8hrs

The Perfect Organism

| wonko

I have long been drawn to the particular thrill of Science-Fiction based horror – few franchises do it like Alien:

This Xenomorph, designed by Kade Chan (you too can have a go at folding it here) was folded from a 60cm square of Crumpled VOG paper – a rare find in my stash, near last remnant of a purchase some 10 years ago when you could still buy VOG paper.

My previous fold of this model was in crispy Kraft in 2013, and I had always meant to return to it and fold a presentation fold. With the release of “Alien Romulus” in cinemas, I figured the chest burster was about ready to pop.

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940: Kentrosaurus

| wonko

How often have you been totally lost in something – you know, time passes and you are so involved that you do not notice the passing of it? This model ate time and paper in quantity:

A fascinating exercise in vertex isolation, from a square to tease so many points while keeping enough paper for a body, legs and head – wow, just wow.

I found the diagrams as an un-attributed set of images on Pinterest (one of the many bastions of copyright infringement) but could not find details of either the designer or the publication – hints peeps? News just in: This is Fumiaki Kawahata’s Tuojiangosaurus published in the book “Origami Fantasy”

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924: Crawler Excavator (aka. A Diggosaur )

| wonko

Often Origami books are organised such that the simpler models are at the front, more challenging folds towards the back. “Origami Pro 3 – Machine Origami” by members of the Korean Origami Association is organised such and this model was the last one, designed by Jang Yong Ik:

Starting with a 60cm square of thin crisp Kraft paper, you begin tiny grids, then collapse the edges only, then form a preliminary base, then bird base, then begins a layer management exercise from hell as we thin down and divide the points to make the bits that would later be details. Continue reading →

898: (348/365) The Droid You Were Looking For

| wonko

Now I am as much a Star Trek fan as the next one, and love a comedy sidekick movie plot device. It was interesting that the Star Wars franchise returned to the tried and true “quirky beeping droid” sidekick in “Force Awakens” and the BB8 droid seems a cute successor to the more limited R2 units (that they decided could fly in later/earlier messes of movies):

This is Martin Hunt’s Modular BB8 droid model. A torturous fold of many parts.

4 different modules combine to make a roughly spherical ball with a “head” that can be affixed wherever you want, sort of captured the overall morphology of the droid. Continue reading →

795: (245/365) Tessellated Fractal

| wonko

Further exploring Shuzo Fujimoto’s “Hydrangea” fractal, it seems they can also be tessellated:

This is a 4x fold, but I have seen many many more, closer together also, interweaving and other mind-boggling combinations.

This fold has taken an age – started 4 days ago, finished yesterday (I had already decided on the spring shoot for yesterday’s fold) it is a lovely frame. Continue reading →

541: Charizard – GO!

| wonko

Now I am not of the generation that grew up with Pokemon, but seem surrounded by adults that were. Fandom/enthusiasm takes many forms and the latest augmented reality game “Pokemon GO!” is so hot right now I felt I had to fold a poke-thing because…reasons541CharizardCaught

I had seen a video tutorial from Tadashi Mori on a complex model called “Charizard” so thought I would give it a go. Squaring up a large sheet of crumpled VOG paper (I used red, the critter should be orange – not sure if it matters) and began folding.541Charizard

Turns out the tutorial was in 3 parts, and the model was really challenging, but I think I managed a reasonable rendition of the critter. Continue reading →

The Teacher

| wonko

Luds is taking some leave, we all wish him well. I was approached to see if I could come up with some bent paper as an ooroo gift – this is what I ended up with:teacher

In this shadowbox, we see our favourite “bad santa” clutching a Chemistry book, in front of his beloved Electronic White Board, pen in hand.

This little chap, a Joisel-inspired Dwarf took a while to emerge from the page, but I am happy with this little diorama and I hope it beings a smile to Lud’s face – take care mate.

501: Eagle 3.5

| wonko

I am on constant awe of folders from the Vietnamese Origami Group (VOG):501eagle1

Hoang Trung Thanh’s Eagle 3.5 is an astonishing and dense fold that really tests patience, accuracy and paper but the result, even this partially incomplete rendition is lovely. Continue reading →

462: Samurai Helmet Beetle

| wonko

Having ordered the book “Origami Masters Bugs – how the bug wars changed the art of origami” I was itching to fold a bug:

Robert Lang is a master paper engineer, I have a few of his books – this is from Origami Insects Volume II and I decided to give it a try – it was way outside my skill ability so I sort of resolved to keep folding until … I couldn’t work out what to do next, if that makes sense. In the end I managed all of the detailing (although some not very elegantly).

The resultant bug is astonishing – the legs are jointed and end in claspers, the head, cephalothorax jointed, it has antennae, horns and is really bug like. Continue reading →

456: L’essence d’un escargot

| wonko

I was exploring a corrugation technique I last used with Eric Joisel’s Bandoneon and stumbled across a sort of plan to fold Joisel’s Snail:

You start with an extraordinarily long (my estimate – 3.25m) and narrow (in my model 9cm) strip of paper, then start folding slanted lines (using a 3:1 gradient) in both directions

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438: Jason Ku’s Bicycle

| wonko

Perusing a Tanteidan, I noticed a crease pattern challenge, set by Jason Ku, and filed it as a “that’s impossible” fold:

Needing to unwind from a hectic and punishing term at work, I cut a 55cm square of light weight Kraft paper and set about working out, geometrically, where the myriad of creases were.

Although there was some regular geometry to place landmarks, there were some “mystery meat” creases that I just sort of fudged really – professionals would have measured it but I know I am an amateur.

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422: Loggerhead Turtle

| wonko

When our kids were little tackers, we went on a summer holiday to Mon Repos, North Queensland, to see the turtles laying and hatching:

During the night, exhausted loggerhead, green and leatherback turtles haul themselves out of the surf, up the beach, gig holes and lay eggs – on the same beach they, themselves hatched from years earlier.

When I first saw this turtle, I assumes it MUST have been papercraft – you know, glue, cuts – very neat but none the less it could NOT be a single bit of paper.

Browsing my JOAS Tanteidan Convention books, to me delight, I stumbled across Satoshi Kamiya’s instructions (HUNDREDS of them) for the turtle (not sure what version) and knew I had to give it a try.

The shell corrugation/tesselation alone is a masterpiece, but then you wrap the unused paper around and inside (forming an internal support for the shell to keep it peaked) and form flippers and a lovely head.

I am so thrilled with this, my first fold – I am itching to fold it again, but cannot for the moment justify the nearly 8 hours necessary, to then have 2 turtles in the house.  I cannot imagine folding it smaller – I have seen it tiny but I am not sure my fat clumsy fingers would let me achieve it as so many of the shaping manoeuvres are millimetre precise when folded from a 60cm sq.

I love this model, it takes pride of place in my paper shrine. I have resisted the urge to tape it up solid, as it holds it’s form without assistance – genius design.

…what can one do with a turtle I ask?

403: Lang’s Organist

| wonko

I was reading the chapter on “box pleating” in Robert Lang’s “Origami Design Secrets – 2nd Ed” (one of my cherished origami books) and came across the chapter “homework” which is this Organist seated at her Wurlitzer:

This model is astonishing for a bunch of reasons. The design is clever – one piece of paper to fashion the player and the instrument, the details of both the player and instrument are well controlled, efficiently use paper and are clearly recognisable.

I upscaled, starting with a 128x32cm piece of brown Kraft paper, used a tape measure to lay in the landmark creases (although I could have folded them, it would have resulted in much more disfiguring creases in the end model so I am glad I did). In retrospect, working much smaller would have been very difficult with my fat, clumsy fingers as some of the pleating becomes very fiddly indeed (32nds and 64ths)

Initially, working with paper on this scale is problematic – simple things like “fold in half” take on epic proportions and introduce inaccuracies which seem slight at the time but compound in such a convoluted model.

There was an “ahh” moment when the box that is the body of the organ swings into place, making the keyboards and footpedals slip into place that was very satisfying.

I enjoyed folding this model, probably will not fold it again, but learned a bit about paper properties and wrangling pleats that will make future folds better I think.

What to do with her? there is the question – the resultant model is quite large (16x14x14cm) and in some places one layer thick (others much more so), but it is stable and surprisingly strong. It even has a music stand atop the organ that even “Barry Morgan” would appreciate. Suggestions?

208: Flexiball

| wonko

Now I am not an experienced modular folder, but this is relatively new to me and yee gods it is interesting. Having Parent-torture interviews tonight I got home in time to do the final assembly for this little beauty:

Designed by Jorge Pardo, it takes 60 – yes children, that is right SIXTY squares of paper in delicious and bendy ways.

Each module is fairly easy (if a little fiddly) to make, coupling them takes nimble fingers and a bone folder to lock the layers – bunches of 5 make stars of a spoke, each spoke unit connects to each adjacent one via 2 arms, it more or less forms itself.

This has taken me ages, literally hours – over the last few days inbetween other models but it is hoopy. My FIRST FOLDS were white, but I decided a while into the model that it had to be done in colour, using small Washi paper squares provided by Mary Cassidy made the job easy (thanks Mrs Cass!).

You may applaud now.