I am sure dinosaurs were not cute – not even baby ones as they were snappy wild beasts:
The little purple beauty is designed by Issei Yoshino and is a lovely exercise in colour management. Continue reading
preliminary
638: (88/365) Traditional Frog
Can’t fold, busy:
Remarkably I have never blogged this model. Continue reading
602: (52/365) Jason Ku’s Lizard
I bought some hand-made paper with inclusions from Daiso and wondered how it would fold, so looked for a punishing model to test it out:
This is Jason Ku’s Lizard – a lovely little critter with toes, an elegant tail and a funky face with gaping mouth and bulby eyes. Continue reading
388: The Lion King
…now many of you know I am travelling overseas real soon. Whilst in London, we decided to take our pick of shows playing at London’s West End, and decided on “The Lion King”:
I then got part way through the fold and posed a development shot on Fakebook for people to try and guess what the model would end up as. I am pleased to say that Janet C was the successful guesser.
This model is lovely – a real mask, folded with a larger bit of paper it would be a person-sized thingy, neato with design details. Designed by Victoria Serova (with instructions in Russian which made it an interesting challenge), it has a lovely 3D muzzle, sleepy feline eyes and potential for modelling a lovely mane.
Next time I fold this I think I will rough up the mane a little, still, very happy with this as a first fold.
347: Tree Topper
So I was putting up the tree again this year and remembered we had nothing to put atop it:
I remembered an “angel” designed originally by Neal Elias, reworked by gabriel Vong that I had put in the “must try this sometime” pile, so set about folding it.
A nice figurative angel, hands clasped in prayer, lovely wings and a nifty gusset at the back to allow you to insert some foliage at the pointy end of your tree.
You should try this, it is actually fairly straight forward. I had a sheet of gold metallic paper (but wrapping paper would make the fold even easier) and bent it laboriously (it was almost card, so the folds around the hands, shoulders etc were hard going – thank goodness for fingernails as my finger tips are bruised and sore from the continued 365 onslaught).
Atop the tree she is lovely – this is an A4-cut square, prolly a little big for our small tree but ideal for a larger one.
334: The DEVIL is in the DETAIL
I have grown to respect a number of designers of all nationalities and Fernando Gilgado from Spain is one who is guaranteed to produce a challenging model:
This is the Demon, and the devil in the details, trust me – his head alone is frightening – 2 sets of horns, beard, snarly mouth, eyes etc. His body is very dense, arms and legs 20+ layers of paper but that bunching results in the most splendid wings and a pointy demonic tail.
This instruction set was a real challenge – apart from folding it during school time (in between end of year report checking and tidying up), the instructions were in Spanish, and some aspects of it were very fiddly indeed. Even at 54cm x 54 cm, the head and facial features were too small to fold tidily, still, as a first fold I am very pleased with this. It is a monster, wing span of nearly 30cm and he looks very menacing – in a cutey sort of way.
I thought the “angels” of yesterday needed some “demons” today to bring some sort of balance to the paper cosmos. A suitable end of my second last month of this challenge.
245: You Shall NOT Pass!!
Now I am an out and proud “Lord of the Rings” fan – loved the books, liked the movies – the standoff betwixt Gandalf the Grey and the Balrog was such an amazing bit of cinema:
This here is a (sort of) Balrog – pity the photos do not do it justice. Nice leathery wings, a grimace on his face and sort of snarly hands and a lovely tail.
I am writing exams at the moment and the phrase “you shall not pass” is something I try to keep furthest from my mind whilst doing it – I am sure my students would hope that is the case also.
Some interesting teasing of a blintzed preliminary base that is crimped and petal folded in interesting ways – the base that results I can see huge potential in as it has 8 symmetrical flaps asking to be bent into something else – must have a play with it. I found the instructions for this critter on the interwebs and have NO idea whose model it is – anyone help me out? … anyone out there?
211: Cello
If I were asked to pick a stringed instrument that I love the sound of, it would have to be a Cello:
The tones and resonance from it’s timber soundbox are lovely, soulful and evocative if played well
I have had this design for a while, and thought it wise to try it out on a larger format paper (as the creasing to suggest shape, wooden workings etc are quite difficult to place) and am happy with this as a first fold.
The trick is to try to keep the front face as crease-less as possible so the shape creases stand out, fairly happy with how this turned out, hope you like it too, (if there is anyone actually keeping up and reading this junk that is)
206: Celtic Cross
This week is Catholic Education Week – now I am not a Catholic, nor ever religious but I know that at my place of work there are a number of important ecumenical symbols – one of which is a Celtic Cross:
This model takes a preliminary base and distorts it in interesting ways – designed by Tadashi Mori it is an interesting geometric form that has its roots in ancient UK cultures.
Our school has one in it’s quadrangle, and our school crest has one as well – appropriate symbology I thought.
161: A Dragon
Now I have been looking for nicely shaped Dragons:
and stumbled across a Hungarian fold that reminded me of a cartoon one.
Lovely wings, thick and powerful tail, nice head – a fairly simple fold actually but sometimes simplicity is good too. 
I am working towards a Satoshi dragon, so I need all the dragon-practice I can get. I would like to pretend this one was my first-fold, but I scored a Year 11 Maths C stuporvision at school, and got bored with matrices and vectors so tried it then – so sue me.
Was going to give it to Josh, who has not shut up about dragons since he heard I was going to try the ancient dragon, but then he did not stop talking so took it back – you win some lose some I guess.
151: Gav’s New Car
you all remember that feeling, right – the “new car” feeling, right down to the upholstery smell and the plastic covering the seats:
A mate, Gavin, recently bought his first new car – a white Subaru Impreza (or something similar) so I decided to make him a paper version to remember the occasion
I like this model a lot – preliminary fold with some clever sinking to form the roof, windscreen and windows
Long may it avoid dings – congrats mate.
42: Frog On A Lily Pad
…there are lots of patterns for Frogs, most even look frog-like but this one designed by Colin Weber is charmingly sitting atop a lily pad – made with one square of paper you massage enough paper towards a corner to then form the froggy bits – very clever:
Why a frog? Well, it is my Sister-in-Law’s Birthday today, she loves all things French (and would move there to live in a flash), so I thought something a little froggy would be appropriate as a present for her – Happy Birthday Sue! It is also my Nephew Andrew’s Birthday, and he is IN Paris atm, so a double froggy celebration for him as well.
You can have a go at making this model yourself: http://dev.origami.com/images_pdf/frogonlilypad.pdf however I think there are a few mistakes in the diagram, I found flaps where there should not be and no flaps where there should have been, thankfully it was possible to get creative and work around if you keep your eye on the final model.
18: Twitter Bird
…so you gotta imagine this is blue (an unimagined limitation to my original white rule, doh!), the shape is fairly faithfully the twitter logo – tricky to get the head and feet angles/proportions right, and some thick folding through the body here
You too can fold your own twitter bird: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r38S8fjDUN0 … you know you want to