4.5hrs

413: Satoshi’s Minotaur

| wonko

Determined to try something harder, I had flagged satoshi Kamiya’s Minotaur a “must try eventually”:

I also wanted to try my new “envelopener” – an ingenius paper cutter from The Origami Shop that splits a page on a crease – being frustrated at not being able to cut a straight edge easily on large format paper.

This lovely mythical beast is part man part bull but Satoshi takes this to a new level, making the man beastly as well.

So much paper is worked here, starting with nearly a metre square, the resultant model is barely 15cm tall and so dense in places that detailing was very difficult. I love the expression of his face, the arms and hands, hooves and fantastic tail.

Such innovative use of the sheet, you do not realise that the arms end up being about 30+ layers thick. I have seen this model folded by others and it was standing – mine, made from 35GSM brown Kraft paper does not (without the assistance of a wider armature stand I made for him)

As a first fold, I am very pleased with how he turned out – I might fold him again, one day, as I learned a lot from this fold.

182: Canadian Bull Moose

| wonko

Now I was told it was Canada Day on July 1 by Peter and Jen, and they kindly asked me to fold them a moose (after seeing a picture of the finished model on google) … if it was not too much trouble.

Fortunately i had a copy of “Origami Design Secrets” by Robert Lang, which has this as a penultimate box pleating example (typical a mathematician would take the simple art of box pleating to this length), so I thought “why not, can’t be that difficult” – lol.

Now I had some “tissue foil” I had shipped from the origami shop, and was itching to try it out to see how it takes folds. I must admit it is different to what I thought it would be – this is cotton-based, metallic thread impregnated opalescent paper is not a paper and foil sandwich, so will keep looking for a supplier.

Wow, no I mean WOW! – what a difference good paper makes on the fold process – no splits, tears, paper fatigue (except on the folder). I am impressed given the length of this paper torture session and the lengths to which the square was crimped, distorted, pleated, reversed and teased. I began to realise this model was epic after nearly 2 hours of PRE FOLDING was necessary before the first collapse – at one points folding 64ths along one edge – thank goodness for large format paper.

I started this at about 8am – after a bowl of Porridge (with maple syrup – it is CANADA DAY remember) and finished the fold prior to photographing the posed model at 12:45pm!!! 3 cups of tea, 2 panadol and 3 albums of Lawrence English sound art and it is done.

HAPPY CANADA DAY Peter and Jen – thanks for the challenge.