Snow+ Shelter Needed= ...

Today I was sitting in french class and someone told me that they were going to try and fold an igloo. I thought it was a good idea, so I got to folding because I already knew how I was going to fold it. I made a dome shape, and then pulled out a part for the entrance. The person who was trying to fold the igloo never did end up with one in the end. I kept it with me, and looked on the french origami forum on the building challenge, and there was something that looked just like my igloo, made by Mélissande*.
Here is the CP that I ended up with. The diagonal lines in the corners are based on horizantal and vertical thirds.


Here is the igloo that you should end up with. Pull out a bit to make the entrance on whatever side you want to.

Starfish

Sure, it may not be quite as good as KAMIYA's, which he folded for origami TV champion with waterproof paper, but I still like how this model came out. When thinking for ideas of what else I could fold, I suddenly remembered KAMIYA folding his. Then I thought of the bird base, but it didn't quite have enough flaps. So I modified the bird base a bit and came up with my own:


As you can see, the model has 5 points on it. All you have to do now is book fold the entire base in half and do two inside reverse folds and one outside reverse fold. This model ends up with a lot of layers in one of the "arms", so you may want to use foil or flatten the model in some way after folding.

Happy Chinese New Year (again)!

Now you can celebrate this new year with a folded card. This month's challenge on the english origami forum is new year's cards. This was a hard challenge for me to contribute to, but I did manage to make a nice little rat head. I'm not entirely satisfied, but theres not really anything I can do to satisfy myself with this model. I would like to make a color range for just the head, but I'm not going to be able to manage that. Here is the CP that I ended up with, out of an 8.5:11 inch rectangle.


There are a lot of things to do after folding the base. You need to squash the bottom part to make a nose, and then pull out some of the top for the ears. All I can say is good luck!

CN Tower

This model I knew I shouldn't try to fold from a square, because of its height compared to its width. The CN Tower in Toronto is 553.33 metres tall. I was the tallest free-standing structure on earth for 32 years, and was only passed in height last year by a skyscraper thats still under construction.
The reason that i folded this id because of the french forum's challenge, buildings. This is a simple yet nice building to fold, and I needed to use a 3:1 rectangle to fold it. I divided it into 3 one way (The red lines on the CP below) and 10 the other (many of the black lines).


The model shouldn't be too hard to fold. The bottom part must be made into 4 parts sticking out, like you can see in CN Tower pictures. You can do this by overlapping 2 of the 10ths.

The Year of the...

...Rat. Yes, folks, today is the beginning of the year of the rat, the chinese new year. Like last year, I decided to fold what the year is. Last year, as some may remember, I had just started boxpleating and I folded the pig. Now, this year, I started a topic on the origami forum titled Best of Show Rat Contest 2008, after what Wen Fu Kai called last year's challenge.
For this model, I decided that I probably wouldn't get much out of sitting down and making up my own CP (because I usually get something else...), so I decided to try "stealing" a CP, as Quentin Trollip called it. Also, instead of just searching for a model with the right amount of flaps, I went straight to Joisel's Rat. Here is the CP:


My rat is a bit different than Joisel's. I made mine to have a mouth out of the two flaps at the front, and I also made it walk on all fours. I'm pretty satisfied with how it came out. Maybe I'll try making my own CP later on.

Egyptian Burial Structures

This month's challenge on the french forum is buildings. That is a pretty straight forward challenge, so I decided to go with one of the simplest shapes that resembles a building: a pyramid. I decided to make it using thirds, and then fold from the middle square to the center on the side. This ended up with a pyramid that is made from tall isosceles triangles. Then I had to make various locking folds for it to keep its shape. Unlike many Pyramids that I have seen, this one is open-top. Here is the CP that I ended up with. The grey lines are the optional locking folds.


This folds together at the top part, and I suggest folding the locking folds on one part, unfolding, fold another, unfold it and so on so that the models just snaps into place when you fold all the side up together.

Monster!!!

I decided to try and fold using a reference line, but I failed horribly in trying. what I ended up doing was folding one fifth a different way. However, I did manage to make yet another model. I think that my original idea for a design was a carrot, which I'll probably try again later on. Instead of a carrot, I ended up with a monster with 6 horns and a long, snake-like body instead of legs. I even managed to add eyes, out of what would have been the seventh and middle horn. Here is the CP that I ended up with. You should be able to figure out which lines are one fifth.


The lower body has to be folded with an angle bisector, otherwise that part won't stay flat. The arms aren't very long, either, and they won't do much other than sit right beside the body.