D Brill

933: David Brill’s “Robin”

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I have been a fan of David Brill’s designs ever since I read his book “Brilliant Origami”. Such a lovely touch, breathing life into paper:

This Robin is delightful – I saw hand-drawn diagrams on David’s website and then professionally drawn diagrams in the latest Tanteidan Magazine and knew I needed to try it. I particularly like the free-form nature of the hand-drawn version, making it a bit more of an adventure to fold this bird.

The shape, management of colour change and general model stability is wonderful in this model. There is nice sense of volume, beautiful 3D head, and an animated pose. The subtleties in fold here are such that I found all 5 of them (yes, I got a bit carried away) are all slightly different, making almost a family grouping. Continue reading →

785: (235/365) Pentagonal Masu

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A Masu (or box) was traditionally square and used to measure rice in Japanese kitchens. These days, masu are typically used to sip Sake out of:

Having mastered David Brill’s Square Masu, I thought it time to try the pentagonal one. Apparently the pentagonal masu exists only in Origami circles – this makes sense as the woodworking skill necessary to make this in timber breaks my brain.

Page division into 6ths (to allow overlap/join) then gentle faceting and a magic corner hinge joint results in a lovely 3d shape that feels like it has volume.

I used thickish paper and found some of the internal collapses tough work to make them behave and sit tidily but overall it is a fin fold because you really have to think through how it works before trying the collapse.

782: (232/365) Wedge Flex

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Topologically convoluted geometric modulars confuse the brain – shapes that morph into different shapes in stable but seemingly unpredictable ways are fascinating:

This is a wedge-flex – a modular hinged construction of a series of triangular prisms (wedges) that fold, bend, twist and re-align in interesting configurations. Continue reading →

756 757 & 758: (206..8/365) Cat, Mouse, Cheese

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So I have been really busy, with meetings and … stuff, so I fell a little behind. Looking to catch up, I noticed a lovely group of folds designed by David Brill:

This is Cat, Mouse, Cheese – a naturalistic composition with a pair of lovely fold-related critters and a lovely wedge of cheese. Continue reading →

748: (198/365) Brill’s Square Silver Star

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Busy times indeed – perfect for folding a 12 piece modular:

Fairly simple modules that sit over one, inside another adjacent module, locking fairly positively into swirls of 4 “petals”, you get a shape that describes a cube when you look just at the points. Continue reading →

649: (99/365) Brill’s Double Cube

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I am such a fan of David Brill’s work:

His command of seemingly impossible geometry is complimented by the works of Francis Ow, the designer of the other “Double Cube” I have folded – a torturous skeletal structure. Continue reading →

524: Happy Valentines Day

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I find it fascinating that there are so many models and folding techniques I have yet to try. The “Magic Rose Cube” is a case in point – I am amazed I have never folded it:v4

Such a beautiful little modular, 3 pieces the flower, 3 slightly different pieces the leaves, slots together into a cube easily, unfurls beautifully. Continue reading →

504: Coxless Four

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Rowing is huge at my school – a veritable machine that hundreds of kids get very passionate about, a gear-fest like few others:504CoxlessFour

Seems the purpose of the sport is to put boys in lycra, sitting atop tiny fiberglass shells, armed with a paddle rowing furiously backwards across vast distances of water. The competitive nature sees rowers exerting huge amounts of energy, enthusiasm and biomass in singles, teams of 2,4,and 8 with or without cox against other equally keyed-up teams. Quite a spectacle.504CoxlessFourView

Continue reading →

431: Brill’s Woven Dodecahedron

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As a teacher, I look for activities, particularly in the establishment phase of a year, to engage. Nothing says engagement like a hands-on physical activity and, as my wont is origami, I went for a modular project:

The themes for this were many, the metaphors a plenty – “many hands make light work” and “the sum is greater that it’s parts” being central.

Continue reading →

401: Double-Star Flexi-Cube

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It took me ages to even understand what this model was:

An ingenious design by David Brill, modular in construction composed of 3 different types of modules, clustered in threes, hinged together, it is a most perplexing construction.

A seemingly plain cube opens up to show a star, which fits wholly within the cube and is removable.

Flexing the cube makes another star, flexing the star makes a plank, stellated plain and other interesting twisted geometries.

This is a keeper – paper tension keeps it in shape generally but it does not strongly lock, so I may resort to cello-tape on the joints so it can be handled without risk of it disintegrating (as it did to me twice).

The geometry is interesting, photographing it seems not to do justice to the shapes but I am glad I finally nutted it out – bravo Mr Brill.

386: Dimple Ball

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Looking for a neat, colourful use for a batch of poor quality origami paper I had, I stumbled across a modular dimpled sphere:

The paper cracked and spilt in ugly ways, so I had a good wrestle to actually construct this. Interestingly, when complete it became quite rigid and strong but prior to the last few modules were wrangled into place, it was floppy and kept unfolding inconveniently.

The result is spherical, with lovely pentagonal dimples, with modules centred in fives, meeting in threes – lovely application of maths.

I must look for modules that differ in the basic 32 module sphere, and also for one whose modules are more positively connected. This one is, however, randomly beautiful.

You can have a try of this yourself – go here for instructions

381: Rodin’s Reader

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It is little known (partially because it is blatantly not true) that Rodin, prior to sculpting his masterpiece “The Thinker” had an altogether different idea:

Our school library is celebrating the National Year of reading by exploring a different theme each month – March is “think” so I put 2 and 2 together and got 17.3.

Based on Neal Elias’s box pleat, this little model is cute with a Brill “Spelling Book” on his lap.

Will not be around for the next couple of themes so this will have to do for a little while

377: Balthazaar Quercus

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So, it emerges that Dweezil has a little brother. Ladies and Gentleffolk, if I may introduce Master Balthazaar Quercus, aged 6¾:

I was asked to liberate this cute little chap from the flat sheet of lithography paper he was trapped in as a parting gift for a colleague. Aware this may create precedent, this is my first COMMISSIONED dwarf (my charities will be well pleased with the extra injection of funds).

I took what I had learned from wrangling Dweez’ and refined the model – this is free standing, on a base (a bit of wood covered also in litho paper offcuts – like the one I used for Mortimer). I liked the sitting on a stack of books idea, so pierced a stack of three with some structural wire that goes into a hole in the base and goes up Balthy’s bottom, carries on up his back and across his shoulders to support him.

The result is charming – I think I nailed the facial expression (although how a 6¾ year old dward has such a full beard is something only another dwarf could answer) and am getting quite good at the whole pointed, curley shoes thing.

There seems a demand for dwarves, they are all different indeed and this one was folded entirely by memory (quite proud of that, given how unreliable my memory is). If YOU want one, have your people call my people, we can agree on the finances (charity days are numbered, once ALL the 365 origami debt is cleared then I guess the funds should be redirected to the paper wrangler).