F Kawahata

T-Rex Revisited

| wonko

I love a well-designed model and Fumiaki Kawahata’s T-Rex is no exception:

Trex

Folded from a 50cm square of medium green Tant paper, this lovely snapper has a splendid mobile jaw with teeth, fabulous feet and tail, and frustratingly useless front legs. The result is a fantastic free-standing model that looks simultaneously cute and terrifying.

The model structure is intense, this is the smallest I have tried it, and at this scale the pre-creasing is torturous (to be polite). The folds that raise the teeth from a series of accordion pleats are ingenious and tough work for fat clumsy fingers.

I have folded this before, and will probably return to it, as it is a great exercise in accuracy and patience – really good fold-therapy for a fragged and shagged brain.

trex view

951: Trike

| wonko

The remnants of a pack of Daiso washi was sitting in my cupboard and i am not sure, so I start folding Fumiaki Kawahata’s Triceratops (from Origami Tanteidan Magazine 57) and realised why it was unused:

triceratops by Fumiaki Kawahata (Origami Tanteidan Magazine 57)

You assume that paper is square, and start folding, only to discover in some dimensions it is really not square, but you persist none the less, kludging landmarks as you go.

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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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569: (19/365) Japanese Macaque

| wonko

Emergent behaviour is fascinating, apparently where these Japanese Macaque monkeys live gets snowy in winter, they have learned that sitting in thermal pools near bathhouses (Onsen) is one way of staving off the cold:

This is Fumiaki Kawahata’s Japanese Macaque – a model I had intended to fold ages ago because it was in a Tanteidan I had shelved.  Continue reading →

497: Tyrannosaurus Rex

| wonko

I have been on holiday, 6 weeks is a long time between folds but I thought I would ease back into it with a simple model … then I saw Fumiaki Kawahata’s TRex and thought “screw it”:497RexView

Waiting in my kept mail was the last Tanteidan of the previous subscription, this little beauty on the cover and I thought – how hard can this be? Continue reading →

293: Kawahata’s TRex

| wonko

It was late, I was tired, and this model did not come easily from a baffling set of instructions:

I will fold this again, but for now this is my first fold – rough but the vestiges of a row of teeth, sort of arms, nearly toes and a good tail/body – plenty of scope to improve.

Folded from “Origami Fantasy” by Fumiaki Kawahata, this model is tough at this scale.

266: Master Yoda

| wonko

Now I know I have, early on in this project, folded a figurative yoda but I thought it about time I did real justice to this loveable muppet (well, before he became pure CGI in the prequel abominations):

This lovely model is by Fumiaki Kawahata and is deliciously detailed.

I like that he has a 3 fingered hand, walking stick, lovely facial expression replete with crinkled brow and flowing robe. He also free-stands which is a bonus.

I am very pleased with this as a first fold – the diagramming was a bit of a mystery at many junctures so I found I had to improvise, but the model did not suffer for it I think.

The force is strong with this one, could do with a dose of the force actually to propel me over the 365 finish line, it has been a long haul so far.

233: Kawahata’s Locust

| wonko

Now I have not folded a model from Fumiaki Kawahata before because they looked so difficult:

The instructions I have come from her lovely book “Insects Volume 1” and are all in Japanese (problem number 1) and use a completely different set of sumbols to indivate things like repeat, turn over, sink, spontaneously combust etc which are also in Japanese.

I ended up just going on the before and after diagrams to make sense of what was happening when – not a very efficient technique on a 120 step model with dozens of “repeat behind” that I had to guess but, you know, that is part of the adventure -right?

This is a lovely model on all counts – the body is plump and 3d, the wings delicate 9single layer) with wing cover, feet including lovely sproingy back legs all int eh right place, lovely little antennae. plump and pleated abdomen – wow!

Originally I was going to use 18cm tissue foil and I am soooo glad I chose larger as the fiddly detail near the end would not have been possible with my fat clumsy fingers in a smaller format. I could not imagine trying to tackle this with normal paper as some of the sections are 12 layers thick and were difficult maneuvers even with tissue foil.

I will fold more from this book – the techniques are amazing and the models so lifelike – surely a rival to Robert Lang in terms of realism and complexity of model.

You may applaud now, I do deserve it for managing to get to the end with only a little bit of swearing.