Phoenix and Something

My last entry this week is a couple of things I came up with. The first is a Phoenix… sort of. I once made it a long time ago with fancy printed paper and it looked really proud and phoenix-like. It’s more like a crane though. Which makes sense, as it was based on the classic crane origami model.

Related to that, I designed this model, but it’s based off of the traditional crane model and really pretty simple. So, there’s a good chance that someone else has designed a model that’s exactly the same by coincidence. It’s not like it’s an extremely complex model that I simplified slightly and claimed I did it, like if I stole Satoshi Kamiya’s Ancient Dragon. That would be obvious.

The last one I did is a Something. I don’t know what it is. I was trying to figure out back ridge scale things but couldn’t get it without a lot of lines on the rest of the model. So I used a pattern like the one on the skin of the Ryuzin to just make a texture out of it. This was just a test model (it would need much finer scales and bigger paper for what I had in mind), but I kind of liked it so I thought I’d put it up here.

I like how the weird head turned out, and am wondering if those flaps should be ears or ram-like horns. I probably won’t make it again though, as he’s just something I was playing around with. Still, I think he’s endearing.

Crease Pattern Challenge 007

Crease Pattern Challenge, Origami

Challenge 7 is “Don’t Freeze” by Hiromi Ogata. It’s an adorable rockhopper penguin. It’s a really excellent design that’s 3D with a color change.

Rockhopper penguins have that funny hair style. Ogata’s penguin has extra-fancy hair, even for a rockhopper. Which makes me wonder if this is based off of a movie penguin. There was a run of penguin movies a few years back. This penguin has movie personality at least.

In spite of this being a very interesting and detailed design, I had trouble finding too many other designs by Hiromi Ogata.

I did find this nice Kangaroo in Tanteidan Convention Book 5. It even has a tiny kangaroo in its pouch. Mine’s still a little spread out, but it’s a really nice model.

Crease Pattern Challenge 006

Crease Pattern Challenge, Origami

I was gone last week, so I decided to do some extra this week. First up is Origami Tanteidan’s Crease Pattern Challenge #6, which is an eastern style Dragon by Seiji Nishikawa.

Mine came out a bit different. He’s ended up more of a plant gecko. His face has a kind of leaves on a stalk feel.

Seiji Nishikawa has a several books and hundreds of models, so I thought I’d include a few more of those here. His Pegasus is in his book and Tanteidan Convention Book 4.

It’s not as thin and fancy as a lot of pegasii out there, but I like it more for it. This Pegasus actually looks like he could circle the head of a sea monster as opposed to many other “I’m pretty!” pegasii you see.

His Godzilla was diagrammed in Tanteidan Magazine 39. I dolled up the back plates a bit, but I may have overthinned him to do it.

I like him a lot, but the legs are a bit small. Nishikawa’s original has straight legs (no knees) which helps with this, but the legs look thinner that way. He does seem to get taller with every movie. He’s only attacking to keep his dancer’s legs in shape.

Scaled Works of Satoshi Kamiya 11-13

Origami, Scaled Works of Satoshi Kamiya

This week, I have the next three models from Works of Satoshi Kamiya folded using the same size paper. First up is the Unicorn.

He has a color change between the body and horn which I went overboard on by using dark purple and electric yellow. He has some kind of horse fuzzy parts before the hooves, which is neat. He kind of feels a little short, but I figure the complexity leads to a small model compared to some of the others.

The twelfth model is The Yellow Bird! I don’t know why he’s not just called the Chocobo, which is the Final Fantasy bird that this model is about (he has a page of Final Fantasy inspired models if you don’t believe me). I get it may be to avoid copyright infringement, but you’d think Square Enix would just give it for free for this free publicity. I have nothing to scale him against. He is the scale.

The last model this week is #13, the Blue Whale. It has a lot of cool details, like eyes and blue whale stomach lines. It’s also interesting in that it has an open back. It does feel like a bit of work if you’re not the biggest blue whale fan but is still really neat to make at least once.

Old One Pixie and Marquis de Léon/キングレオ

Origami, Original Designs

These are some pretty recent ones. I was trying to come up a Marquis de Léon (more on him below) and came up with a quirky monster that I like. It’s not actually from a square, though. I thought I could get a clearer handle on what I was trying to do by removing excess paper. It actually removed way too much, but I kind of doodled with what I had and got this.

I think it looks like a Cthulhu style old one monster with the tentacles combined with one of those angels from that show due to all the eyes. Or maybe a video game monster, like a Starman. Anyway, for some reason, I really like it.

The one I was trying to make was Marquis de Léon/キングレオ from Dragon Quest. All the Dragon Quest monsters are fun and inventive (they’re all designed by Dragonball creator Akira Toriyama; he seems to make an entirely new set of monsters for each game). The King Leo monster is a lion with eight arms. I guess, technically, he was a dude who turned into a lion with eight arms, but I only made the origami for the lion.

I think he came out ok. The final design has paws with three claws on the upper four legs, a wide, open mouth, and a very ostentatious mane. He also has a good nose. The muzzle gave me some trouble because it kept moving too close to the dog zone. It’s probably still a little too long on this one.

The pixel lion is a little hard to see. I have the original art in the Dragon Quest Encyclopedia of Monsters, which has all the monsters’ art from Dragon Quest 1 through 9. I love that freaking book. If you want it, here are a couple of links that have it available (at the time of writing this).

Scaled Works of Satoshi Kamiya 09-10

Origami, Scaled Works of Satoshi Kamiya

It’s been awhile since I did another couple of models from Works of Satoshi Kamiya. Again, all these models are made from 27.9 cm squares and shown alongside the Yellow Bird model to show scale between them.

The Inoshishigami, which means “Boar God”, is a pretty cool dude. Its legs are a little flimsy though. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be the one from that movie, or just a non-specific boar god.

A Barosaurus is one of those long-type Jurassic dinosaurs. It’s a more simple design to accommodate the length, but the face is still pretty nice.

I never can think of a good way to end one of these.

Crease Pattern Challenge 005

Crease Pattern Challenge, Origami

Takashi Hojyo has many beautiful models, with a rare specialty in human figures. Many of these figures follow a signature gridding setup, but some do not. His Shibaraku (Crease Pattern Challenge 5) is very unique comparatively.

Shibaraku refers to the kabuki piece. I don’t know much about the kabukis, so here’s the wiki for it. It’s got an excellent picture of the actor the origami model represents.

There are a lot of elements to this model, including the face, sword, fan, big pants, and lots of clothes details. There’s even ties in the back. I think mine’s ok, but I have some problems, especially with the area around the waist. Also, I think I reversed mine.

I have made this model before, and I’m pretty sure I managed to do the same stupid thing both times. The crease pattern is in OTM 59, but a new, more complex model of the head is diagrammed in 119. I keep thinking the new head is supposed to go on the crease pattern model. It might be doable, but, since I choose paper size based on the small head, it becomes really hard to fit the new one in. This time, I noticed the problem after I folded the updated head separately.

Crease Pattern Challenge 004

Crease Pattern Challenge, Origami

The fourth crease pattern was developed by Noboru Miyajima. It’s a neat model that uses one square of paper for two characters, a Knight on a Pegasus. I guess the knight would be Perseus, as Pegasus is created by Medusa’s blood (one way or another) when Perseus beheads her. I never thought of Perseus wearing a lot of armour (he gets his shield, hat, and shoes on the way, so I always think he travels light, but maybe he traded them in). Some paintings (such as this time-lapse painting) do have him armoured up. Sculptors tend to disagree. But “Naked Dude on a Pegasus” would probably require different points of articulation.

After I folded the crease pattern, I actually ended up a bit stuck. I folded it fine, but it’s sometimes hard to show specific details in a crease pattern. Instead of a dude on a winged horse, I had more of a squid with too many tentacles. Luckily, Issue 73 had complete diagrams of this model, so I folded that, then went back to the crease pattern to finish it.

I used nearly the same colour paper, so they’re kind of hard to differentiate. I’m pretty sure that the crease pattern one is a bit more streamlined, as you can skip a lot of steps that are more for reference.

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.

Scaled Works of Satoshi Kamiya 07-08

Origami, Scaled Works of Satoshi Kamiya

Moving on to the next couple of models from Satoshi Kamiya’s first book, a Kirin is a kind of unicorn-tiger that may have multiple horns and may be a giraffe in disguise, while a tyrannosaur is a member of a Cretaceous dinosaur species, many of whom lately seem predisposed to star in Hollywood movies. Most recently, a tyrannosaur stared in “RAPTOR Attack Team” with Star Lord and the title team.

I think the Kirin is quite spectacular. He has this kind of bounding feel to him, so I thought I’d have him bounding around the chocobo.

Hmn, that’s odd. Usually I have a summary, show pictures, then say stuff about the above pictures. But I already said stuff about the pictures above.

His Tyrannosaurus isn’t really the most complicated, but his less complex models tend to have something special. This Tyranno has a very endearing face to him. Ironically, while most people think of smaller dinosaurs as larger than they are, this one has been scaled down dramatically, unless the bird stands at a representative height of 4 meters.

Maybe I should post some more random models I like too. I had gotten Fumiaki’s Origami Fantasy before it went out of print, and it has some great dinosaurs.

	sonwukong on Yosuke Muroya’s Wolf – H…
	Nyaalice on Yosuke Muroya’s Wolf – H…
	sonwukong on Crease Pattern Challenge …
	Crowned Crane (CPC68… on Crease Pattern Challenge …
	sonwukong on Crease Pattern Challenge …