Random stuff – August 2020

Miscellaneous, Origami

Well, awhile ago my flash drive died (quite thoroughly), and I lost a lot of recent stuff that I hadn’t backed-up yet. That and some other stuff bummed me out, but I hadn’t realized I’d been off here for so long. So here’s some random, fun stuff.

I made Satoshi Kamiya’s Winged Kirin/Qilin! I think it came out ok. I used paper that’s too small again.

There’s an artist named Hachiken (Haruka Hashimoto) on Twitter. I love their Blastoise, and there’s a crease pattern. So I made one; he’s great!

I wonder if I should make the Charizard too?

…got sidetracked while writing this and made him in the interim. He’s great too! The way I painted the square caused the paper to be a little thick, so I had some trouble getting the tail and wings to stay up.

Last, Paper Mario: The Origami King came out a few weeks ago now. I unraveled (and re-raveled) my Bowser to possibly do diagrams of him sooner or later. Also, I made Nintendo’s origami Princess Peach from the how-to video on their Japanese website. I used her, my Bowser, and some game sprites to try greenscreening and make a little cartoon. It’s kind of dopey, but I hope it makes someone smile.

The World Eater

Miscellaneous, Origami

I made one of Satoshi Kamiya’s World Eater dragons awhile ago, from the crease pattern on his site. An interesting thing about this one is that quite a lot of the detailing on the neck and tail isn’t on the crease pattern. It’s pretty clear and easy to implement (although, I didn’t do it quite the same way).

Also notable: Kamiya’s World Eater looks imposing and maybe threatening. As usual, I’ve taken that and turned it into happy and maybe friendly.

I didn’t get the back spikes. I’m not sure why.

Phoenix 3.0 and Ryujin 3.1

Miscellaneous, Origami

I found a Phoenix 3.0 I made from the crease pattern on Satoshi Kamiya’s website, and it looks pretty good. I thought a Ryujin would go well with it. The only one I hadn’t made was the 3.1, so I thought I’d try that.

The 2.1 crease pattern is on his website, and the 3.5 is in the Super Complex book. I found the 3.1’s crease pattern on the internet. It seems to be off of a card from one of his exhibitions (he has cards under the model with the title and it sometimes has the crease pattern on it). So I’m not 100% sure about it, but it’s a lot like the 3.5 and was fun either way.

I think they look neat together.

Raijin and Fuujin

Miscellaneous, Origami

Takashi Hojyo made a spectacular Raijin, the god of thunder, which is on his site here. The crease pattern is in Origami Tanteidan Convention Book 10. Since the previous Crease Pattern Challenge mentioned Takashi Hojyo (and since Raijin isn’t one of the challenges), I thought I’d drop this here.

Raijin is usually paired with a similar god, Fūjin, the god of wind. Apparently, they fight each other a lot, but I only ever see them get along. One of the most famous depictions of them is two folding screens by Tawaraya Sōtatsu, a National Treasure of Japan. I tweaked the pattern to make Fūjin so that I could have something similar.

Hojyo’s style is more angular, like some of the more Indian inspired Buddhist statues. Fūjin has a wind bag instead of the drums surrounding Raijin, but I tried to make a few more subtle changes. Other than positions, Fūjin is a little wider than Raijin. Also, I tried to make Fūjin’s face slightly friendlier than Raijin’s.

Office Stuff

Miscellaneous, Origami

There are some extra shelves no one uses in our office, so I put some origami there.

I came up with a Feanor to fight Gothmog. The first axe I made Gothmog was too big, so I added a smaller one (after these pictures were taken).

This “Death” (designed by Miyamoto Chuya, kind of hard to see his full name in the picture) is out of pretty thick paper. Later, I replaced him with one out of thinner paper to get better face detail, but I got confused and used a much smaller square. Maybe I should do another one.

I have a lot of Satoshi Kamiya stuff.

The “Yatagarasu” is on a shelf by himself. I’m thinking of adding Horiguchi’s sheep and maybe something else by Hojyo Takashi. His “Raijin” is pretty neat, but I wonder if anyone around will get that one.

Montroll’s Dragons and Other Creatures

Miscellaneous, Origami

I haven’t posted in a while mainly because I was traveling, but I actually got two origami books there when I was free. The first is Works of Satoshi Kamiya 2, which means I’ll have that to do after the first one. The second one is Dragons and Other Fantastic Creatures in Origami by John Montroll. I did the models in that book in the car ride back home.

MONTROLL - DRAGONS AND ~ BOOK - (102)

John Montroll is one of my favorite artists. He has hundreds of great designs in dozens of books. His animal origami book was one of my first ones, and some of his books I have (that are great) collect models of African animals, North American animals, prehistoric animals, and mythical creatures and the Chinese zodiac. His books tend to be organized by section (with each section sorted by increasing difficulty), and this one has sections of weapons, dragons, humanoids, and creatures.

MONTROLL - DRAGONS AND ~ BOOK - (103)

The weapon and humanoid sections only have four models each, and the weapons are much more simple, warm-up models. The two-headed martian on the right has a face on each head (it’s a little hard to see in my pictures, sorry).

MONTROLL - DRAGONS AND ~ BOOK - (104)

MONTROLL - DRAGONS AND ~ BOOK - (105)

There are 10 different dragons, though some have similar bases. He has 1 to 3 headed dragons, then winged dragons, then eastern and western dragons, and then winged dragons with multiple heads.

MONTROLL - DRAGONS AND ~ BOOK - (108)

The creatures section includes a griffin, a unicorn (which I went a little cubic on), a wyvern, a phoenix, and various animals with wings attached. The last model is one of the best; it’s a unicorn with wings (or a pegasus with a horn).

Random 1

Miscellaneous, Origami

I had wanted to post every Tuesday and Friday, but I’m probably only going to be able to do Fridays. I thought some random ones might be fun. Anyway, I had these in my camera.

This Dimetrodon was designed by Fumiaki Kawahata and is in his book, Origami Fantasy. I got the book just before it went out of print and have made nearly every model (I think). I’m surprised I can’t find more lying around (the stegosaurus is especially ingenious); they’re all great models and fun to make. This dude’s spine is awesome. The Dimetrodon, I mean. I have no information on Mr. Kawahata’s spine.

Diaz’s origami is usually wavy. Not wavy like the more abstract origami that’s all waves, but very clearly wavy, as an interesting aspect. Around 10-15% wavy. A Hippocampus is a mythical water horse, and this one (from Origami for Interpreters) incorporates wavyness particularly in the mane turning to gills, the horse nose-face-whatever, and the fish-foot-thing. Sometimes, my descriptions can be a little lacking.

Lastly, I have some designs created by Robert Lang. I like most of Robert Lang’s origami. The “Opus” numbering he has kind of rubs me the wrong way. But it’s fine. Really, it’s just that, when I folded his Assyrian Bull, it didn’t stand under its own weight. I mean, that’s fine. I should have been able to tell its legs couldn’t hold it from the crease pattern. So, it’s fine. I had it hung over my desk for a while, with a few of Takashi Hojyo’s Geistkämpfers. Their arrows were aimed at the bull.

The Lionfish and Hermit Crab are from Origami Sea Life, which was a co-book with John Montroll. John Montroll has many clever designs, many with color changes, which you do not see here. Maybe another week.

I don’t know exactly why I like the Lionfish so much, but I do. Maybe because he’s so pointy?

I had gotten some opalescent paper that I didn’t know what to do with but remembered the Hermit Crab! He’s adorable but a little hard to photograph.

This last one is Lang’s Scorpion from The Complete Book of Origami. He has several other scorpions, but I like this one the most of all the ones I’ve seen. He has a good face. Also, I don’t much like wet folding.

Ryuuzin 龍神

Miscellaneous, Origami

Satoshi Kamiya has some of the best origami in the world, and his Ryuuzin (Dragon God) is one of the most well know. For the Ryuuzin and several other projects, he has version numbers for each of his major improvements to the model. The following are my attempts at folding some of the released crease patterns.

Dragon of Emperor

I’m not sure if this really counts as one, but the Dragon of Emperor has a very similar head to the Ryuuzin on his website. Since all the other Ryuuzin are versions 2 or above, I always assumed this was either a prototype or version 1. There used to be a random crease pattern section on Kamiya’s website (it might still be there, just not in the same place), and this was one of those crease patterns.

Ryu Jin 2.1

The 2.1 Ryuuzin shows what makes this model special. The entire body of the model is covered in scales. Both the scaled skin and length are achieved by an ingenious design. This can be seen on the crease pattern at the bottom of the above link. The top right corner is the head and the bottom right corner is the tail. The scales run across the top and bottom edges, and the middle of the model is collapsed. This means the top and bottom edges on the left side of the model meet in the middle and allow a much longer dragon.

I had though I had folded a 3.1, but now I can’t even find a crease pattern for it. If I had folded one, I’ve probably given it away by now. You can have a look at Satoshi Kamiya’s original here: Ryu Jin 3.1

Ryu Zin 3.5

The most recent version is 3.5, and its crease pattern wasn’t released until Kamiya’s Challenge book in 2010 (not counting exhibitions). It’s quite detailed (the crease pattern had to be put on the inside of the book jacket), and the book has some tips on folding portions of the dragon, such as the scales. This model took me quite a while, and I didn’t even articulate all of the scales.

Book Links:
OrigamiHouse (Japanese)
Origami Shop (French/English/Spanish/German)

For all of these models, the most complex part is probably the head. The body is more daunting than difficult, so you just have to be patient (or very stubborn).

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