338: Maekawa’s Triceratops

| wonko

I have folded a few dinosaurs, some have been simple but this little beauty has a good body shape and a fab head:

This is Jun Maekawa’s Triceratops – folded from his book “Genuine Origami”. There is something calming about folding a Maekawa model – I needed calming down as I had a model fail today – some super complex one with Russian instructions that made only partial sense.

I discovered Maekawa’s work relatively late in this project – there are many more in her collection that I would like to try – his models seem to have a “character” to them, difficult to isolate but her style is evident.

Near the end of a massive project – holiday time will see a mix of complex, ball-breakingly super complex and simple, I suspect – depends on where my head is at. I _want_ to pretend I have had a plan but, honestly, for the most part each day I decide there and then what I feel like folding – as evidenced by the mostly blank spreadsheet ahead of the day I have just folded. I like that tension (except when I arbitrarily try something too hard for me – you get that).

Very disappointed with the auction idea – after so much encouragement, to receive only 3 bids so far is disheartening and very depressing, thinking of abandoning the whole idea (and 4 of the 12 voices in my head are urging me to return to the bonfire idea) – you get that I guess, Internet “interest” is different from real interest in many ways.

337: Hercules Beetle

| wonko

Woke up, brain would not stop, so thought I would punish it with a super complex Satoshi Kamiya model:

This is his Hercules Beetle and it is snarly to fold indeed – even at this scale (I started with a 54cm square) there are terribly fiddly bits.

The details here are a little dizzying – six thin legs, a pair of pedipalps, wings, separate wing covers, a lovely 3d abdomen and a snarly pokey-outey head thing.

I think, even with lithography paper, this model was a real challenge – I would gather something like tissue foil would be more suitable. Still, very little paper fatigue after nearly 3 hours of folding and such a dense body fold, this is quite an achievement to actually finish it.

I have a few Satoshi models still to try, including the Ancient Dragon – his design style is distinctive. I am amazed at the ease I now leap into a complex open sink, hideously complicated collapse and snarly swivels.

336: Maekawa’s Cow

| wonko

Always on the lookout for a good COW, I stumbled across this little beauty:

This is Jun Maekawa’s Cow, an interesting fold containing many new techniques for me, particularly treatments for flaps you need to multiply (ie. one stickey-outey bit that becomes 3 via some neato crimping and a swivel or two).

I like this, it reminds me of those old world illustrations of cows that appear almost rectangular – great painters are not necessarily accurate anatomists.

Not sure if I have room for more cows in this project – we shall see what turns up. A little brain-fragged at the moment, a good rest after a particularly brutal week will be welcome.

335: White Rabbits!

| wonko

A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month:

This is Jun Maekawas Rabbit, a lovely 3d head and body and an interesting development – some precision needed in the early stages else it catches up with you later on.

This is my LAST first day of the month – woo hoo! that means only 30 Models to go after this one.

Of the rabbits I have folded this year, I think my favourite one would be Lang’s – something about the body shape and ears. They are all good – bid on one if you are so moved.

November, Done and Dusted.

| wonko

November has been another HUUUUUGE month, and I have not taken the easy road – some of this month’s models have been down right snarly and challenging, taking way more time than I had, really.

ONE MONTH TO GO. I am excited, hope you are too, there is a great ride ahead and the start of the paper auctions to begin raising money for Red Cross and Medicine Sans Frontiers.

334: The DEVIL is in the DETAIL

| wonko

I have grown to respect a number of designers of all nationalities and Fernando Gilgado from Spain is one who is guaranteed to produce a challenging model:

This is the Demon, and the devil in the details, trust me – his head alone is frightening – 2 sets of horns, beard, snarly mouth, eyes etc. His body is very dense, arms and legs 20+ layers of paper but that bunching results in the most splendid wings and a pointy demonic tail.

This instruction set was a real challenge – apart from folding it during school time (in between end of year report checking and tidying up), the instructions were in Spanish, and some aspects of it were very fiddly indeed. Even at 54cm x 54 cm, the head and facial features were too small to fold tidily, still, as a first fold I am very pleased with this. It is a monster, wing span of nearly 30cm and he looks very menacing – in a cutey sort of way.

I thought the “angels” of yesterday needed some “demons” today to bring some sort of balance to the paper cosmos. A suitable end of my second last month of this challenge.

333: Nativity

| wonko

Away in a manger, no crib for a bed …

This is Ligia Montoya’s set of models collectively known as “The Creche”. Folded today for possible inclusion in the end of year massy thing for staff this Friday.

This amazing collection of models, all designed around the same figurative human base is to scale, uncluttered and has a lovely feel to it. Continue reading →

332: Elephant

| wonko

You know when you get a song stuck in your head, and it will not go away? Usually the song is totally daggy but so solidly lodged in your psyche that it effects your judgement:

“Baby Elephant Walk” is stuck in my head at the moment – I will excorcise it with some Rammstein later but for now my mind turns to folding elephants. This is my first fold of John Montroll’s Elephant (taken from his book “Origami Sculptures”).

Not really happy with it – an early inaccuracy compounded through the model making the legs asymmetrical and the shoulders gape – you get that sometimes. I quite like the head/ears/trunk and the rear has modelling potential. I will fold this again, when I have more time, if I remember (unlike an elephant, I forget things all the time).

331: Happy Hogswatch!

| wonko

I have been a fan of Terry Pratchett’s writing for as long as it was possible – his amagination and ability to tell engaging stories is breathtaking:

I thought it apt to celebrate “Hogswatch” – a Discworld event (and the name of one of the dozens of novels set in this amazing imaginary world). I am constantly amazed and amused with the stable of characters, situations and his turn of phrase – if you have never read a Discworld novel then you must, you really must.

This delightful model is my favourite pig so far. designed by Adolfo Cerceda, folded from “Secrets of origami” by Robert Harbin, my oldest (and a bit fall-aparty) hard-cover book.

Complete with a lovely fat face, saggy jowls, nice ears, trotters and a curly tail, this compound model (uses 2 bird bases) is fantastic – very happy with it – he makes me hungry for bacon – is that wrong?

We shall soon be considering Ham, turkey and all the trimmings, with the festive season fast approaching, hope your Hogswatch is a good one.

330: Billfold

| wonko

There is something I have learned about Australian paper money – it is NOT paper and it does not want to be folded. So I entered a little bit of a counterfeitting mode and made some paper money out of images and paper:

This is a billfold – one of HUNDREDS of models designed to be folded with an American $1.

Many are intricate and detailed, this one is merely figurative and works on many conceptual levels – making money work, making dollars with dollars etc.

I wonder what “greenbacks” are like to fold – the paper must be pretty strong to survive circulation and for there to be so many designs devoted to the medium I imagine it folds pretty well.

I miss paper money, I miss lower denomination coinage – as we jettison it, prices go up, value goes down, inflation goes crazy and exchange rates go through the roof.

A wise man once said that there is much unhappiness in the world because people spend most of their lives chasing little bits of coloured paper – this is odd because, on the whole, those bits of paper are not the least bit unhappy. DNA, I miss you.

329: Xmas Trees

| wonko

Synchronicity happens – i was asked by my lovely wife if I could make an origami xmas tree – I said I would have a look, and did – there were lots to choose from but then came a posting on the British Origami Society mailing list with possibly the best design of them all:

Designed by Francesco Guarnieri, demoed by Sara Adams here, this beautiful modular is a very clever design. Sure, it is a little labour intensive but wow!

Held in shape by paper tension, lovely pendulous layers interlock and sit atop a snarly trunk, each tree probably takes about an hour and a half but it is a thing of beauty.

I made 4 – naturally. One for the lady in the print room (one of my paper dealers), one for the library (then the TL asked where the angel was – she did not realise I was obsessive compulsive so I folded 4 small gold Brill angels) and 2 for the counter of my wife’s office.

Very happy with these, they look wonderful from all angles and are suitably festive as we creep ever so closer to holidays.

Market Forces

| wonko

…so here’s what I am thinking, right.

I have all these models – HUNDREDS of them, and rather than burn them (as my psychologist recommends) or let them gather dust at my place or throw them away I thought I would sell them for charity.

Some models are extremely beautiful, some complex and interesting, others classically simple and elegant but I have very little space to keep them so I thought that sharing the love was a good plan. There are some models I cannot bear to part with, sorry. This is NOT a commercial sale, as I am not the copyright owner of most of the models, this is a CHARITY ACTION.

Charities that will benefit directly are Australian Red Cross (particularly for their foreign aid programs) and Medicine san Frontiers – sharing the love is important, right? ALL proceeds will be channelled to these aid agencies, the joy I have had in this project is folding the models in the first place – enough wonder and awe wonder for one person.

WANT TO HELP?

Stay tuned, details on what you can do to OWN a unique bit of my 365 Project and more importantly support these great causes will be released here.

BROWSE the model list (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjCUWfazDAWDdGhsTmlWVGtTemIzc2U3eFhlcXBjNVE#gid=0) and check out what they look like in the DeviantArt Gallery (http://neubauten.deviantart.com/gallery/28292036 ) and when the time comes GET IN EARLY to avoid disappointment.

Naturally I will also take orders/requests(for re-folds with the same direction of monies – these aid organisations deserve our support – you get something beautiful and do something beautiful as well – WIN WIN.

328: Superdude

| wonko

Now I tried something, for the first time ever. I planned a NEW model, then folded it in prototype, then adjusted the proportions and now there is a NEW ORIGAMI FIGURE in the world – cool hey:

I must admit to giggling when it just sort of … worked. I then got the class (who had finished and had their papers collected) involved – “look up there in the sky, is it a bird, a plane? No, it’s Superdude“.

I had a clear idea in my mind, rare that it coalesces so perfectly.

This is “Superdude” – like Superman but not yet franchised. He is inspired by “Girl in a dress” by Stephen Weiss and the box pleating work of Neal Elias, but I can find nothing quite like him anywhere but at my place, right here, right now so I will claim copyright.

I was messing around with proportions of an A4 sheet – not having any scissors (I was in an exam supervision and someone carelessly left an un-written on sheet lying around) with out cutting. The basic “S” bend, when combined with a 1/16th pleat provides the frame for this model.

You then tease out the “cape”, splay each ripple a little, box pleat some arms and a head one end, legs the other and you have the base.

Shaping the arms, neck, head and legs gives you a nicely proportioned super being in mid-flight (although someone should tell him that capes are so 90’s – no one wears capes these days)

327: Octopus

| wonko

Now normally, there is a set of directions that I follow to make someones model – we origamists call them diagrams. Sometimes diagrams have yet to be made for a model but some enterprising designer unfolds their creation and traces all the folds as a starting point – we call this a crease pattern:

This delightfully devious and slippery fellow was folded from my first crease pattern – you can see it here: octopusCP. Naturally, folding from a crease pattern is much more challenging as there is NO indication as to what folds are done first.

Sipho Mobona is a masterful paper engineer and is responsible for beautifully naturalistic models but finding diagrams of his models is really hard work, so you sort of have to … improvise.

Had I not done the Hoodie, all those months ago, I would not have had a hope in hell of achieving this model – pre-creasing into 32ths was painful, literally, then crumpling along selected folds was problematic (I originally crumpled it inside out, only to unfold and re-crumple the right way round).

The details here (pity the photos do not really do it justice) are amazing – we have 2 lovely bulbous eyes, a siphon (the thing they jet alone with when in a hurry), 8 beautifully curly tentacles and a pendulous and tasty-looking body. genius from one square of paper, no cuts, no glue, no shortness of swearing.

Very happy with this fold – I learnt a lot along the way but he is soo cute, very octopi-like and I could spend hours just re-positioning the tentacles for lifelike crawley poses – very cute.

You may applaud now, and pass the lemon and cracked pepper – delicious on a bbq’d octopus indeed.

326: Rough End First

| wonko

All too often we feel like we are dealt the “rough end” of the pineapple:

It is a curious expression that, I think at least, has something to do with inserting said pineapple in a pineapple-unfriendly place (makes my eyes water just thinking about it).

This is a pleated structure designed by David Petty and it contains techniques I will use elsewhere.

You can see the pineapple-like structure (squint, close one eye, through a mirror) … yeah, there it is and this design is meant to be folded with duo coloured paper, as the top would then be a different colour to the bottom – neat.

I have seen much larger paper sculptures using this “stretched pleated rib” technique and now I know how they were made, which is a good thing.

Paper and folding is taking up waaaay too much of my life right now – have other things I HAVE to do but will somehow muddle through,