Are sheep sacred in Japan? Don’t get me wrong, I’m basically ok with sheep. Crease Pattern Challenge 91 is a spectacular ram by Naoto Horiguchi. But that’s pretty far off, and, between this and Challenge 24, I’m tired of basic sheep with fairly tricky puzzle crease patterns. Crease Pattern Challenge 37 is Hideo Komatsu’s Sheep.

 

 

That’s not to say it isn’t a good model. The body is well done, and I especially love the sheep’s sheep face and sheep ears. However, I ended up screwing this up a few time before folding it correctly. Luckily, it’s diagrammed a little later in Issue 105. I folded that first and figured out a couple of things.

 

The biggest thing I learned is that the reference lines and points on the crease pattern are extremely close to ones that are easier to determine than the real points (like a line very close to something simple to find, like a quarter line). In some models, a slight shift like this might end up ok, with only a slightly thinner or fatter model. But these lines link up with each other and have sinks that need more precision. Specifically, the head will be much further off than it should be without the exact reference points.

I also found that there was a cool locking mechanism in the middle inside (which I didn’t get in the crease pattern version) and why the crease pattern version is useful. The final model’s body has large, flat sections representing wool. The diagrammed version has many more fold lines crossing these areas to determine the intersection points. The crease pattern sheep is a lot cleaner in these areas.

Diagram Lock

 

My Incomplete Lock on the Crease Pattern

 

 

Left: Crease Pattern; Right: Diagram