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974: Xiao’s Styracosaurus

| wonko

I have had a partially completed test fold of Chen Xiao’s “Styracosaurus” on my desk for months – in truth I started it before we went on holidays (8ish weeks ago) and just sort of discarded it part way through the fold sequence.

chen xiao styracosaur

Returning from holidays, having tied up the editing of the new origami book, I decided rather than discard the model I should finish it, and am glad I did. this model’s structure is amazing, the sensitive use of colour and complex collapses make this a challenging fold.

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973: Square Rosebud

| wonko

Continuing the exploration of a square rose, this is Naomiki Sato’s square rosebud:

rosebud

Made with a trademark “Kawasaki twist” with different landmarks, this is a rose just opening – simple, pretty.

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972: “Simple” Square Rose

| wonko

I bought Naomiki Sato’s first book on origami roses to satisfy an obsession with mastering his pentagonal rose (a quest that is still in progress). Recently, he has published a second book (this one in English) and I knew I had to buy it:

complete

Perhaps starting my journey in the new book with a 15cm square of red washi was possibly not the most sensible thing to do (waay smaller than suggested), however I ploughed on and much to my delight fashioned a fairly decent rendering of the simple square rose – the first rose I have folded from a square that actually looks like a rose.

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971: Bro-bot 2019

| wonko

The last few months a lot of my free time has been consumed by supporting a team of students as they prepare for a robotics competition:

brobot - Robot by Shunsuke Inoue

Yesterday was the Queensland finals of the First Technology Challenge (FTC), and our team did really well. They designed, built and programmed a robot, affectionately known as “BROBOT”, coming second in the state.

I could not be prouder of the team, so decided they needed a souvenir. This is the cutest little robot I could find, designed by Shunsuke Inoue, and I am astonished I have not blogged this fold before, it is such a fun fold.

scale - Robot by Shunsuke Inoue

You take a square, divide it into 1/16th grid, then boxpleat the bjebus out of it to tease antennae, eyes, arms, legs and a lovely little stubby body.

I hope they like their award.

970: Siren

| wonko

…so I decided it was time to play a game of WTF (What’s That Fold?) on fakebook, and discovered from my archives this was the 29th such game:

Chen Xiou's Mermaid test fold

Through a series of gradual fold sequence reveals, punters guess, and eventually they got it. This is “Sirene” (or Mermaid) from the soon to be published book by Chen Xiao.

This is my first “anime” style character work (stylised faces, detailed hair, cartoony pose) and it was a bit torturous at this scale, with this paper. Folding the shoulders and central body is tough work on small paper (I used 35cm duo white/natural Ikea Kraft paper).

In the end it is a charming model with lots of details, a diva in a “D” cup with bangs, lovely long hair and a beautiful tail. The fold sequence relies on really accurate pre-folding as errors tend to amplify the further through the fold you get. As a result of a 0.5mm inaccuracy in the first 10 steps, her bra is asymmetrical, and the more I tried to fix it, the odder the breast appeared.

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969: Little Dragon

| wonko

One of the things I have the privilege to be involved with is the proof-reading/editing of books from origamishop.com. As such, I get a chance to make changes in diagrams and instruction annotations, and test fold:

Chen Xiou's Tiny Dragon

This is “Tiny Dragon”, a beautiful little model from a forthcoming book by Chen Xiou.

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968: Spiny Norman

| wonko

Anyone with a decent knowledge of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, would recognise the name “Spiny Norman” – the gigantic hedgehog that haunted Dinsdale, the more vicious of the Piranha Brothers. When I saw Yudai Imai’s Hedgehog, I knew I had to give it a try:

Yudai Imai's hedgehog

I had been looking for a model to best show of some duo 30cm Thai Unryu I had bought from the Origami Shop.

Yudai Imai's hedgehog paper - OrigamiShop's duo Unryu

Although Unryu is generally tissue thin, this duo paper seemed really thick, still I thought it was worth a bend so set about gridding – This was really hard work on fingers, and resorted to a bone folder – only when I laided in creases crisply was I able to reverse them (and in many cases even then with difficulty).

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Tazzie the Lotus Dragon

| wonko

…so I was approached by a friend who wanted to spring a surprise on his partner for her birthday. He said she liked dragons, immediately my shagged and fragged mind (marking makes me a disagreeable troll) jumped and I committed a huge bit of metallicised paper to fold Shuki Kato’s “Western Dragon” … because I had achieved it once in the 5 times I had attempted it. That failed.

Tazzie scale

Not deterred, I chose a lovely sheet of block printed blue mulberry paper (printed 2 tone with gold and white lotus flowers), cut the biggest square I could and set about folding Satoshi Kamiya’s “Ancient Dragon” (having achieved it once (in 7 attempts) – what could go wrong?

tazzie's new home

As it turns out, all went to plan – even thought he paper was smaller than recommended, I was able to tease, gradually, all the design features and “Tazzie” was born.

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Travel Fold 2019

| wonko

We are about to travel again and, as is our tradition, we will leave origami folds wherever we go.

We decided this time it would be a Koala – they are cute and a definitive Australian animal (albeit critically endangered) so I set about to find a design I liked.

After much to-ing and fro-ing I returned to a model I first folded in 2011, designed by Jozsef Zsebe, from Hungary of all places – interestingly the best Koala designs generally come from places other than Oz – go figure.

I manufactured fur paper, using wet polar bear fleece. Do not start on how a Koala is not a bear, I know, but … meh … the texture works and the colour gradation (I found a dirty polar bear) from ears to arse works nicely I think.

I have committed this fold to memory (no mean feat given the state of my brain at the moment) an look forward to leaving them all around Vietnam and Cambodia.

966: Green Turtle

| wonko

As part of an origami challenge on Fakebook, we were challenged to fold the Green turtle from Origami Pro #4, designed by Jang Yong Ik :

green Turtle designed by Jang Yong Ik

I split off a square from a 70cm roll of black/natural Ikea Kraft and started the diagonal pleat pre-creasing.

Over a period of a couple of weeks, fitting it into life, the universe, and everything, I folded this intense model, really determined to enjoy the process.

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Origami X’s Elephant

| wonko

Cruising fakebook, as one is likely to do when at home unwell, I stumbled across a beautiful little elephant shared as a photo by “Origami X” (sorry, I do not know this users real name).

I asked if diagrams for this new design were likely, and joy of joys was privy to a share of a photo sequence I knew i had to try:

pink elephant

This model is really elephantine, proportions are cute, I love the head assembly and ears/trunk combo – they happen so naturally.

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964: Tetsuya Gotani’s Ankylosaurus

| wonko

Being most of the way though the proof-reading of a new book by Tetsuya Gotani, I decided to test-fold his Ankylosaurus:

Tetsuya Gotani's Ankylosaurus

The final model, folded with 50cm printed Ikea Kraft paper, is a freaky cow-like critter covered in spikes with a club-like tail and a cow-like head.

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962: Ryu Jin 2.1 – Head

| wonko

In a bid to calm down and relax after a brutal week at work, I took a 60cm square of red/natural Ikea Kraft paper and started folding… and folded, and folded and folded.

Ryujui 1.2 head

I have been lured back into the fold (as it were) of Ryu Jin folders (nerds who attempt to fold Satoshi Kamiya’s devilishly difficult dragon series). Having already folded a 1.0, 1.2 and 3.5, I noticed that I had never attempted a 2.1.

Ryujui 1.2 head views and detail

For the uninitiated, the numbers indicate refinements, with the 1.0 being vaguely dragon like and the 3.5 (the culmination of this design process) being the most astonishingly detailed design imaginable.

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961: Drogon, The Black Dragon

| wonko

The lure of Satoshi Kamiya’s Dragon set is alluring. Recently I was invited into a community that celebrates the RyuJin series. Having folded a 1.0 and a 3.5, I thought it time to fold another:

Drogo, Satoshi Kamiya's RyuJin 1.2

This is the 1.2 – a refinement of the 1.0 and I had fun shaping the head as per a guide by Daniel Brown – a luscious and generously shared photodiagram set that I really enjoyed following.

My 1.2 is actually based on almost an identical crease pattern to the 1.0 I folded back in 2013, but back then I had NO IDEA how to shape it, and sort of made up shit as I went along.

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956: Children of the Forest

| wonko

So GOT has started again, the final season and it is a promised shitstorm between people and the undead (sorry, if that is a spoiler).

children of the forest - Flynn Jackson's CP

It seems ALL of the trouble of the resident ice-zombies was caused by an experiment between a man and a race called “the children of the forest”, and some dragon glass, but that plot point will be explored further I guess as the series winds up. This mask reminds me of what I imagined the children of the forest looked like when I read the books.

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