Just a Snake

Seeing as antlers are thin and have several points, they aren't an easy addition to any origami model. Naturally, this lead to the challenge of adding antlers to anything and everything possible. I had yet to fold a snake for the year of the snake, so once I was back from the convention it didn't take my long to come up with this crease pattern:


My goal with this design was to efficiently make simple colour changed antlers from the corners of the paper. There is a lot of extra paper on the body, so I made colour change spots with a 22.5 degree stretch. With lots of 22.5 degree sinks on each of the antler points, I ended up with the following model:



As I mentioned earlier, the idea behind this model is to fold any subject with antlers added. With any luck I'll come up with a couple more models with antlers in the next few months (although I'm headed back to university tomorrow). I'm also hoping to see other bizarre models with antlers as a sort of informal challenge, but I can only wait and see what other people fold.

Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device

Ever since I folded my creeper last summer I've been meaning to try out a few more models based on creatures/objects from video games. Oddly, I have a surprising amount of knowledge about popular PC and console games despite the fact that I've played almost none of them. I've never owned a console of any type, and (other than a brief attempt at StarCraft: Brood War when I was younger) I haven't bought or downloaded any PC games either. Even though I haven't player it, I've been particularly interested in Portal since the release of Portal 2, so I thought it would be fun to fold a portal gun. My first few attempts at the portal gun were during this year's OUSA convention in New York. At first I was designing without any reference image, and as a result I missed a lot of important details and colour changes. After getting home and starting fresh with the right image in mind, I ended up with this crease pattern:


Note that I'm trying out a new style in the CP, with different line thickness for folds in the opposite direction. Unwrapping some paper in the front and back gives the white body and handle, while thinning the 3 corner flaps makes the grabby antenna things. Here is my result:

Piled Higher and Deeper

The title may or may not be stolen from a comic that I read regularly, although it is related to my latest model. The model is an arm reaching out from pages of a book as though someone (i.e. me) has been sucked into the textbook, and I figure the title "Ack!-ademia" works well. When originally getting a coming up with the book on its own, I managed to "re-design" David Brill's simple little book. The final design uses the same pattern with a bit of extra box pleating on the side. Here is the CP:


The layers get a bit thick in the arm, so I added the diamond in the middle to distribute them a bit better. Moving the diamond left makes a thicker arm but thinner cover (seeing as the extra flap can be hidden under the cover). Unfortunately, I didn't design the model quickly enough so for now I have to post a copy-paper rendition of the model.