New Origami – Blimp and Platypus

It’s hard to believe it’s been a month and a half since the OUSA conference. I did alot of traveling in July but I’ve been back and getting stuff done the last few weeks. Now is a big time of year for origami conventions, there’s one in Ohio this weekend, and one in Japan, and one coming up in Oxford in a few weeks. It’d be fun to go them all but you gotta choose your adventures in life.

Meanwhile I’ve finally circled back to finish work on some new origami models. I debuted two new models at the OUSA convention back in June: My Platypus and my Blimp. As mentioned before, the Platypus uses the hex base from my Lizard, Turtle and Armadillo.

The Blimp is big improvement on my previous Zeppelin, which was just barely possible to fold. I did a couple more tweaks to the design since the convention, and now have a model I’m happy with. The way the nose locks is especially satisfying. In addition to having nicer proportions, the Blimp is much more straightforwardly foldable from a variety of papers of different thicknesses and sizes. The one shown here is made from 12″ Stardream, which is an excellent paper. It’s thick and workable like Marble Wyndstone, but with a bit of sparkly luster. Luckily I was able to reuse the stand I made for my Zeppelin.

So onward and upward. I have lots of ideas for more new models and hope to find the time to work on them in the fall. I also plan on getting started on a book or ebook of Complex Air and Space Origami, as complement to my forthcoming book from Tuttle.

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