Origami, the final frontier. These are the journeys of the paper folder “Wonko”, his ONE YEAR MISSION, to seek out new models and folding techniques, to boldly fold where he has not folded before:
This cutie little Trek-inspired ship was hidden away in a Tanteidan convention book I have and all the annotations are in Japanese so I have no idea who the designer is, sorry. Continue reading
“Once upon a time, boys and girls, people used to use hand-held ink dispensing rods to make marks on flat sheets of manufactured plant fibre, fold them, place them inside an envelope of the same material, write a distant geospatial reference on one side, their own geospatial reference on the other. They would then pay for a coloured sticky icon and then hand this package over to a corporation that used to exist solely for the carrying and dispensing of such message envelopes” the old story teller said. The assembled children gasped in amusement, then vlogged about the experience collaboratively via the ether.
Snail mail, you remember that – I like the idea of air mail – this sort of letter has a Terry Pratchett, Discworld sort of feel to it.
Designed by Hojyo Takahashi, this delightful model is just what it says on the label.
Happy with this as a first fold.
The beginning of another month, and I am finding it difficult to find rabbits to fold:
This is Stephen O’Hanlon’s rabbit – a simple figurative fold that is suitably rabbitty for the “pinch and punch first day of the month”.
I cannot believe this heralds the last quarter of this project (10th month starting).
When I bought “Selected Works” by Neil Elias, I was delighted with teh collection of box pleating models from the founder of this technique
After watching masterchef tonight I thought “What a lot of bull” – judges and contestants sprouting such a lot of false sentimentality the model I decided to fold was really obvious (at least to me)
there is much to like about this model – it looks stroppy, like it is readt to charge – head down, horns to the front, nice. The hind quarters are also good except the back legs seem an odd proportion to the rest of the model. Knowing how hard it is to plan and design a mode however I will forgive Mr Elias.
Very happy with this as a first fold – I must explore more of Elias’ work, many amazing figures from an origamist before his time. Not a good sign that the wife could not pick what the animal was (I think it is relatively obvious – maybe that is just me)
Now I am not an experienced modular folder, but this is relatively new to me and yee gods it is interesting. Having Parent-torture interviews tonight I got home in time to do the final assembly for this little beauty:
Designed by Jorge Pardo, it takes 60 – yes children, that is right SIXTY squares of paper in delicious and bendy ways.
Each module is fairly easy (if a little fiddly) to make, coupling them takes nimble fingers and a bone folder to lock the layers – bunches of 5 make stars of a spoke, each spoke unit connects to each adjacent one via 2 arms, it more or less forms itself.
This has taken me ages, literally hours – over the last few days inbetween other models but it is hoopy. My FIRST FOLDS were white, but I decided a while into the model that it had to be done in colour, using small Washi paper squares provided by Mary Cassidy made the job easy (thanks Mrs Cass!).
You may applaud now.
I once shared a house with 3 other uni friends – much happened, most memorable. Late one night, instead of finishing a due-next-day assignment, Mark was seen flitting and pirouetting through the house:
We coined the expression “sugar plump fairy” after the dance he was attempting, it stuck. Happy Birthday Mark!!!
I like this model, simple folds, precise creasing that gives form from flat surfaces – very clever Mr Brill.
This model is designed to be a Christmas tree topper – I can see how that would work given the convenient pocket at the back. It is not free standing (although I could mangle the lovely minimalist legs into feet and knees I guess – that would ruin the lines however.
Hope you like it.
Now I put my hand up as a staunch REPUBLICAN – I have never seen the sense of a colonial country holding on to a token monarchy. It would be different if the monarchy were actually USEFUL to us, like a table:
Strong, supportive, present, made of something sustainable and central to daily life, a table is central to any home. This is a “Queen Anne” style table, designed by Robert Harbin, folded for our celebration of the Queen’s Birthday (a public holiday for us – one good, tangible thing that benefits us I suppose).
Nice exercise in petal folding, there are a few variations possible to transform it into a square table – quite like the polyhedral form however. Folded from “Secrets of Origami” by Robert Harbin, a treasure trove of old-school origami designs.
Stuck for something to do, honestly, so decided to try and make sense of a set of instructions in Spanish with hand-drawn diagrams and hola:
This is a little plane – most likely a cesna or similar – remarkably little effort to make a fairly detailed plane
Nice landing gear, good wings – it glides! No propeller or back tail flaps, but otherwise a satisfying model – amazing really because the instructions sort of run out well before a plane-like object is formed … so I “winged it” – hahaha – soz, it is late, I am tired and you should be impressed I folded anything at all.
When translating, I get to a point where it says “important it is that white side upmost is facing” … that would be FINE if I was not folding an all white model – lol. I have yet to learn to swear in Spanish, so I resorted to verbose and guttural Klingon.
Now one of the things I enjoy playing, with my mate, is an old-school game called “Dogfight” – great fun of plane v plane between German and American allied forces, set in WWI, when fair game and honour existed between aces. One of the game elements is a cannon:
A fairly clever figurative model that uses the windmill base as it’s starter and ends up fairly complete
I quite like the wheels, although they are formed at step 15 with the most hilarious instruction “Fold as shown, you might find this easier if you had folded these at step 2” – hahahaha, not. The designer is right, it would have been easier, but a headsup might have been prudent…?
Nice figruative model – I could see some little ones of these on a game board, but they would get hella-fiddly in places (might do a test on the limit of smallnicity I can fold them) … Dang, now I need a biplane (think Red Baron) …
This is, in my opinion, a masterpiece of pre-folding, you make one model, unfold it and bend it into another model. I pride myself of folding this from memory – not bad given I have not folded it in at least 15 years.
One piece of paper (photocopy A4 is not great as it frays after 3 or 4 creases on the same line) cut square, no additional cuts, no glue – all class.
Design by Jack Skillman, USA, 1965 (I first saw it in a Robert Harbin “Origami 2” book I own)
