legs, neato.

A slight mis-calculation in scale made this model really difficult to fold – the thickness of paper and tiny details made shaping a real challenge – I will fold this bigger because there is much model-ability here, truly clever design.

I got caught up in a much more complicated fold and completely forgot I had no fold for today, so searched the list of “must dos” and came up with this one. Happy with this as a first fold.

350: Little Devil

| wonko

This cutie little devil is such a snarly fold, but was a lot of fun because the design was well thought out:

Jun Maekawa models are always well planned but this little beauty started much bigger – folded from a 60cm square, the resultant model is barely 13cm toe to horn and I am so glad I decided to use brown paper instead of regular copy paper – the thicknesses are 17-23 layers in places – wow.

A lovely set of hands, splendid demonic tail, horns, frown and a cutey tongue – this guy is a masterpiece that has taken me an age to fold. I started earlier this afternoon to cheer myself up after attending a funeral, and this evening he is finally finished.

I have seen miniature versions of this (including one folded by Jun himself that is only a couple of cm tall, in a bottle) and I am buggered if I can work out how you could fold it much smaller – it is so fiddly in so many junctures.

I had no idea on this, the first fold, what was what – I will fold this again  now I know how it works – it is not a speedy fold, so many layers but I see extra modelling potential in the face – so much more could be made of his expression. Although he is meant to be a little devil, he is rather cute and free-standing also, using feet and tail the tripod is effective to offset the weight of paper folded into the body.

This fold achieved, it means I have only 15 models left in this challenge – bring it on.

349: Orca

| wonko

Now I have gradually come to realise that captive cetaceans must lead a miserable life – dolphins particularly given tehy “see” with sonar, but the Orca is also something that does not belong in captivity:

This is Satoshi Kamiya’s Orca, well my go at it – for the most part it worked but there are some untidy parts that , in retrospect, I cannot work out if they were my fault or the fault of the diagrams.

With duo paper, this model is the standard black with white parts (or is that white with black parts) – was tempted to make the dorsal droop (in honour of “Willy” the orca who never actually managed to get free.

Inching towards the end of this project, need to be strategic with the models I choose, you get that sometimes.

348: T-Rex Skeleton

| wonko

This is nuts, seriously NUTS. I started this model 2 weeks before exam block, and have been chipping away at it ever since:

This monolithic modular is Yoshino’s T-Rex Skeleton and I for one am totally impressed with the attention to design detail here. Firstly the overall proportions are correct – no mean feat as it is comprised of 21 A3-cut squares, each piece designed to slot together, each piece correct in relation to the others – wow.

If you carefully consider – the head is 2 pieces (top of skull and jaw), neck (snarly pleated sculpture) is 2 pieces, each arm/shoulder blade assembly is 1 piece, then the rib cage – 6 varying size/curvature ribs (1 piece each), pelvis (2 pieces), lovely long legs, bastard of a tail (5 segments, each took over an hour in itself).

I am really pleased with the result, and will probably work out a wire armature to run along the spine so it will stand. The school Science Department have expressed interest in displaying this beastie as I certainly have no where big enough – tail to nose it is over a metre long and nearly as high.

This has taken an age to fold – each piece was a complex model in itself and the instructions were only in Japanese – no useful annotations and annoyingly a different symbolism than is conventional to describe the steps – grrrr. I had to ask the Japanese Department to see if there were even any clues as to the suggested paper size of whether it was stated if the paper all had to be the same size – in the end I GUESSED it probably was.

Still, it worked, and wow, no I mean WOW – this guy is amazing.

347: Tree Topper

| wonko

So I was putting up the tree again this year and remembered we had nothing to put atop it:

I remembered an “angel” designed originally by Neal Elias, reworked by gabriel Vong that I had put in the “must try this sometime” pile, so set about folding it.

A nice figurative angel, hands clasped in prayer, lovely wings and a nifty gusset at the back to allow you to insert some foliage at the pointy end of your tree.

You should try this, it is actually fairly straight forward. I had a sheet of gold metallic paper (but wrapping paper would make the fold even easier) and bent it laboriously (it was almost card, so the folds around the hands, shoulders etc were hard going – thank goodness for fingernails as my finger tips are bruised and sore from the continued 365 onslaught).

Atop the tree she is lovely – this is an A4-cut square, prolly a little big for our small tree but ideal for a larger one.

346: Urchin Star

| wonko

The “monthly modular” is something that would be suitable for hanging on a christmas tree that YOU could make along with me:

This is an Urchin Star, designed by Martin Sejer Andersen with the folding sequence videoed by Jo Nakashima here. I have made a cutting pattern that requires you to print it out on A4 paper twice – you can download that here: print-me-twice.

You need 30 modules, but they are easy to fold, taking no time each once you get into the zone, and they slot together really easily (certainly the easiest assembly of ALL my modulars so far) – even with fat, clumsy fingers like mine.

You should make these – they are lovely – if you use paper coloured on one side, the tips of the star are white, which is pretty also. Wrapping paper would work well – some of the thicker foil-based paper would work well indeed (not that thin plasticised stuff tho, it does not take folds at all)

Have fun with this – totally try it and post your result as a photo on facebook for me to see how it went please.

345: Blank Expression

| wonko

Complicated folds are one thing, simple folds that have precise proportions are another:

This is a face modelled after an idea by David Brill – 7 folds total, all gentle, with great restraint and the most curious thing happens, the paper begins to look back at you with the most curious eyes.

With subtle folds, light finger pressure only, variations of dent, bulge and shifting crease line all manner of facial expressions are possible – this is my fav so far, but will fold this again.

Had intended something waaaay more complicated for today, but it is not yet done so it will wait for another day.

This is folded from an A4-cut square, a lifesize face would be achieved with an A3 – cut square, nice one to add to my “by heart” collection.

344: It’s A Unicorn, Joyce

| wonko

A dear old friend is not well, but likes Unicorns – what better example of such a beastie is Satoshi Kamiya’s model:

This has been an all day affair – started this morning before I went out, some more in the late afternoon then finishing off after coming home from dinner out.

Satoshi suggests a starting size of 35cm square, I decided on 55cm, and found even that terribly fiddly, particularly as this was a first fold and I did not know what was going to end up where.

Happy with this as a first attempt – this model will not be auctioned, sorry, it is a gift to Joyce, I hope she likes it. So what’s with the title? I took a photo gallery up to my Mum’s yesterday, seems the models are not as recognisable as I thought (maybe it is because I am so familiar with them), but the number of guesses that were not even close was amazing – you get that.

343: Squid

| wonko

Cephalopods are a tricky subject in Origami, this is a figurative squid by Jun Maekawa:

Having eaten and cooked squid on a number of occasions, the basic body morpholoigy is right, the yummy bits are all there.

A nice set of bilaterally symmetrical pleats, a fun collapse and a 3d re-shaping makes an entirely recognisable squiddy.

There are a bunch of Maekawa’s models that I would like to try – he/she (sorry, not sure) has an original approach to the square and the models have a unique character

342: Elephantine

| wonko

Knowing elephants are my daughter’s favourite animal, I thought I would try David Brill’s model:

As you can see, it is only vaguely elephantine – not because the model is flawed, just my execution, first fold, is.

This is a difficult model as there are few folding landmarks – you use your eye to place most of the body/head folds – errors compound and before you know it the model only vaguely resembles the desired shape.

I will fold this again – it was late, I was tired (and a little pickled after an evening out), you get that. They cannot all be gems.

341: Jolly Roger

| wonko

Now I do not know much about pirates, nor why a skeletal chap called Roger should be jolly, but there you go:

When I first saw Hojyo Takashi’s 3d looking skull I knew I had to try it. A torturous box pleat in 12ths, the collapse to get the face right was nearly as complicated as the pre-creasing.

Saying that, the resultant model was screaming out for a set of cross-bones, so I sort of improvised them from a second sheet of A3 split lengthwise.

I think this turned out splendidly – amazing given the copy paper was disintegrating in my hands due to the high humidity (it is miserable, cold and grey outside – odd for summer, but there you go) as the paper is hygroscopic and kept going limp. I was sure it was going to split at the bottom of the eye sockets where the most difficult pleating takes place, but no.

The beautifully proportioned skull is 3d up to a point – it is backless, but none the less lovely – I love the eye sockets and nose hole, the teeth are also nice (but if I had folded it bigger scale I reckon I could have crimped some gums and gaps between them also.

Why a “Jolly Roger” I hear you ask – WHY NOT says I.

340: Thorin Oakenstaff

| wonko

May I most humbly introduce to you, Thorin Oakenstaff Esq, Dwarf, gentleman, most of the time:

I am so pleased this worked, even better than I had imagined. I found a hand-drawn crease pattern by the late, great Eric Joisel – I had been hankering after his dwarves you see and wondered how the heck you could fold something like that.

Well, the crease pattern sort of made sense, and I did a rough test fold on an A4 square only to realise it was waaaay too small to model and copy paper was way too brittle, so thought I would upscale it on brown paper. I cut a 56cm square from plain brown paper and began.

After an hour of pre-creasing, and a collapse from hell, you get a base that has enough bits to model into a human like critter with a tall hat – gnome, dwarf, call him what you like there is no escaping the fact that this is bloody amazing.

I started shaking with excitement about an hour before finishing, realising it was in fact going to work after all (after walking away from the collapse twice) and must say he is lovely – there is character in his face, poise in his posture and a spring in his step.

I feel honoured to have folded something inspired by a drawing done by Joisel – I would argue the worlds greatest character folder – I can see me trying this one again, now I know what goes where – each time you fold it there would be sufficient variables to ensure you never duplicate the little guy – so neat.

As an after thought I decided he needed a walking stick, and then decided he also needed a name – “Thorin” from a LOTR dwarf and “Oakenstaff” because that is what I tried to make him as a walking stick. I hope you like him (anyone actually reading that is) – I think he is amazing.

339: Lang’s Scorpion

| wonko

To Quote Michaelangelo

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.

Extrapolating, every sheet has an origami figure in it – the tricky part of super-complex models is to fold away all but that figure:

This is Robert Lang’s Scorpion, folded from “Origami Insects II” and it was a fascinating exercise in managing paper fatigue indeed.

An astonishing set of mathematical and geometric constructions were necessary to find reference points before the base was folded, then collapses, accordion pleats and some seriously sharly tucking away results is a remarkably shapely arachnid (8 legs + claws + a curvey, stingy tail).

I am so chuffed to actually finish these instructions, considered abandoning it twice, had to get up and make a cup of tea twice during it’s genesis. Small inaccuracies compound – a half a millimetre here results in half a centimetre out of alignment later on, so I tried to be as careful as my fat clumsy fingers would let me be.

In the end, a 60ish cm square collapses down into a lovely little 18cm model. I only had a tiny bit of paper fatigue right on the last step (typical) when attempting the final tail curl through 30+ layers of paper – it really did not want to bend – you get that.

Lithography paper is strong and fairly resilient, but it is still a little thick for this model – not sure how I acquire thinner/stronger paper as I want to fold more complex things – might try brown paper, I have a nice wide roll of that, will see how it goes.