Category: Origami

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.

More models with the air and space theme. Here’s a bunch of studies for a passenger jet.

I got a note from my publisher today saying that the my book, Origami Animal Sculpture, has reached its first year sales target after only 6 months. Thanks to everyone who’s bought the book!

I’ve been experimenting more with origami spacecraft in preparation for book two. I now have a SpaceX Dragon. Of all the hundreds of paper dragons out there, I’m pretty sure this is the only one of these. Also an Apollo CSM. In real life the two vessels have the same diameter. These models will too, if folded out of the same size paper, but I used 10” for one and 8.5” for the other.

I made a few domes as well to have some simpler models in the front of the book and introduce the folding techniques. I call these the Radar Dome and the Moon Base Dome. The chapter will also include an Observatory and a Radiotelescope.

The thing about simplicity in art (or anything else I suppose) is that it’s actually harder than complexity. My natural tendency as a folder is toward the complex. It’s effortless in a way to keep on going, adding more detail, until you have what you want. But I’ve learned a lot from doing my first book, and I want to have enough simple to intermediate models to open it up to a wider appeal. To get to simple, you have to remove and remove until you get to what’s truly essential. Sometimes this involves jettisoning things you think are really important only to find they don’t matter at all.

Today I spent my time experimenting with simple rocket designs. The major insight was to make avoid the puffing-out phase, that is to make an X rather than and O when seen from above. It’s funny cuz I was corresponding with a colleague, explaining my goals for the new book, when a new design approach hit me mid-sentance. Came up with two or three good models that can be folded in 10 minutes or less. Also past the halfway point in model count, so that means to me critical mass.

I talked to my publisher this week about doing a second origami book, to follow up Origami Animal Sculpture. I gave them a few concepts and the one they like the best is Origami from Sky and Space. This would include models like my Rocketship, U.F.O., Hot Air Balloon, Zeppelin, and Radio Satellite. Now I need to come up with about a half a book’s worth of models to round it out and give them a formal pitch. So I’ve begun brainstorming and folding.

I think I have a very good list. More models than I need actually, so I can choose the ones that come out the best. I’m particularly keen on coming up with a few simple to low intermediate models for the first section of the book, although I must admit, so far my designs have been leaning toward the complex. I’m going have a chapter of airplanes, and I went for the most challenging one first. I folded a Biplane that I think turned out pretty nicely. The form can be adapted into several other aircraft. By coincidence it uses the same base as the Radio Satellite.