Simple solids

After folding a new-and-improved k-dron a year and a half ago, I was thinking a lot about folding closed 3D solids with flat faces in a similar manner. The idea came up again recently and I decided to try something simple as a test. What simpler shape than a tetrahedron?

My idea was to try to use paper efficiently and equally for all faces and edges. Instead of having every face join at the edge, I opted to have all but one edge not touching. After some trial and error I found a simple lock from where two of the edges come together, as well as the reference for a 15 degree angle (which I have no doubt has been found before).



I'm happy with the result, despite the fact that the lock ruins the otherwise clean faces of the model. There is way to get the excess paper from the sides of the locking face to hold a lock behind it, but it doesn't hold as tightly. Let's just say the colour change on the lock means the tetrahedron could double as a snow-capped mountain or Christmas tree.

Eight months to publication

Unless you count the dolphin, I haven't really designed a fish that I've been satisfied with. The idea was very simple (based on a preliminary base), but with the original colour changes and the big sail on the back the original design didn't look like anything in particular. I wanted to make it into a marlin or a sailfish at the time, but I couldn't decide how to fix the colours. Here is the CP for what I'd come up with:


I kept coming back to this designs, making an iteration about once a week. I was finally satisfied with the design just the other day, so I folded the final version to post online, looked at pictures of marlins and sailfish to decide which it was and realized it looked like neither. Luckily, realized that to make it look more like a marlin I just needed to add a ventral fin and change the tail colour and I had enough extra paper for both with the same base.