The Japan Origami Academic Society puts out a magazine bimonthly. (And by that I mean once every two months. Not twice a month. It’s a terrible word. Maybe “hexaannually” would be better?) They also have yearly conventions and put out a very nice book that corresponds to each meeting.

Starting with issue 55, the magazine has had a section called “Crease Pattern Challenge”. This is only a single page with a crease pattern for people to try to fold. A crease pattern is just a square with lines on it that represent the final folds of the model. The first of these is actually the “Ancient Dragon” by Satoshi Kamiya. You already know I like his models, and this model is also in his book.

I think there are slight differences between this one and the one in his book. Since I’m going to put up the book Ancient Dragon soon anyway, I’m adding some other models here for, like, flavour, or something.

Kamiya’s Ancient Dragon and Bahamut models are actually pretty similar. While the final Bahamut might not show it, Bahamut BL (or God Dragon Bahamut) looks a bit like the Ancient Dragon.

While Kamiya’s looks like the dragon it’s supposed to, mine looks more like a dragon-bird. I got kind of hung up on there only being two legs, I guess. Still, I think a dragon-raven looks pretty nice.

I accidentally changed Bahamut ZERO as well. As I said before, his Bahamuts have a kind of similar pattern to his Ancient Dragon. Due to that, I ended up folding the ZERO model like a dragon initially and just liked it so much I kept it that way. He’s also got some kind of insect-like mandibles or maybe side teeth. I can’t tell if that’s in the original model too; it’s so shiny.

I hope to stumble through some more Crease Pattern Challenges, but some are quite difficult. So, we’ll see.