106: Liz’s Elephant

| wonko

21 years ago, my adorable squealing little girl was born. As soon as she could recognize an elephant, she was fascinated by them – Happy Birthday Liz:

So I decided it was appropriate to make Liz an Elephant for her 21st Birthday – they say an Elephant never forgets (not sure why, I am sure they have just as faulty memories as the rest of us).

First fold was small and it was difficult to get the pose right without stiffness in the paper, second fold (the birthday present) was folded from light card (reminiscent of elephant hide I thought) and seemed to work better, or maybe it was because I knew what I was doing second time through.

Lovely model, cute expression on it’s face, beautiful trunk and ears, nice stocky, elephantine body.

You can have a go at this yourself, only the side sinks are difficult, everything else is fairly easy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKbQR4mnim8

105: Klingon War Bird

| wonko

About time I did something for the trekkers out there – this torturous model is a Klingon War Bird:

Instructions, in German, suggested size paper makes a microscopic fold, very tough on the paper (thank heavens for fingernails).

I like that the model is at least true to shape – knowing how the fold works now I would use a much bigger piece of paper should I fold this again as some of the detail is lost because of the thicknesses of the fold.

Still, boldly go, hey 🙂 You can have a go yourself: http://www.papierfalten.de/documents/faltanleitungen/bird_of_prey.pdf

104: Baby Rhino

| wonko

News.com carried a story yesterday about the birth of a baby Rhino at Australia Zoo. Naturally I thought it appropriate to celebrate this with a model:

I have a few Rhino designs – some very detailed, some figurative like this one – I like this one however for a bunch of reasons – the proportions seem right, it hints at a tough hide and stocky body, lovely mouth, has simle horns and ears and abounds in rhinocity.

Used my “bone folder” for the first time on this model, lovely creases

103: Baby Loggerhead Turtle

| wonko

When our kids were little, we holidayed at Mon Repos near Bundaberg to watch the annual turtle egg laying and hatching.

This model reminds me of the lovely little turtle hatchlings we watched, in the still of the night, emerge from their underground clutch and waddle clumsily towards the ocean. In truth they were about this size and sadly, only one or two of the entire clutch of hundreds of eggs will survive to adulthood.

Nice simple model, busy day, you can make one too: http://donyaquick.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24#/d224qix

102: Gecko and Fly

| wonko

Now when I first saw this I thought there was no way I would be able to do it – such intricate pleating, not possible on A4 photocopy paper:

So I cheated, and cut a 40x40cm square of white wrapping paper and gave it a whirl. there is much to like about this model – the gecko’s placement above the fly, the tail, some of the feet.

This model took me ages – on and off much of the day. The result is lovely – considering getting it framed as it’s rectilinear format might suit a shadow box frame, Some distance may provide perspective. The fold was torturous, such pleating, unfolding and twisting in other directions, many times I thought the paper would disintegrate.

Fairly happy with the first fold – will not be repeating it. Diagrams only, not clearly drawn, some baffling maneuvers and even at this scale (the largest paper folded to date) some of the folds were microscopic.

You may, however, applaud discretely. I need a cup of tea!

Storage and Display

| wonko

The most common question I get asked (apart from how do I find the time to do this in the first place – try not to think about that one too much) is what do I do with the models when I have made them:

Monthly storage in a shoebox on top of our china cabinet (no, not the most elegant of things, but practical until something else comes along). I like to display a couple of days back, particularly if there are some nice models amongst the month.

After a monthly picture is taken, the month’s folds are then archived in a plastic box (must look to source some silica gel sachets to keep them dry – humidity causes some to unfold). It looks like the archive box is about the right size – it is nearly 1/3 full and I am nearly 1/3 of the way through this adventure.

The aim will be to get these all out again and photograph them together in a 365 image.

… well, you did ask.

101: A Ram

| wonko

I was cruising sites in Polish (no, don’t ask) and came across a rather nifty animated archive of charming animals – this is a ram:

He has a rather splendid set of horns, cute feet, twisty tail and nicely formed muzzle (with a lower jaw you cannot see in the photo.

Happy with this as a first fold, there was some lovely precise rabbit ears (the main technique – odd – rabbit ears for a sheep, but in the end it all tastes like chicken), I do think I would mod it a little on subsequent attempts to round out the body.

You too can have a go: http://dev.origami.art.pl/show.php?id=31&format=SWF&dzial=FLA

100: Elias’s “Last Waltz” for Lindy and Randy’s Wedding

| wonko

Lindy and Randy get married today, which is actually yesterday (curse this linear time) and as a MILESTONE fold I thought I would attempt Neal Elias’s “Last Waltz”:Fittingly it is a bride and groom dancing at their wedding. there is much to love about this model – it WORKED first fold, contains 2 figures (joined at the hip) and they have a fairly natural posture, are both dressed formally (him in a suit and her in a meringue) and it is free standing.He has his hands on her shoulder and waist, she is reciprocating and the model withstands viewing from all angles.Made from a 3×1 rectangle cut from white wrapping paper (testing it out for a larger snake project later), when made with 2-sided paper he ends up a different colour to her – very clever indeed.

A joy to fold, another joy to attend Lindy and Randy’s wedding via UStream – hope this is a fitting wedding present.

99: A DNA Double Helix

| wonko

Talk about “life, the universe and everything”, this model is an intriguing exercise in pre-folding:

Organised ridges, counter folds of diagonals and the model seemed to curl in on itself in a magical sort of way. Interestingly it is composed of 42 base pairs – I wonder if that is a coincidence?

Folded from an A4 page, strangely, the resultant model is huge (as the reference stage suggests, but is has an inherent strength and rigidity that I found surprising.

You can try this one for yourself: http://erikdemaine.org/thok/dna41.html

98: See Saw

| wonko

This is a cute action model, counter-balanced so it actually rocks back and forth:

It is supposed to be 2 children, opposite ends of a see-saw – a boy (wearing an Indian costume and feather) and a girl (in a bonnet) – use your imagination or some recreational chemicals and it is as clear as anything.

Designed by Fred Rohm, I folded this from “Secrets of Origami” by Robert Harbin, one of my oldest books – a simple model as I was brain-fried after a punishing term, hope you like it.

97: Joisel’s Rat

| wonko

I have been wanting to try this model ever since I saw it:

Eric Joisel designed a lovely, character-filled rodent that was fun to fold. Paws, claws, a stoned/bemused expression on it’s face and lovely ears and tail – what more could a rat want?

You can fold this yourself – Eric, as part of his legacy, publically shared the instructions for this model at http://www.ericjoisel.com/ps_assets/pdfs/rat.pdf

Why a rat? Well, My son turns 23 today – HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTY – he spent the last 2 years or so of his life studying rats in Macadamia plantations as part of his Honours program but I bet the rats he had to deal with are nowhere near as cute as this little fellow.Hopefully he will find it when he wakes up this morning.

96: An Eagle

| wonko

Now I have learned something from folding this model – I do not understand a world of Polish:

All the instructions were in that dialect, and the diagrams were baffling, so I did my best.

I rather like the feet, the wings and head/beak are nicely shaped also but I could not fathom what to do with the tail so … improvised.

95: Star Puff tesselations

| wonko

I am fairly new to box pleating and tessellated patterns but this one caught my eye and I had to try it:

Oddly, it works on 120 degree angles, so a hexagon is perfect as a starter. I would like to say it was all neat and went to plan, but the individual “triangle twists” are not as even as I would like (I put that down to having no idea what I was doing initially) – certainly they got better the more of them I completed:

I get the impression that the smaller the pleats, the more of the units fit, but the more complex the interaction between them so you get folded into fiddly corners. I quite like the triangle twist method, some pleasing shapes emerge from it.

You should give this a try – do not be frightened by the link, the instructor speaks English amidst the sea of German: star puff

94: Double-Dutch

| wonko

I remember this model from my childhood, or rather how unsuccessfully I attempted it waaay back them. Let your eyes blur a little and you will see it:

A man and a woman behind a parasol … seeee? He is leaning in for a kiss … seeee?

I like how this model massages the paper around to form figures suggestive of a courting couple, forms her  skirts and the centre of the parasol is the centre of the square. Fairly snarly to flatten this model – harder to photograph as it is not free-standing:

Made out of “Origami 2” by Robert Harbin – I notice in the index the child me crossed this model out as too hard. Is charming right down to the tip of his nose.

93: Lang’s Pillbug

| wonko

Now when I was a kid, ferreting around in the underbrush, we used to call these little chaps “Slaters”, as a Biology teacher, I referred to them as “Wood Lice”:

These isopods were made famous by “A Bugs Life” – remember the foreign tumbling critters Tuck and Roll? They are a sort of primitive crustacean and have a myriad of legs, body segments, are rarely bigger than 1cm in length and are usually grey or light brown (depending on how much light they have been exposed to.

Mistakenly I decided to try a “simpler” model than my chosen Joisel model which stated it needed much bigger paper to make it even possible – I cursorily scanned a Lang design and settled on this – it looked simple enough – boy was that a mistake.

This has taken me AGES, and so often I thought it was going to hell in a handbasket. So much paper torture to get to the stage when it said to do 8 3-way accordion crimps (like Hoodie) and I was ready to give up. Instead, I made a cup of tea and persisted.

It has 14 individual legs, a pair of antennae, 10 body segments and I think it is just plain awesome that it worked, first fold.

You may applaud now.

It amazes me that this pattern was generated MATHEMATICALLY first – Mr Lang, you are a genius – everything in its place based on some seriously wonky geometry constructed by exhausting pre-creasing. Very happy the paper survived and it looks like it should.

This model elevates me to Paper Ninja status (and reminds me to consider MORE carefully before launching into a model).