177: Hedwig

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Now I am the first to admit I am an out and proud Harry Potter fan. I have consumed all the content JK Rowling has produced on the world of magical and muggle, and particularly like the use of Owl Post:

Looming is the release of Deathly Hollows part 2 and more recently mention of “Pottermore” which I hoped would be an MMO or immersive world because I thought it would be cool to play a character in that realm. sadly Pottermore will not be anywhere near as cool, but maybe more potterverse, but will watch with eager anticipation.

I found the Spanish origami Society’s magazine archive “Esquinas” – in it was this rather splendid owl. the instructions take a lot for granted, annotations in Spanish do not really help but I muggled through.

There is much to love about this model – it stands by itself, rather cheekily and I can imagine it perched on a branch or taking pride of place in an owlery, it has a lovely round tummy, some fascinating eyes (the next time I fold this, now I know what goes where I am sure I could fashion pupils etc) and the overall proportions are neat. this is a clever design because everything tucks inside and there were only a couple of errors in the diagrams that were easy to fix visually.

176: Triceratops

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Now I am not sure if a Triceratops actually looks like this, not having actually seen one myself:

Even fossil records are a little bit hazy on these things, but this is a lovely model none the less. Nicely detailed head, reasonable body proportions and some real solidity to it – a rhinocerous would be afraid of this beastie.

A fascinating application of the offset preliminary base, with some neat swivel folds and one or two interesting sinks, I am very happy with the first fold of this model.

Not sure who the designer of this model was, collected it as a PDF ages back, but it is a keeper.

Why a triceratops? Well, most people who know me think I am a bit of a dinosaur myself at times – you get that, fair call.

175: Tick Tick Tock

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I find it interesting that time seems to pass so much slower when you are doing something you really do not enjoy:

My “Theory of Temporal Perception” explains that time like that which crawls past during an exam supervision, say, is noticed minute by minute, tick by tock.

This is a cute action model – it moves – the pendulum swings and actually makes a “tick tock” sound due to an ingenious rabbit-ear fold at the back creating a flipping flap.

There is much to like about this model, including the fact that the time on the clock is 3PM, meaning it is time ot start mid-semester holidays – woo!

174: A Quill

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Now in bygone eras (and magical schools) people used to sharpen a goose feather, dip it in ink and write with it – they called this contraption a Quill:

I was browsing for feathers, no iea why, when I stumbled accross a Vietnamese origami forum that had a rather lovely feathery pen thing, so decided to inflict the design on a nice piece of pearlescent white paper I had

fairly simple fold, with some fiddling around to get the nib shapely, in the end quite a nice fold.

Why a quill? Well, we are hours away from some announcement or other from J. K. Rowling about the Harry Potterverse, so I thought it appropriate.

173: Siberian Hamster

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Manuel emphatically suggests “Is no rat, is “Siberian Hampster, man is shop tell me” he insists – it cracks me up every time:

Fawlty Towers is not a show I can watch anymore, but a beloved memory is Manuel’s pet, “Basil” the rat, so I made one.

Curious and torturous fold this one – I stopped understanding the instructiosn and sort of winged it in all honesty – the Spanish with poorly drawn diagrams did my head in a bit, but I think I rescued a rat-like object from the chaos.

A deliciously complicated collapse does most of the work here, then it is mostly shaping – I made the mistake of using a 2×1 rectangle from an A4 page – it needed to be much larger, but you live and learn. When I fold this again I will be armed with the knowledge of what ends up where.

I can see much potential in this model – lots of paper for a nice tail, lovely head and ears, plenty of paper for legs – this base is a keeper.

172: Life, But Not As We Know It

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Spock from Roddenberry’s Star Trek is famous for many things – wooden acting, pudding bowl haircut, extreme eyebrow waxing, pointy ears and green blood:

But his lines of dialogue are what does it for me: “It’s a type of space madness we have not seen before”, “Fascinating, Captain”, “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it” …

A fairly effective caricature of Nimoy as Spock – may you live long and prosper.

You should have a go at this one yourself – http://www.spiraclemusic.com/webwalk/spock1.htm

“You’ve Got Mail!”

| wonko

…so I have been waiting on mail from OrigamiShop.Com – my birthday purchase and was delighted when my son told I had a parcel on returning home from work today:

I was a little concerned because the packaging was damaged in transit (Large format paper must be a nightmare to ship) but the book was bubblewrapped and the paper will be fine, if a little crinkled to begin with. Besides a lovely book (which has the “Ancient Dragon” as a sort of middle-range hardness model – hahahaha)

I bought a starter pack of “tissue foil” – this laminated paper has tissue+foil+tissue sandwiched together – I have never used it before but it is apparently good for compact, intricate models – we shall see.

So much marking … will I be able to resist starting from Satoshi’s collection?

171: Lambs to the Slaughter

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So I am setting and supervising exams at the moment – hate it almost as much as the marking – cannot help but feel sometimes like leading lambs to the slaughter:

A simple but flawed fold I think – hand-drawn diagrams with few landmarks and an oddity about the head formation that I would re-make if I was to re-fold it. There are ears there, and plenty of paper to improve them  them but the photo does not do this model justice.

I like the legs, and the body-head proportions are good, I can see myself messing with this model to improve the sheepishness of it. Still – they cannot all be gems.

170: The Happy Couple

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Another parental milestone today. We are going with our daughter and her fiancé to look at a wedding and reception venue:

Lots on, important however to attend to that which really matters – family and friends.

Designed by Joseph Wu to me folded at the reception of a wedding (to give the guests an “ice breaker” activity to get to know the people at their table), a figurative “Happy Couple” – nice and simple.

169: A Yabbie

| wonko

Now in Australia, local waterholes and creek banks are often pock-marked with Yabbie-holes:

Yabbies are a sweet, freshwater crayfish that are related, albeit distantly, to the American Lobster more commonly seen off the Florida Coast

It is my brother-in-law’s Birthday today – happy Birthday Rob!!! he lives in Florida and dives for lobsters in his spare time – I thought it timely to remind him of his Australian equivalent.

This is a torturous model on a lot of fronts – a collaboration between John Montroll and Robert Lang from the book “Origami Sealife”.  I shoulda tweaked that it was the LAST model in the book (traditionally the the final model in a book is the most challenging) but began folding it anyway – 3 1/2 hours later, after some serious swearing and no little amount of paper torture I ended up with a delightful model.

Folded from a square cut from an A3 copy paper page, this TINY end model is testament to a superb design as it is all tucked away into a plump body, 8 legs, 2 claws, 2 stalked eyes and a lovely pair of antennae. It looks like it would cook a treat.

Actually pretty amazed that I was able to fold it at all, many times I contemplated giving up (like 1/2 hour in when I discovered my square was not quite … square), or the formation of the 2 pairs of 6 legs via some extremely fine (3-5mm) folds. You know a model is tough when on 5 separate points, after folding a tight model you are instructed to unfold everything, turn it over and fold something new – the planning to get that crease patter is mind-buggering.

You may applaud now, reminds me of the prawns I cooked for dinner last night – throw another shrimp on the barbie Rob, many happy returns for your birthday.

168: Tulips for Jo

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Today is my Wife’s Birthday, her favourite flower is a tulip so I had an idea:

After researching tulips suitable to stick on a card, I discovered that none were suitable so I invented a fold for that, then I decided that real-size tulips were also a good idea – a dozen a piece

I chose some nice pastels and strong colours, invented stems and foliage, made a custom vase (pyramidal) and then went to the florist to buy some dry oasis foam and cut it to fit – after a little faffing around a lovely arrangement was made and the presents sorted.

Happy Birthday Jo, love and hugs.

167: A Hyena

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Hyenas get a bum rap by the general public, They are seen as garbage collectors and, whilst it is true that they will eat stuff already dead, they prefer to hunt.

This is a difficult model to get the posture right – I like the base however and can see a rande of quadrupeds that could spring from it.

A “jackall” I think, and a dog are closely related. Hope you like it.

166: A Vase

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I like this container/vase a lot:

It self-locks, is water tight and could be used … to … put things in I guess.

the best bit is that you control the size of the base, and therefore the height of the thing – nice and useful for … things 😛

165: Sugar Plump Fairy

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I once shared a house with 3 other uni friends – much happened, most memorable. Late one night, instead of finishing a due-next-day assignment, Mark was seen flitting and pirouetting through the house:

We coined the expression “sugar plump fairy” after the dance he was attempting, it stuck. Happy Birthday Mark!!!

I like this model, simple folds, precise creasing that gives form from flat surfaces – very clever Mr Brill.

This model is designed to be a Christmas tree topper – I can see how that would work given the convenient pocket at the back. It is not free standing (although I could mangle the lovely minimalist legs into feet and knees I guess – that would ruin the lines however.

Hope you like it.

164: Queen Anne Table

| wonko

Now I put my hand up as a staunch REPUBLICAN – I have never seen the sense of a colonial country holding on to a token monarchy. It would be different if the monarchy were actually USEFUL to us, like a table:

Strong, supportive, present, made of something sustainable and central to daily life, a table is central to any home. This is a “Queen Anne” style table, designed by Robert Harbin, folded for our celebration of the Queen’s Birthday (a public holiday for us – one good, tangible thing that benefits us I suppose).

Nice exercise in petal folding, there are a few variations possible to transform it into a square table – quite like the polyhedral form however. Folded from “Secrets of Origami” by Robert Harbin, a treasure trove of old-school origami designs.