B Chan

1107: WALL-E

| wonko

Although (technically) a re-fold, the last time I attempted to fold this I had a partial crease pattern and a broken incomplete set of instructions in Russian, and just muddled along. I am not sure the resultant model even looked like Wall-E, but I was happy to sort of nut out a scheme for making his tracks.

I stumbled across a set of partial diagrams by “Tosummerny” in Chinese that seemed to surface more of the actual process, so decided I had to have another go.

I went big – 90cm square – seems excessive …but … I have another exhibition pending and thought this might make a good display piece if it ended up tidy enough.

The diagrams clarify the construction of the pleats necessary to form the main body, and how they cleanly articulate to make the beautifully treaded tracks, and also simplified what I had in my previous attempt mangled together to form the eyes.

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1103: Brian Chan’s “Walking Locust”

| wonko

This model has been on my “must fold” for ages, but I had only ever seen a CP and could never make head nor tail of the design. I saw a rendition on Origami Dan Discord and, after an enquiry it turns out there exists an unofficial diagram, drawn by Hua Ge that guides folders through this terrific insect:

I split a sheet from a new 60cm roll of medium weight Kraft and began folding. There is a load of pre-creasing, primarily setting up the high-density collapses to make the long thin legs, so accuracy early on pays dividends later.

Uncharacteristically, this model uses loos pleat structures to bulk out the body, define the wing covers and head/thorax/abdomen, with a deliciously complex un-sink to make the head-thorax join. Interestingly this model also has a super-detailed head/face – it reminds me so much of the hoppers in “A bugs life”, and it has real “cute” personality, as much as a locust can be cute.

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1054: Brian Chan’s Eastern Dragon

| wonko

When a legend graciously shares hand-drawn diagrams for a lovely simple Eastern Dragon, one simply has to give it a go:

Brian Chan's Eastern Dragon

This is an “Eastern Dragon” – interestingly most people in the west believe you need to staple wings on such a critter so that it can fly. Our eastern cousins accept that this sort of critter can fly, wings are not necessary for this activity.

This design was recently shared, luscious hand-drawn diagrams from @brianchandesigns, a gracious and fabulous gift to the origami community.

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882: (332/365) Brian Chan’s Fiddler Crab

| wonko

…yes, I know I am behind, but I have been busy and my brain is fairly broken. As part of the cleanse I took a 35cm sheet of washi and decided to try Brian Chan’s Super-complex “Fiddler Crab” model, never entertaining the notion that I would achieve the model, but rather just to fold for the love of it:

My fold-philosophy on this gig was to faithfully (well, as faithfully as I could) follow the hideously complex fold sequence and sort of just stop when I could go no further. Step 53 alone took me over an hour and a half to achieve – I just could not get my head around what was happening in the sparsely diagrammed model. Continue reading →

845: (295/365) Leaf Katydid

| wonko

Insects seem to be a fascination among origami designers – at the height of “bug wars” when designers were competing for the most intricate designs that were  complex, had lots of legs, were thin and realistic renderings and really pushed the boundaries of existing techniques:

This astonishing model starts as a frog base. Through a torturous set of point isolation and narrowing, we get the impossibly thin legs and a lovely set of antennae. Halve this, now fold that in half, then do a double rabbit ear, now halve that … thank goodness for thiiiiin paper and accurate folding. Continue reading →

444: Wolf Spider

| wonko

I have these lovely bits of Lotka and was looking for something to be my first fold with this new paper:

I chose Brian Chan’s Wolf spider partly because I had not folded it before and partly because the “milk chocolate” fibrous nature of the paper reminded me of the natural colour and texture of the spider itself.

The first cut is more painful than the first fold on a sheet that is roughly rectangular – the issues with most hand-made papers include rough edges, uneven thicknesses, odd fibre bundles in unfortunate places and a lovely mottled colour distribution.

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407: Chan’s One-Sheet Rose

| wonko

Browsing Origami Tanteidan 12th Convention, I noticed a seemingly impossible fold:

Brian Chan is an amazing designer (Attack of the Kraken is one of his) and this flower is an ingenious, if intense, use fo a coloured square of paper.

If the paper was coloured green one side, red the other, then the way this design turns out the green bits of the flower and the red petals sort themselves out appropriately – amazing.

I only had some glossy red (a cheapo pack of coloured origami paper that loses colour all over your fingers) but persevered with it, despite the mess and the tiny size.

I still have to master the flower shaping, it sort of looks correct (and I have no doubt if i wet-folded or used methyl cellulose I could mould it more naturally , but I am happy I have got the hang of the fold. 

I used a 25cm red/white square and that is hard work – some of the accordion pleats are tiny, but it worked out ok. My second fold was a 45cm brown kraft fold that was easier to complete.

Interestingly, the box-pleating technique to raise the leaf is similar to the “dollar flower” I have been folding from the cut-offs from A3 squares, so found that part of the model really easy. The technique of raising the colour-changed petals for the rosebud is ingenius.

400: Attack Of The Kraken

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There are many of what i would term “legendary” folds in the origami community – few more daunting that Brian Chan’s sculptural masterpiece “Attack Of The Kraken”:

I first saw pictures of this model when trolling around the internet looking for paper challenges: one piece of paper, you bend both a masted ship and a sea monster ripping it asunder – impossible surely. Amidst the turmoil there exists tiny details also – one tentacle contains a shard of ship rigging, another grasps the terrified yet defiant Captain – look closer, is that Captain Jack?

Annoyingly there seem to be no instructions on how to fold this thing – there was, however, a crease pattern adapted from a schematic Brian Chan tantalisingly left beside a display copy of his model so I started working on that. I photo-enlarged sections of the crease pattern and repeatedly folded them until I had discovered what to fold, in what order to make that section of the model work Continue reading →

309: V for Vendetta

| wonko

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…

As a kid I remember cracker night – well in truth, it was cracker week because you could buy fireworks and we used to spend the week blowing things up. In retrospect, all that messing around with gunpowder was really dangerous, but apart from some occasional superficial burns and the odd scorched letterbox we came to no real harm.

I am generally not a fan of Natalie Portman – the Star Wars prequels put me off a lot but she has been outstanding in a couple of subsequent movies – “Black Swan” and “V for Vendetta” for example. This is “V”, the psychopath in the Guy Fawkes mask and I am pretty happy with the result.

Designed by Brian Chan, it is an exercise in restraint, as you have a black/white paper and fold all the black inside, then, later, carefully reveal tiny hints of it – very clever design actually. you get eyes, a rather splendid nose, pencil moustache and goatee in a lovely mask shape, nice.

You can have a go for yourself – it is fairly easy and totally appropriate for Guy fawkes day

295: WALL-E

| wonko

I am an out and proud Pixar fan, they make movies where animation is almost amazing as the story telling and characterisation:

This is Brian Chan’s WALL-E – a lovely model that has taken me simply an age to complete for all sorts of reasons.

I started with a 52cm square (yep, over a half a meter) and a dodgy folding guide (as opposed to complete diagrams) in RUSSIAN and quite frankly I struggled with this one. I must find a way to buy a book that has this model in it, to see how Brian Chan suggests you fold it because I ended up improvising when there were no instructions that I could follow.

I walked away from this model 3 times, unfolded and re-folded the most complex parts a total of 4 times as I tried to make sense of the next stage. That said, I think the final model is quite remarkable. He is free standing (on stunning caterpillar tracks), has the most amazing head/eyes, is just under 10cm tall and I am totally chuffed with how he turned out.

That you can coax a square of paper into such an intricate and completely detailed model is nothing short of amazing – even if it did take me 5.5 HOURS – yes, that is actual folding elapsed time. Words fail me to express the delight when I finally realised he was going to work (having seriously contemplating abandoning the model twice).

This, for me, is a REAL achievement given how much I had to just work out for myself. Folded from my last piece of lithographic paper (thank you school art department). There was NO paper fatigue and that is astonishing given the lengths that the design requires you torture the paper. I must have some more.