Category: Origami

Continuing to catch up on the news. Last weekend I was in Boston for the 5th annual OrigaMIT convention. Thanks again to Jason and the MIT crew for organizing and putting on a great convention. This year Michelle came up with us, and folded a bunch of cool stuff including a Totoro and some Tom Crain tessellations.

The models I exhibited were in two series, one for each class I taught. The first series was Dodecahedral Flower Ball and its precursors, and the second was more Airplanes and Spaceships, mainly the simpler ones I’ve invented since returning from Centerfold. Uh, fotoz coming soon.

The first class was my Flower Ball, which I recently perfected and folded an a exhibit-level model. This class was very popular; it filled up a big room. I had planned on drawing up some crease patterns beforehand, but like I said it was a busy week. So I thought thru and rehearsed how I was present it on the car ride, which turned out to be just fine. They had large paper to draw and write on at the front of the class, so I was able to just draw out what I needed by hand. They were all advanced folders, which helped alot. The class was attended by people like Tom and Beth Johnson, so I was encouraged that I have something interesting here.

Inspired by last year’s OrigaMIT, I’ve been moving away from simply teaching a single model, and trying to explore what I can get across in a classroom context as far as a system of models goes, or a method or a way of thinking about folding and designing. This is a bit more abstract, so I decided the way to go would be to keep it grounded in a set of examples, and bring across the theory in explaining the connections between them.

So I presented a series of models. The first I’m calling the Square Flower. It’s a stand-along model that’s pretty simple and quite charming. I’ve had it for some time, but considered it basic to publish or teach, until it became the basis for something more. It has the virtue of having all the edges of the original paper ending up on the square outline of the finished model. This means it can be used as a tile unit, and repeated to make tessellations.

The second model I taught was the Pentagon Flower. It’s pretty much the same idea but folded from a pentagon. In order to do that I needed to make a pentagon out of a square. I used Montroll’s method, which I had practiced countless times and looked up the night before just to be sure. Of course you can’t tile a plane with pentagons, which leads us on to the third example.

I went back to the square model, and showed how it could be used to tile a plane. Going one step further, one doesn’t have to tile just a plane, one can tessellate a 3D shape like a cube. As far as I know no one else is doing this in origami except me. So I laid out the theory and then taught the compete Flower Cube. Everyone completed that model and liked the model alot. Beth unfolded hers to be flat for the flight home.

I ended by explaining how to apply the same method to the pentagon and showed the half- and full-dodecahedron variations of the pentagonal Flower Ball. If we had another hour I could have had ‘em get pretty far on the half dodec. As it was, everyone had the knowledge they needed to do the models on their own. Of course the full Dodecahedral Flower Ball is a pretty advanced model, and would take far more time than even a three-hour class would allow. Mine was a one-hour class so the presentation and examples were just right. Everyone got to feel like they learned something without having to do the hard work.

So yeah, crease patterns coming soon too.

Here’s another new model, and origami Astronaut. It’s based on a half-remembered box-pleated frog someone showed me once. The base, human or frog, has the limbs in the right place and the box-pleating technique results in limbs that don’t taper, as with a traditional base. From there it was mainly a matter of sculpting. One nice detail is the use of a spread-squash to form the visor. It’s funny, in my focus on simpler models I’ve been going back to alot of old and traditional forms and moves, looking for new ways to use them and finding they can be really expressive. It’s a bit like in my jazz group I’ve been getting away from Coltranesque sheets of sound, and more into a blues-oriented hard bop approach, a la Hank Mobley.

I tried to make an origami Hang Glider too, but had some trouble with the human figure part. Now with the astronaut I have an approach I can use; I just have to have a square suspended from the glider and I can take it from there.

Here’s a couple more new origami to round out the back half of my book. They’re my Space Shuttle and Flying Wing. The Shuttle came out very nicely, with the color change on the nose and the 3-D shape and proportions. The Flying Wing, like the Rocket Plane was inspired by some of the experimental aircraft I saw out in Ohio this summer. That brings me up to 11 completed models with about five more to go, and I have over that number as works-in-progress.

On same day as the Google interview I had a meeting with my publisher about the new origami book. Long story short, the new concept is a go. A kit book aimed at low to intermediate folders rather than intermediate to advanced. We’re also looking at adding custom paper for the models. I figure this is cool as long as the models work on their own and the paper is just an enhancement, as with John Montroll’s new DC Comics superheroes book.

So I’ve been continuing to make new designs. I’ve perfected two more in the last two days. One I’m calling the Space Pod. It’s based on the frog base and is only twelve steps or so. The other is the Space Probe. It’s a simplification of my Radio Satellite, down from 60 or more steps to maybe 20 or 25. It’s funny cuz it follows the same general pattern, with solar panels and a radar dish and a boom antenna, but with an 8×8 grid instead of 16×16 so the proportions are different, and instead of developing the radar dish from the center, which requires pulling out alot of layers, I use a corner, which in the old version I didn’t know what to do with anyway. This brings me up to ten models, with six more to go from a list of 10 or so ideas I have right now. Hopefully another tomorrow!

You’re probably wondering, hey John wazzup with your origami? Have you finished the Metallic Lokta Flowerball yet? Well I’ll tell ya. It’s about three quarters done and sitting on my table. I got distracted by a conversation with my publisher and I’m back to folding spaceships and airplanes again. He’s encouraging me to shift the focus to a simple-to-intermediate book, with the intention of having a smash hit that sells alot of copies. I like the sound of selling lots of books, but on the downside I’d have to let go of the more complex ones, some of which are my favorites, and maybe put them in another book down the line or find some other outlet to publish them. On the plus side those models are a real pain to diagram anyway.

In any event I’d need to come up with some simpler models, ideally under 30 steps. First I looked at my UFO, which is about 50 steps and admittedly fairly difficult to fold. I taught it to a fan one late-night folding session at Centerfold and it took about an hour. I came up with a new Flying Saucer that uses traditional 22.5 degree geometry instead of 15 degrees, and has a much simpler way to develop the center dome. It’s takes 10 or 15 minutes to fold and is probably about 20 or 25 steps. Score one!

Then I looked at my Rocket Ship, which is about 55 or 60 steps, including lots of prefolding. I came up with a kick-ass substitute rocket, an evolution of my Retro Rocket, which about 18 steps. I’m calling it Rocket Ship III.

I was on a roll, so just came up with another model I’m calling Rocket Plane. It’s based loosely on a plane I saw at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in the experimental hangar. Three for three here. Woo-hoo!

Next I took a look at my Biplane. This is one of faves at the moment, having taught it at two conventions, but at 50 steps it’s probably too complex. In any event it’s hard to make it look good unless you use foil paper or wetfold it. So I came up with a model I’m calling the Monoplane. It’s got alot of the same look and feel, but without the bottom wing, and without the accompanying complexity. I can probably take this idea and make two or three cool planes out of it, maybe even a helicoptor.

Lastly I took a look at my Zeppelin. This is one of my hardest models, and would probably be at the end of the book, close to 100 steps. I did come up with a vastly simplified design that has it own cool look. It’s based on 8ths rather 12ths for the geometry, and has 18 rather than 32 facets in the main part, and has far less prefolding. As an added bonus there’s enough paper at bottom to give the gondola some thrusters, although I haven’t decided if this is the way I want to go. Also I still am working out how to close up the tail nicely; don’t wanna hafta make ‘em wetfold to make the model work. Can it fit in 30 steps? I dunno, but Imma try.

Still a couple others to consider, notably my Radio Satellite. I’ll bet I can make some kind of Space Probe that looks just as cool but not so complex. All in all it’s a really good exercise.

Inspired by Meenakshi Mukerji’s work in modulars, I set out to make a single sheet flower-ball while I was in Ohio for the Centerfold convention. I began with a simple pentagonal flower, which on it’s own is a nice, low-intermediate model, and you can fold a bunch of them and make a nice arrangement. From there I folded a cluster of six flowers from a single sheet, which formed a hemisphere. I spent the rest of the convention doing the prefolding for a full ball.

Once I was well into it I realized I already had something similar, my Penfractal Dodecahedron Tessellation, which was an evolution my Penfractal Tessellation. I always though the dodecahedron needed something, and the flower idea turned out to be just the thing to bring it to life. The main change to the design was to add a course of pleats between the main pentagonal faces. This gave me enough extra paper to separate the flowers from one another and puff them up to be 3-d.

I folded it from a ~15” (35cm) sheet of “Grainy” paper I got the Brian Webb’s Origami Shop. This turned out to be a great, high-performance paper for a demanding model. Grainy is tough like Elephant Hide, but a soft like money. Very workable and holds its shape very well. I didn’t have to wetfold the piece.

The only thing I don’t like about the model is it’s made from a square, although the model uses pentagonal geometry. This means that the tabs at the bottom are all different. You can’t see them anyway, but I’m thinking of making another larger one from a 50cm pentagon. While I’m at it, I’ll make the pleats a bit deeper to try and get more separation between the flowers. I don’t have Grainy paper that large, so I’ll probably use Metallic Lokta. If that works out, next up will be a Lizard Ball!

Rewinding a bit, the annual Origami USA convention was a week ago. It was another great convention this year, although a bit more low-key than some. In addition to being a week earlier than usual, we were at a new venue, so I’m sure that had something to so with it. The place was Manhattan College in The Bronx. It’s nice and close to my house, with free parking. The campus is pretty hilly, however, with a whole lotta of steps to climb between buildings.

First thing I noticed was the exhibit hall was very nice, much better then the sub-basement at FIT. It had good lighting and was central to everything so we got lots and lots of visitors. I arrived there first to help cut up paper for the giant folding contest Sunday nite. Saturday when I showed up the exhibit hall was packed.

I had a whole lotta new stuff in my exhibit, mainly airplanes and spaceships from a new book I’ve begun working on. I designed about ten or twelve new models, and diagrammed six of them. I’d been working pretty hard at diagramming right up until the start of the convention, so most of my new models for the exhibit were folded just a day or two before the start.

I discovered a great new paper from the lode I got from Brian back in the wintertime. It’s called Metallic Lotka. He also calls it tissue foil, but it’s not the same as the handmade tissue you commonly find. Much thinner and stronger, and shiny on one side with just a bit of sparkle. Perfect for airplanes and spaceships. Only thing is I only had 30cm sheets, but I found out it comes in 40cm and 60cm sheets as well. I ordered a bunch and expect I’ll make the bulk of models to photograph for my book out of it. In the near-term I’m gonna fold some of my completed designs out the stuff for Centerfold in Ohio next month.

I taught two classes to test my new diagrams. One was intermediate airplanes and spaceships, and the other was complex. For both I passed out diagrams and folded along, which worked well. In the complex class I led with the biplane. Everyone got thru it and did a nice job, and I got some good feedback as to how to refine it. In the other class I taught my Art Demo Rocket, Retro Rocket, Supersonic Transport, and Jet Airliner. All of them went over quite well, and again I got some ideas on how to refine them.

Lots hanging out with origami friends. One night I got involved in a fairly deep discussion of the finer points of diagramming with John Montroll and Jason Ku. John’s diagramming style is fairly definitive to me and I use the majority of his conventions. Meanwhile Jason diagrams in the Japanese style and spent a year working at Origami House, whose books are perhaps the most high-quality in the world. They certainly tackle some of the most advanced models ever diagrammed. So that was really fascinating. The next night John sat down and read thru my diagrams and gave me a bunch pointers and things to consider. This comes at a good time since I’m just undertaking my second book.

Coming soon: pictures!

Flight of the Concorde
May 13, 2015

Here’s one more new model for the Air and Space theme: a Supersonic Transport. Perhaps the Concorde’s most famous flight was the one in 1985 that carried drummer and vocalist Phil Collins across the ocean to open the Live Aid concert in Wembley Stadium in London and close it RFK Stadium in North America sitting in with a (temporarily) reunited Led Zeppelin.

The annual OUSA convention is coming up soon, and I’ve committed to teaching a bunch of these new models. This is to help motivate me to do some diagramming; I’d like to get the bulk of my new book done this summer. So far I’ve been concentrating on the simpler models. I’ve done two in the last two days. The next two are low-intermediate, then two solid intermediate, and a high intermediate and a complex one.