Now in my understanding, life/existence as I know it exists in 4 dimensions (X, Y, Z and Time):
I am trying to understand physics, it does my head in when they talk of strings and the need for 11 dimensions to make sense of them.
Busy day, a modular to bridge the gap. This nice little modular by David Petty.
Happy with this as a first fold. Other things in the pipelines.
“You Shall NOT Pass!!!!” Now if you are a Lord of the Rings fan, you will recognise the significance of that, if not you will cynically decide that is my comment on the coming exam season (no, students, I do not mean it that way – relax):
This lovely White Wizard is designed by Victoria and Vladimir Serov, and was first made by me MONTHS ago and packaged up and sent to York in the UK to a friend as part of a Christmas hamper.
He has been travelling for months and arrived yesterday (our time), Today (their time) so I can finally post it as part of this blog.
I have actually folded this 3 times – let me explain: the instructions are in Russian (no, I do not speak Russian either) and even with the best translation engines available I could not for the life of me work out which way was up. With my tissue foil there is a good side and a back side and first time I folded it I realised near the end that the paper was the wrong way round. So I folded a second one (knowing I wanted to keep one and send the other) and ended up making exactly the same mistake again (stupid me), so UNFOLDED IT, reversed all the creases and re-folded it the right way around. thank goodness for good paper. 
The resultant lovely grasps (with fantastic little hands) a gnarled wooden staff, has a fantastically detailed face – frown, curled moustache, beard, and a lovely robe, topped off with a pointy wizard hat.
Extraordinarily fiddly, at times I had to walk away, calm down before returning to it – 2mm pleats are not fun with fat, clumsy fingers.
After months in a box, travelling via seamail, the White Wizard arrives safely in York and now takes pride of place. Very happy with this model, so much character and a suitable “Happy Christmas” inclusion for Mike and Colette.
The smilodon is often called the “Saber-toothed Tiger” but is not a tiger at all:
This lovely (extinct) beastie is a Satoshi Kamiya masterpiece, a real exercise in restraint – resisting the urge to set creases early to get nice, rounder shapes later.
I had no idea what was what with this model – as my first fold I learnt a lot from this – I found the lower jaw very fiddly and in the end it did not look a lot like a jaw in my opinion, but the head, saber-like front teeth, haunches and rest of body are beautifully proportioned.
This took me an age (well, in truth 3.5 hours) and although the pattern suggested a 25cm square, I went bigger – 38cm square of lithograph paper and that was fiddly enough.
I like this a lot, it is very cat-like but emanates raw power and ferocity (regardless of how cuddly characters like “Diego” in the Iceage franchise was, these guys must have been snarly and fearsome up close and personal).
Comes time in the life of all magpie chicks, when pin feathers have moulted and the adult feathers, shiny and new are through, untested. The fledgling inches to the edge of the nest, mindful of the effects of gravity. With encouragement, and a gentle nudge, the fledgling spreads its wings, tenses the flight muscles it has been exercising more recently. In an act of self belief, it launches into the great blue yonder:
This is Jun Maekawa’s Crow (or similar, cannot read the Japanese, sorry) – I like that this bird looks like it needs to grow into it’s feet and wings – much as I imagine a fledgling does.
Why a fledgling? A new batch of year 12s launch itself into the real world today. Their future is entirely in their hands, the potential is all there, they will make of it what they see fit. I hope they look after each other, and themselves, that they make the world a better place to be and never forget that they can make wonderful things happen if they can be bothered.
Happy with this as a first fold, lovely feet, nicely proportioned body, economy of use of paper, great design.
I love it how you can have a serious and in-depth discussion with students about Zombies:
They are experts – both the “undead” and “infection” zombies could, like, totally happen – yeah, and it is well understood how to dispatch them.
Having not long finished an adaptation of Jane Austin’s classic tale “Pride and Prejudice (and Zombies)” I am in touch with my undead self.
Well, in truth, I am a little undead zombie myself – marking does that to my brain, with perilously close deadlines and waaaaay too much to actually do before it, I neeeeeed braaaaaaiiinnnsss!!!
This is Jun Maekawa’s Zombie – well, I assume that is what it is as the book I got it out of is entirely in Japanese and I cannot read it, so, yeah. I love this posture of this model, the hands reach out sinisterly and there is just enough of a facial expression to know he is gunning for your fresh brain.
Glad I used a scrap of lithography paper for this model – copy paper would not have let me puff out and flatten the face before disintegrating.
Now I like a good rodent, particularly one that is simple to fold but lovely in proportions – this mouse is such a beastie:
A tough fold in an A4-cut square to be honest, but the tinyness of it is worth the pain and bruised finger tips due to the thicknesses of the folds.
Lovely ears, poseable arms and legs and a splendid tail – from relatively few folds actually, glad I have found this one, I think I will add this to my “can do by heart” collection because of the finished shape.
Busy day, lots going on – lots of it red pen on things that need marking – hate this time of year, you get that sometimes.
I must investigate the animals of Kunihiko Kasahara some more – nice touch with the media, classic style.
The crowd gasped and applauded enthusiastically at the task do deftly performed by the seal on display. The seal sighed, feeling that the humans watching it were easily amused and so concentrated on the mathematics of parabolic hyperflexion and existential philosophy to pass the time until the next fish was tossed her way:
This is Fred Rohm’s “Performing Seal” an old-school model that is clever none the less. Perched atop the nose of a reasonably nicely formed seal is a beachball – all ONE piece of paper, some nice bending in this.
This and the “Magic White Rabbit” both make use of a blended waterbomb, should I fold this one again I would ensure it is less square.
Quite ingenious, we use a 3×1 rectangle and tuck most of it away to leave the seal.
I have never understood the justification from animal trainers – the whole “reinforcing natural behaviours” falls flat on it’s face with these sorts of tricks – still, so long as the crowd loves them it cannot be all bad – right?
On review, I have not folded many camels – I have no idea why this is:
This is John Montroll’s “Dromedary”, a one-humped Arabian camel and there is much to like about the model, if not my first fold of it.
Lovely ears and face, curious sunken hump, legs more or less in the right place.
I might fold this one again, I learned much on the first time through, and it was a mashup of his “camel” instructions to a modified base, so I did not really know what was going to be what until fairly late in the piece (hence the disoriented development pictures).
Busy times, lots to do, spent waaaay too much time on this, you get that.
As a DnD fanatacist, I am always on the look out for a good Dragon – Kade Chan’s Fiery Dragon is one such beastie:
Having loved folding Chan’s “Werewolf” I have had this model in the “must do” pile for months.
WOW – to take an A3-cut square and twist it to this degree and get such a lovely result with no paper fatigue demonstrates the brilliant design here – the body is so thick, wings so tortured, tail so tight, head so detailed that any of these features could have meant the paper split asunder but no.
Coaxing copy paper through tricksey folds is beginning to be an obsession of mine – I have no doubt that many of these folds would be easier with more robust paper but … well … where is the challenge, right?
From all angles, this little beauty is 100% dragon and I will fold this again. If you look carefully he even has eyes. Potter fans will probably label this a “Horntail” or “Ridgeback” dragon, because we are knowledgeable about such things also 😛
Mastery of the square is something Kade Chan is known for, economy of fold and attention to media are the hallmarks of a talented designer. I feel honoured to have folded this one.
Now I started this model assuming I would keep folding until the paper failed – I could tell from the instructions that copy paper would not be ideal, but for shits and giggles I kept bending:
To my amazement, with some gentle coaxing and no little pressure on tough folds (15+ layers for body/wing bend) a delightful and menacing wasp emerged from the crumpled and teased paper.
This is Annibal Voyer’s “wasp” and she is a beauty – lovely textured 3d abdomen, shapely wings, intricate head and the requisite 6 legs, all from an A3 copy square – wow.
There is much to admire about this design – although forming the body was tough with such thick brittle paper, at no time did I see a step I could not attempt (even with some inaccuracies like the paper being not quite square it still worked).
This is very clever design and I will fold this model again. Busy day again so I needed to get this out of the way, really glad I chose this model tho as the result, as a first fold, is astonishing.
Today was “Remembrance Day”, at 11 am on the 11th of the 11th, 2011 the nation stops to give thanks and praise to the fallen soldiers from all world wars:
This is Frances Ow’s “Star Medal” – a lovely paper decoration (made even lovelier by making it in metallic paper) that I thought was fitting as a tribute to the day and also to distribute to a bunch of WWI ‘Aces’ who meet semi-regularly to play an old school board game with vigor and passion.
The gold medal was awarded to the “ballsy-est” move in the game – a near suicidal strafe on enemy base, the rest of us got bronze. In retrospect I should have folded one in purple, or better still folded a “purple heart” as one of the pilots was severely under the weather. Made from a 2×1 rectangle, based on a hexagon, the collapse is elegant and pleasing, a masterful design.
I originally folded this a while back, holding off until today to publish (so sue me)
Slow and steady wins the race, in theory at least:
This is Nicholas Terry’s “Snail on a Leaf”, a lovely model that from one sheet rends a quite shapely snail, foot, shell and feelers, and a veined leaf – neat.
Busy day, bit of a rush, you get that sometimes. I like this as a first fold, learnt something about the model along the way so if I should fold it again, the result would be smoother and a little neater I think.
Action models that work and look reasonable are few and far between, this is an exception:
Diagrammed (yet not credited to any particular designer) in Origami USA collection, this delightful model is a monkey holding a small set of symbols.
By tweaking the handle up and down, whilst holding the body, the arms flail and clap the symbols together – very cute indeed.
This is a compound figure – that is it is comprised of two pieces of paper folded separately and then locked together at the end – clever design really.
Why a symbol monkey? Why not!
Now in arid areas of Australia life is hard. Some animals never drink, some come out an night, some live underground – the gerboa does all these things and more:
Sometimes called the “Kangaroo rat” because of its rather splendid tail and hoppy back legs, it has always fascinated me.
When I saw this model I knew I would have to try it – copy paper, to be honest, is a terrible media for this but I soldiered on and am actually very happy with this as a first fold.
An ingenious use of the bird base, I will fold this again – it is poseable, has lots of character and the most lovely feet and tail – very clever design.
When I first folded Tadashi Mori’s Celtic Cross I knew it would come in handy, being that it is a part of the symbology of my College:
My year 12s (well, I call them mine, they were the leaders in my tutor Group – a lovely bunch of chaps) had their last day of classes today so I thought it a good idea to mark the occasion with cards – naturally they would feature origami.
Hope they liked them.
