ABC Radio Interview

| wonko

…so I was approached by 612 ABC Radio to come in and talk about the 365 project, having been dobbed in by Michelle Williams (thanks Shelly) initially for Friday morning. Given I had a fairly full teaching day they re-scheduled to Monday morning as a pre-record in at the Toowong studios.

Over the weekend I also developed a streaming headcold (totally predictable) but soldiered on regardless and completed the brief interview, and folded a little hoodie also in the process – red for studio colours.

I am not naturally at ease talking like that, I get all nervy, but it seemed to go ok apart from a little nervy stammering intially. Terri Begley was very supportive and coaxed me through the thick of it. It was nice to meet her and I hope the adoring public found it a valuable use of airtime.

For those interested, the podcast of the interview is available here

303: Llopio’s Moment of Truth

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The croud erupts spontaneously with “Olé!” as Llopio narrowly dodges the bull calf’s first charge. His grandfather’s matador cap, too loose for him, slips and obscures his vision, there is an amateur swish of a cape as the bull’s developing horns pass too close for comfort, quick step out of the way and Llopio is finally a bullfighter.

This is “Llopio’s Moment of truth” – the reason I bought the British Origami Society’s compendium of Neal Elias figures. There is much to like in this complex box pleat. from one piece of paper emerges a Matador, Bull and the Cape that separates them.

I like how there is movement, you can sense the drama, a fitting end to my exploration of Neal Elias’ work. This fold is challenging, so much of the design is “mystery meat” where you just have to sort of “improvise” – you would not want to fold it much smaller, the manipulation of layers in the bodies is intense and fiddly and it is not immediately obvious what is going to be what until near the end.

Interestingly, only the matador is box pleated – unusually you torture 2 water bomb bases to get the bull and cape so this is a nice fusion between pure box pleating and free-form sculpture. Happy I have folded this, apparently if you fold it with duo paper the cape ends up being the alternate colour – wow.

302: Pereira’s Jack In The Box

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If you were ever after proof that “magic happens”, here’s your proof:

This masterpiece of design by Hugo Pereira is a Jack-in-a-box, complete. those who have been keeping up with this blog will remember a previous Jack in the Box by Max Hulme and I must admit I like this one better.

The design engineering alone in this model is breathtaking, from the box to the spring and then to the jack, the details here are lovely and structurally amazing.

So many technical elements here, from intense closed-sinks, folds that cause automatic puckers in the spring and just when you think you are near the end a tight pair of accordion folds to make the arms in almost Elias style.

I am so stoked with this, as a first fold. After an hour of pre-folding, the actual collapse took relatively little time considering the complexity of the model. I had relegated this model the “yeah, prolly not” pile because it just looked too hard – indeed, some of the manoeuvres only make sense if you look before, after and what that part will eventually be used for.

Sense of achievement – tick 🙂

301: Miyajima’s Bat

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When looking for a suitable model for Halloween, I sumbled across this delightful model from Noburu Miyajima:

The bat is a much maligned critter, particularly in the light of the Hendra Virus here is Queensland, but this model is lovely (in a batty sort of way)

An amazingly well designed model that makes good use of paper, the resultant model being not that much smaller than the original sheet yet containing surprising detail.

Lovely wings, cute little pot belly and legs, fantastic face and ears and those majestic wings – wow.

This is not my first fold – I almost screwed this up once at work but I wanted to get the head right (the original attempt was mutilated and torn),  so sue me 😛

300: Adam’s Llama

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Post 300 – looking back I am AMAZED I have only done one Llama:

This is Jim adams’ Llama, a tough fold really, not because there are any difficult techniques or numerous steps but because of the thicknesses of paper you end up working with – much more suited to thin paper (and not copy). Not really happy with the hind quarters – the tail is 12 layers thick, phew!

You too can have a go – it is not tricky: Jim Adams Llama

It was late, after a huge and busy day – 65 to go!!!

299: Platypus

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It is a little known fact that Australians MADE UP the Platypus to see who would be silly enought to believe in it:

Let’s face it – an aquatic, furry mammal that feeds it’s young milk in a pouch, after they hatch from eggs; duck-bill, webbed feet, beaver tail, “see” via electrical sonar through their nose; male with poisonous spines – LOL. No one would be sill enough to believe in that illogical Frankenstein-like collection of bits of other critters, surely.

I have only ever had second, or third-hand experience of a Platypus – NEVER seen one live so I have to rely on others’ account of them.

A relatively simple figurative fold – they cannot all be huge, quite happy with this – I can see large modelability in this figure. Could not work out who designed it, sorry – anyone advise?

298: Violinist

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When I saw this design I knew I had to try it:

Made, oddly, from a “T”-shaped box pleat, designed by Neal Elias in 1971 to celebrate the then popular violinist Yehudi Menuhin, this is a masterpiece of miniature modelling.

We have a violin perched on a shoulder, being held by that hand, a bow hand complete with bow, a serious head tilt, trousers, coat and even shoes! He also free-stands, which is all the more remarkable.

Seriously happy with this fold, I was convinced it was going to hell in a hand basket at 3 junctures when the instructions did not patch what the model had (flaps and creases in different orientations), but in the end it just sort of worked.

Interestingly, it was not all that hard, well, it seemed that way to me – given I had never attempted box pleating before the 365 challenge, I guess my skills have improved, which is a good thing.

297: Taxi!

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In old Chinatown, when someone wanted to travel in style, they hailed a “coolie” pulling a rickshaw:

This picture was common in days gone by, these days the hustle and bustle of bicycles, motorbikes and tuk-tuks has replaced the hard work.

This is Neal Elias’ “Coolie and Rickshaw”, designed in1967. An ingenious box pleat using a square and tidily fashioning a running man and a 2 wheeled buggy behind, replete with lovely conical hat, wheels and canopy.

I have been wanting to try this for a while, just because really. Taken from “Selected works 1964-1973” by British Origami Society. I am happy with this as a first fold. I modified the body and legs a little to add a sense of movement, and re-worked the wheels so they were round (the original design had them nearly square).

296: Pas de Deux

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In ballet, a pas de deux (French, steps of two) is a duet in which ballet dancers perform the dance together. It usually consists of an entrée, adagio, two variations (one for each dancer), and a coda:

In origami, few designers have mastered multiple figure folding like Neal Elias – this is his “Nureyev and Fonteyn” model designed in 1973 as a tribute to the then “toast of the town” couple as they became an on-stage sensation.

This is a relatively simple box-pleat with some elias stretches to form arms. I found the flrming of her legs the most challenging, tucking it tidily into his trousers so the join between them is less obvious. At this scale, shaping is a challenge, hence her “thunder thighs” and their angular faces. I am happy however with this figurative fold, taken from my copy of the British Origami Society’s publication of Elias’ selected works.

Folded from a 3×1 rectangle (scrap litho paper from yesterday’s squaring), the only pity is that it is not free-standing (but boy would lit look pretty on a card) so I cheated and blu-tacked a paper clip on the back for display purposes.

I was looking for an easier model (because yesterday took so long) -this one fitted the bill admirably.

295: WALL-E

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I am an out and proud Pixar fan, they make movies where animation is almost amazing as the story telling and characterisation:

This is Brian Chan’s WALL-E – a lovely model that has taken me simply an age to complete for all sorts of reasons.

I started with a 52cm square (yep, over a half a meter) and a dodgy folding guide (as opposed to complete diagrams) in RUSSIAN and quite frankly I struggled with this one. I must find a way to buy a book that has this model in it, to see how Brian Chan suggests you fold it because I ended up improvising when there were no instructions that I could follow.

I walked away from this model 3 times, unfolded and re-folded the most complex parts a total of 4 times as I tried to make sense of the next stage. That said, I think the final model is quite remarkable. He is free standing (on stunning caterpillar tracks), has the most amazing head/eyes, is just under 10cm tall and I am totally chuffed with how he turned out.

That you can coax a square of paper into such an intricate and completely detailed model is nothing short of amazing – even if it did take me 5.5 HOURS – yes, that is actual folding elapsed time. Words fail me to express the delight when I finally realised he was going to work (having seriously contemplating abandoning the model twice).

This, for me, is a REAL achievement given how much I had to just work out for myself. Folded from my last piece of lithographic paper (thank you school art department). There was NO paper fatigue and that is astonishing given the lengths that the design requires you torture the paper. I must have some more.

294: Montroll’s Centaur

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Ever since my first disastrous encounter with a centaur, I have been looking for a worthy replacement:

This model comes close, the proportions work a little better (although, truth be told it looks more like a man standing with a donkey wedged up his bottom, but you get that).

A mch easier fold with plenty of modelling potential, I think the quadrupedal hindquarters are a little out of scale. I did fold it to the directions, but might, next time I fold this re-position some of the features a little. I like the arms and the upper body, although figurative, are well proportioned.

Happy with this as a first fold. taken from “Mythological Creatures and Chinese Zodiac”, worth exploring further.

293: Kawahata’s TRex

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It was late, I was tired, and this model did not come easily from a baffling set of instructions:

I will fold this again, but for now this is my first fold – rough but the vestiges of a row of teeth, sort of arms, nearly toes and a good tail/body – plenty of scope to improve.

Folded from “Origami Fantasy” by Fumiaki Kawahata, this model is tough at this scale.

292: Montroll’s Rhino

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I have been exploring the work of John Montroll, and came across this little beauty:

A lovely Rhino, dual horns, lovely ears and a splendid tail, I am impressed with the rhinocerosness of this design, you get a sense of the armor-plating, power and posture of the beast.

Some clever pre-folding and some interesting sink folds to tease stickey-outey bits from flat edges, and the collapse for the head is interesting indeed.

Happy with this as a first fold, my pick of the rhinos folded so far.

291: Hexagonal Prism

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John Montroll is a design genius:

In his book “A Plethora of Polyhedra” he explores the complexities of single sheet 3d-shapes, and this rather splendid prism caught my eye as something I wanted to try.

I like how the pre-folding teases of open edges up and inside the finished shape which locks itself – very clever Mr Montroll

There are some eye-poppingly complex polyhedra in this book, I shall be trying some more I think.

290: Dachshund

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Awoke with a banging headache, have laid low for most of the day, decided I needed something simple:

Little did I realise how un-simple this model was. Not hard, just lots of steps really and the end result is a lovely “sausage dog”.

John Montroll is a design genius, and this model uses his “dog base” to sculpt a rather nice dachshund from a square – lots of modelability, plenty of character.

Taken from his book “Origami Sculptures”, this is a keeper, hope you like him too. It uses a stretched variation of his dog base. Try it: sausage

Nice to see readers having a go. Here is Everett’s fold:everett