Browsing a Korean Origami Convention book (the 6th – 2015), as you do, I stumbled across a Platypus I had not seen before:
Designed by Fernando Gilgado, this genius design uses duo paper to isolate the beak, tail and legs from the body in a really interesting way.
After some simple pre-creasing, you collapse to a base that looks really useful for all sorts of long critters with head/tail and 2 pairs of legs (like a crocodile, say)
Continue readingColour-change models are astonishing to me, designing models that use colour change are something special:
I have folded a number of different models like this, nothing quite like it however – what sets this model apart form any other is that each “tile” on the board is a seamless square.
Folding this from a SINGLE UNCUT square ends up being a bit of a brain-fuck. The paper was blue one side, white the other (actually cheap and nasty 70cm wrapping paper from my local dollar store). Distributing the “colour” is achieved, mostly, by bringing the sheet edges up through pleat bundles using a variety of techniques.
You can see the final location of the 4 corners of the original sheet in this development photo:
Planning/designing of a model like this is beyond me – pre-preparing the colour changes means that every bit of the paper has a job – either visible “tile”, spacer, flipper, mover etc to get the bits of colour to get where they need to go. Fold accuracy is the make or break of such designs – novices who use a “near enough is good enough” approach will not succeed here.
I was asked to test fold this, by Steven Casey, prior to publication. The diagrammed sequence is intense, starting with a 40×40 grid. Most of the folding is working on the wrong side, creating interacting pleat stacks that sit flat but that strategically manipulation pleat order. The run towards the “checkerboard” effect happens around the edges first, they they are migrated further towards the centre (although really only in a 4-unit strip around the periphery.
Continue readingIt is always interesting to receive the latest JOAS Tanteidan Magazine:
On the cover was a model I immediately knew I had to try – Yoo Tae Yong’s “Quokka”.
As far as I am aware, this is the first Quokka design, and wow, what a beauty. The model is fully featured – in proportion to a real Quokka, and even has a pouch.
Continue readingI am constantly surprised what you can do with the classic bird base:
This is Peter Buchanan-Symons’ “Loch Ness Monster”, a fascinating exercise in colour change and tight accordion pleating that takes the points of a bird base (traditionally 2 wings, a head and a tail) and manipulates them to make 4 stickey-uppey colour-changed flaps that are then bent to produce a familiar outline.
This is a simple model from a forthcoming book “Folding Fantasy Volume 1” that I helped edit – some lovely challenges therein.
In need of an elephantine fold, I remembered proof-reading a diagram set from Tetsuya Gotani’s latest book “Origamix”, and remember a test fold that went awry, so decided to try again:
What a lovely sequence – some complex layer manipulation and need for accuracy early on pays off later when shaping.
There is lots to love about this model – lovely big ears (an African elephant then?), trunk and tusks, lovely bum and fabulous sturdy legs. A test of a model is how it is with folds only – you can see an inherent elephantine shape that is stable and free-standing.
I will do some posing, and tidy up some gaping seams, otherwise there is little to do to make this a presentation fold. I really like this model – my pick of elephants (perhaps even ahead of Sipho Mabona’s) so far, and I have folded LOTS of them.
Reading through Origami Bygota, I stumbled across Ma Yong’s charming penguin:
Clever use of colour change goes part way to defining a penguin, but proportions and general morphology also helps. Continue reading
Struggling to make it through Friday, I stumbled across Sy Chen’s Hangman:
This paper puzzle allows you to gradually reveal parts of a hangman, suitable for a table top game. Continue reading
Social media, gift that it is, has fundamentally broken two concepts I think. The “friend” and the “like” now no longer mean what they used to, and culturally I am not sure we are not really ready for that change:
The “friend” has come to mean some random that stalks you, watching what you do. Continue reading
Needless to say the media is abuzz with reactions to Trump’s inauguration. Let us hope that the he does not become the “Bane” of their existence (even though part of his speech was plagiarised from the Marvel Universes’ fictitious tyrant presidential coup, I am sure this is merely coincidence):
One has to have hope in the power of intellect, value of human dignity, common sense and sane application of spray tanning solutions. Continue reading
