Origami War Elephant

I’m sure you if you read this blog regularly you’ve been wondering how is that origami War Elephant coming along? Well, I’m pleased to announce here it is!

When I started designing this, Jeannie commented that I was aspiring to Brian Chan (http://chosetec.darkclan.net/origami/) territory. Making models at that level of complexity requires some R&D. I folded quite a number of prototypes, mostly out of larger (15″) foil paper, to work thru the placement and proportion of the tower with respect to the elephant body. The other major issue to solve was what to do with all the pleats that ended up at the edges of the sheet. Some of them were tucked inside, but I was to use the ones near the back to make more complete hind feet. The ones in the front were transformed in into multiple tusks in the spirit of Peter Jackson’s Oliphaunt.

Which is cool because I originally got the idea to design this model after seeing Lord of the Rings, thinking a fantastic Elephant would make a nice complement to my Dragon. The concept and design changed as it developed, but it’s nice that I was able to keep that original detail, and that the insight about the relationship between the castle and the tusks turned out to be correct.

The last issue had to do with thickness of the paper.  It’s easy to make pretty much anything out of foil, which is why it’s good for prototyping, cuz you can just crush it into shape. But for exhibit quality models, I tend to use thicker papers like Wyndstone and Canson, and the layers can add up fast and produce a tendency for the model to spring open. In the past I’ve tended to solve this problem by refining my designs to use the paper tension as a feature just where I want it in the model. But for this subject it just couldn’t be simplified out.

So I ended up wet-folding the model. This has been a technique that has been around for years and alot of complex folders use it. But I’ve resisted up until now, feeling that it’s a bit of a cheat. But it works so fantastically, now I’m a believer! You just dampen the parts of the model that you would crush it were foil, and clamp it in place with a paperclip and wait for it to dry. Then the paper is held in place stiffly in the desired position.

In fact I like it so much I went back and touched up some of my older models with this technique!

The model shown here is folded from a 19″ square of Wyndstone Elephant Hide paper.  Coming soon: new origami galleries!