1135: Steven Casey’s Seamless Chessboard

May 24, 2024August 5, 2024 | wonko

Colour-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.

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1106: PBS Scorpion

August 27, 2023 | wonko

One of the benefits of working as part of the editing team on an origami book is that you get to see models before they are in the wild:

This is my test fold of Peter Bucan-Symons new “Scorpion”, a delicious model with a fun challenging fold sequence.

I folded this from a 60cm square of black/natural duo kraft paper (some of my dwindling stock of Ikea duo – WHY won’t they stock this anymore????).

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1097: Jetlag

May 22, 2023 | wonko

Those who know me realise I am just back from nearly 7 weeks in Europe. When asked how my jetlag is going, it is difficult to put the answer into words:

Spending so long in a different time zone, and getting good at waking early, being on the go to many and varied locations, then being subjected to 29ish hours transit to return to the other side of the planet is always a struggle, but this time it seems to have been worse. Bouts of fatigue followed by being wide awake at 3:30am are exhausting, as is my numb and seemingly empty brain.

This is my test fold of a new Boice Wong design. Boice is a crazy talented origami designer who released 2 versions of this model while I was overseas. He graciously released the CPs (crease patterns) and … they did not look too hard … but have taken nearly a week to decipher with my head in it’s current state.

Entitled “Empty Head 32×32 grid”, this is the first of 2 models in this series I intend to try, and feel a little guilty using up a blog number on the test fold, but I am so happy with how this little guy turned out I thought why not. When I have both figures, I will post again using a new blog number.

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Test Folding

January 22, 2022 | wonko

Over the last couple of weeks I have been granted the privilege of test-folding the models from Xander Perrott’s new Kusudama book “Angular Elegance”:

Models 1-20 of 22 - 3-join — the 3-join of models 1-20

I bought Xander’s first book “Folded Forms” – a treasure trove of delicate spikey balls. I offered my services as a test folder – to my delight and amazement he said yes.

Test folding is different to model folding, the brief is to see how easy to follow the diagrams are, how reproducible the forms are and what sense the written instructions make.

As all the models in this book are unit-based, I folded 3 or 4 of the modules (rather than the entire 30+) to check the 2 types of joins and how regular the construction methods can become. There is a wonderful mix and variety of spikey balls in this new (as yet unpublished) collection, and the skill levels to complete them range from fairly easy to nearly impossible – which is good, challenges abound for all levels of folder competence.

Unit and join testing – 3+5joints (“Star Virus” kusudama)

Xander commonly uses some funky paper ratios in his base-papers. Commonly 1:root(3), but this collection uses 2:root(3) and more exotically 6:5root(3). The paper ratio allows construction of accurate angles (many based of multiples of 60 degrees), and the book demonstrates nicely how to cut sheets of this ratio from more conventional sized paper.

Each kusudama has it’s own quirks, tricks and stress points, all require accuracy and nice paper (most showcase duo coloured paper in flamboyant and wondrous ways).

I have not folded a book “cover to cover” since I was a kid (who only owned a only couple of origami books) – it was an intense but hopefully useful journey as I made notes about the instruction set, unit folding and assembly process, subsequently passing this on to Xander for his consideration.

As I approach retirement age, I can see myself doing more in the meta origami world, having already established myself as an origami book editor and test folder – having time to do this without having to shoe-horn it inbetween school commitments is a luxury I am looking forward to.

970: Siren

October 27, 2019October 27, 2019 | wonko

…so I decided it was time to play a game of WTF (What’s That Fold?) on fakebook, and discovered from my archives this was the 29th such game:

Through a series of gradual fold sequence reveals, punters guess, and eventually they got it. This is “Sirene” (or Mermaid) from the soon to be published book by Chen Xiao.

This is my first “anime” style character work (stylised faces, detailed hair, cartoony pose) and it was a bit torturous at this scale, with this paper. Folding the shoulders and central body is tough work on small paper (I used 35cm duo white/natural Ikea Kraft paper).

In the end it is a charming model with lots of details, a diva in a “D” cup with bangs, lovely long hair and a beautiful tail. The fold sequence relies on really accurate pre-folding as errors tend to amplify the further through the fold you get. As a result of a 0.5mm inaccuracy in the first 10 steps, her bra is asymmetrical, and the more I tried to fix it, the odder the breast appeared.

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969: Little Dragon

October 27, 2019October 27, 2019 | wonko

One of the things I have the privilege to be involved with is the proof-reading/editing of books from origamishop.com. As such, I get a chance to make changes in diagrams and instruction annotations, and test fold: