Madly, I agreed to participate in an international tournament, at the Intermediate level:
Intermediate meant you got a diagram and 72 hours to fold a rendition of it. I decided the “advanced” category was beyond my available time as you only got a CP and presumably relied on the power of prayer.
I gave it a whirl, went for crisp and accurate, but played a little with the flowing style of mane. It was loved by nearly noone who voted – fair enough. Other, less well folded versions (in my opinion) got more “likes” – social media is like that. Useful punch in the face, thanks.
Round 1 of the tournament done … and I am eliminated. Time to focus on more important things.
It is the days you do not look in your mailbox that mail arrives – I arrived home from work to find an astonishing collection of paper from Pham Hoang Tuan’s origami shop, and a couple of his diagrams, all screaming “fold me!”, so I started that journey:
I had only ever seen this model complete and in CP form, failed at solving that CP 2 times and had given up folding it for now, then it arrived in diagram form to my delight.
Ducks and Drakes usually are different – apart from gender, the drake is usually the pretty one, a quite common convention in the bird world:
Each model is folded from a sheet of the same paper, one the reverse of the other to create the different plumage patterns.
A lovely fold sequence is really efficient, so entirely achievable using 15cm origami paper (I have so much of this, and rarely use it). I decided on some teal-ish Yuzen, and the results are lovely.
Further exploring all things equinine, I realised I had never folded Satoshi Kamiya’s horse:
Central to this horse design is a lovely mane, but the volume and proportions of this model are amazing, the base it originates from is immediately “horsey”.
Shaping matters, and I think I have been a little clumsy, but I suspect some of the fat is the paper – crisp 70cm kraft – I think if I had used a thinner/more textured paper the result would look less like a plastic horse.
There are lots of really challenging moves in this sequence – gathering the pleats to allow you to fan out the mane while not distorting the outside layers in mindboggling – there is LOTS of paper hidden, and I think my accuracy for this, the first fold, was pretty good.
I must chase up a copy of Issei Yoshino’s book – that horse has a mane that apparently inspired Satoshi to design this one.
Always on the look out for an elegant depiction of a horse, a contact on Insta posted his fold of this model (a model I had not seen before), and I knew I had to try it:
There are many stunning origami horses – my favourite 2 of note are David Brill’s (folded from a triangle) and Satoshi Kamiya’s (which I have yet to fold).
This model has the proportions and majesty of a fine racing horse and the fold sequence is a lot of fun – you have to be accurate and exercise restraint throughout to get an elegant form.
Folded from a 40cm square of Tant (a little heavy for this design, but I liked the colour and texture so persisted), I think I have a new favourite – such a beautiful horse, and lovely internal structure also.
Flipping through “Bugs and Birds in Origami” by John Montroll one gains an appreciation for the clear design skills on show:
This is Montroll’s “Butterfly” – published in 2001, representing ‘old school’ design, the resultant model is lovely, efficiently uses paper and is morphologically pretty accurate – all this without the hundreds of instructions typical of more modern designs.
Folded from a 30cm square of Daiso unryu (do they still make this? i have not been able to buy it for years), the work to isolate legs and antennae is delicious (if requiring precision) folding, and overall is a fun sequence minimally diagrammed.
I was scheduled to go on a weekend away with the missus, then the State Government called a 3-day lockdown because of a small outbreak of a new strain of Covid-19, so found myself home with some time on my hands:
I fully intended to stop when it failed – Experience has taught me that insects like this require really thin paper, but I just kept folding and the model worked out pretty well. There is a lovely proportion to this model and the sequence is intense (I must have some skills because the wine seemed no impediment) and fun, borrowing from many designers – namely Shuki Kato, Robert Lang and Anibal Voyer – having folded from all these designers I can certainly feel the influences.
This started as pure procrastination – I had marking and reporting to do but ….
Folded from a “live guide” photodiagram series produced by Daniel Brown, as part of a channel in a discord from another planet, irresistible as it is yet another variation of eastern dragon I knew I HAD to fold,
This little fellow is nearly naked – apart from some glue to hold in a wire spine and wires for arms and legs, he is otherwise folded only (hence some of the wayward seams and flaps). I quite like this unfinished appearance and think he will stay as is.
Folded from 90cm natural Kraft, it starts with a therapeutic 64 grid on the diagonal and goes to hell in a handbasket from then on. The basic folding is quite straight forward (as a Ryu master), this variation is a bit of a mashup between a 1.2 and the head of a 2.1 – the result is wonderfully complex and beautifully “Kamiya” in intent.
I decided to fold it in plain (both sides same) paper as the bi-color fold has a large gash of reverse side colour along the underside – I have used this to effect in both a 1.2 and a 2.1, so thought I would go differently this time. Interestingly (to me) this little chappie is folded with a sheet exactly 1/4 the size (and from the same paper roll) as my original 3.5 (a little Ryu Jin nerdistry there).
I remember folding another LED display, but cannot remember whose. This is a really efficient use of a single 15cm square to make a fully functional LED-style 7-segment digit:
The real skill here is hiding away the colour into flaps arranged symmetrically around the edge of the rectangular piece, so that you can open them out and change what is shown.
Continuing my exploration of Mi Wu’s new book “Duo Color Origami”, I present his “Skull Badge”:
A genius rendition of a skull icon complete with upper set of teeth. I enjoyed the fold sequence so much I folded a second one (to convince myself the first fold was not a fluke).
I recently got a copy of Mi Wu’s new book “Duo Color Origami” and knew there were models I had to try:
Colour change is a tricky thing, designing to deliberately form patterns with the reverse side of the page is a real skill and Mi Wu seems to have mastered it, his book contains many unique and very challenging models.
World Origami Days is a period end October-beginning November that is an international celebration of Origami. I decided to try a super complex model (fold until it fails) and successfully folded Satoshi Kamiya’s “Divine Dragon (Bahamut)” on the first attempt:
Rarely does a first fold work out but I kept folding and it did, much to my surprise and delight. The fold sequence is particularly punishing and describes a bit of an enigma of a model – the balance between paper thinness and size. I chose 80gsm 100cm square Kraft paper and at this size/thickness it was tough going in places indeed. The body and legs are incredibly thick compared to the single layer wings – a bit of a puzzle if you wanted to fold it small.
A “Bahamut” is a monster from the “Final Fantasy” franchise, and is an odd mix of a lizard, dragon, Godzilla…thing.
The detail here is terrifying. Thick, muscular 4-toed feet, thick dragonny tail, chest sporting a 6 pack (make that a whole slab), arms with 4 claws, complex and snarly horned head and glorious wings with an extra set of hands atop them – quite a formidable beastie.
This fold took me the best part of the weekend to complete, and I used a little glue (shhhh!) to tidy gaping seams and a little MC to stabilise his (? only they would know the gender) posture and basic body morphology.
If I were to fold this again I would use thinner prettier paper, but there are sections where front and back are visible, so the model is not really suited to duo paper – perhaps double tissue or unryu. I had forgotten how satisfying Satoshi Kamiya models are to fold, and how wonderful it is to just get lost in the folding process (I took no progress pics, soz) – it was terrific paper-based therapy. There are so many complex techniques here to isolate and separate body elements, genius design indeed.
The game of the moment appears to be “Among Us” – a playful collab game of murder in the dark, in space, featuring an imposter among the group.
I cannot pretend to have played it, yet. I gather you need friends, like-minded, that have good hand-eye coordination. I think I would be a liability given I used to think that “friendly fire” was the aim, and I always found it easier to murder those players just sitting there with me – apparently murdering team mates is generally not appreciated.
It is a well known fact that Eric Joisel was a sculptor before taking up paper as his medium of choice. Never is it more evident than the figurative human series of nudes he made, of which this is my approximation of #4:
He uses an ingenious grid system, dividing each corner up into 18 radial lines, where they intersect geometry emerges on a square and that geometry provides the landmarks for the base.
I had tried 2 different schemes for corner division, failed both times until I realised that, relative to the centre line, the interval is a geometric series that increases the further away you get. In the end I used a CP template to “rough out” the divisions and then with my trusty straight edge, ironed out the anomalies.
Corners of the sheet give you arms and legs, the head is near the top middle and a torturous neck reduction brings the chin down to allow the face to look out. The layers are reminiscent of musculature and indeed, Joisel teased and primped, each model different, few photographed clearly enough to really see what was what.
So this started as a cautionary tale – I saw the a competition, in Spanish, where they were celebrating the art legacy of one of my favourite designers of all time: Eric Joisel. My initial “skimming” of the competition was “pick a level, choose a model from that level’s choices, fold that model” – easy, right?
I chose “Intermediate”, no real idea why, but I did, and was accepted. Just before the comp started, I get an email welcoming me to the competition and detailing Week 1’s challenge … wait!?!? What!?!?!
Turns out I signed up to fold ALL of the intermediate models, one a week for the next 4 weeks. I have no idea if I can actually fold some of the models in this category, but am (after the “reorientation”) prepared to give it a crack.
