About a month ago I bought a huge sheet of tracing paper. Well, I call it paper but it is actually a type of opaque plastic called “vellum”. For my birthday fold I decided to see what vellum could do:

The paper was 42cm square (cut from a 42x60cm rectangle) and straight away I knew it would be tough – vellum does not like to be folded but once it is, hates being unfolded.

This INSANE design sculpts 3 wise monkeys Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru and places them under a palm tree via some miraculous paper torture. See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil is a pretty good life philosophy but there were evil words muttered whilst this fold was wrestled into place.

Getting the monkeys to look monkey-like with the density the body ends up being is a real challenge. facial expressions, such that they are, and arm postures alike were tough fought, but I am pretty happy with the end result.

I have learnt a lot from this exercise – vellum can be folded, but fatigue shows itself as splits, particulalry at the pointy ends. It hates being re-folded in the opposite direction on a fold (reversed), is VERY strong, once folded it stays there – consequentially, this model is rigid and is not trying to unfurl (much as I imagine tissue-foil behaves).

Will I use it again? not sure – when my tissue-foil arrives along with my Satoshi book I now have a point of comparison, I am honestly surprised the model worked at all, but will accept congratulatory applause now.

You too can have a go here – be warned, this is NOT an introductory exercise.

Happy Birthday to me 🙂