A Little Bit of Editing

This Christmas, I received a the "Mythical Creature Origami Book & Gift Set" by Duy Nguyen. Just by looking at the cover, I could tell that it wasn't much in the way of pure origami. However, the paper that came with it is nice, and holds folds well. I just need to find some nice simple models that will go with the patterns... The set came with a book, 50 sheets of paper and a terribly folded dragon. Whoever folded it confused some reverse folds with valley or mountain folds, and couldn't do some other folds (I don't blame them, the book isn't very well labeled in many spots). I was looking through the book, and decided to see how the dragon was supposed to be folded. It was actually one of the only models that didn't require cutting the base in two right away, but there was still plenty of cutting. I folded the dragon as best I could with the diagrams and without cutting, and then improvised to make my own parts that didn't need any cutting. Seeing as I changed the head, tail, wings and arms and pretty much everything else, I decided to call it my own design, but still give him credit. It looks quite similar in a few ways, but it is folded quite differently. Here is the CP that I used, which is almost the same as the original model's CP.


The tail is quite easy to make, because all it involved is opening up the end, such as on many other designs with tails. The arms are made from the two flaps at the chest area, and what were originally legs became the breastplate. The wings are a bit more complicated. They involve opening up the ends until they are at the original 22.5° form. Shoulder blades can also be made from the other ends (near the neck) of each wing. Someday, I hope to make a nice, big, complicated dragon, but until then, theres this one.

Never Ending Up Right

It seems like I try to fold a model, and end up with something different that I wanted to fold anyway. This months challenge on the french forum is Flying Insects, and the challenge on the english forum is Sea Life, so I wanted to fold a flying insect and a crab. I started off making a Maekawa Devil based CP (using the 22.5° based molecules) with the intention of making a flying insect of some sort. After collapsing the CP, I found that the flaps wouldn't go in the right places to make an insect model. However, when I moved some flaps around, I had a crab! At least I got something that I wanted. Here is the CP that I used:


I haven't found a good folding sequence yet, and I doubt that I will. The CP takes a while to precrease and to collapse, but it has a nice result. The flaps from the top right and bottom left corners make the claws, and the long flap in the top right makes the nice bottom part of the shell. The bottom right section is actually the from of the model. As for the shell, it has to the squashed after you fold the CP, and that will create two more flaps beneath the shell section that become eyes. Good luck!

6 More Weeks of Winter

Well, groundhog day has come and gone, and groundhogs across Canada have predicted 6 more weeks of winter. Not that it really matters, because they can only predict 6 more weeks of winter or 6 more weeks until spring. Either way, they get it right. Anyways, to celebrate this strange holiday, I decided to try folding a groundhog peeking out of its hole in the snow. My idea was coming along fine until I finished the first draft and realized that there was no hole, the groundhog was standing. However, I liked that, mainly because it even had color changed feet and a tail.
For the base, the model is made from a "fruit base" (as the Shumakovs call it), the same base that makes the OUSA strawberry, and will make an octagon when the bottom parts are cut off. After folding the head and arms, the bottom part simply needs to be opened up to make the base, and then the sides folded over to make the color change. There isn't a CP because it isn't really worth it to draw 8 lines all crossing the center and post it here. If I can figure out a good way to diagram the head, I might make diagrams.

Finding Models Just Got Easier

At least on this blog, it did. I used to have a drop down menu that did absolutely nothing but tell everyone the names and chronological order of my models. However, after looking for a while on the internet, I finally found a way for the drop down menu to work for everyone! As it turned out, I just had to use the Javascript gadget that I didn't realize that blogger had...
Anyways, you can now just open up the menu (or open down...) and click a model, and it will go to the page where the model was posted! For the first two model that haven't been posted on the blog before, I've linked them to the old pictures. Now, if you ever want to find a model, just look in the menu. It may not be extremely efficient because there are so many designs, but its better than looking through the archive and guessing from the different post titles!