Inspired by the new Battlestar Galactica, I decided to try my hand at some of the vehicles. This Raptor still needs a little work (getting the squared off body and a large cockpit) but it’s still a fun model.
Diagrams:
Antelope Head
This design actually came out of the (mostly unsatisfactory) attempts I made at folding a Raptor from the new Battlestar Galactica series. The Raptor may not have turned out, but it did have the unintended consequence of spawning this.
Diagrams:
Origami Colonial Viper and Cylon Raider (Battlestar Galactica)
After watching the both the new and classic Battlestar Galactica (sorry, not 1980) I designed a felt compelled to design a Colonial Viper and a Cylon Raider. These models don’t work as well with standard printer paper. If possible, use a foil origami paper (just watch for fingerprint marks).
Colonial Viper:
Colonial Viper Diagrams:
Cylon Raider:
Cylon Raider Diagrams:
Sushi Buddies: Farmer Edition
Found a nice use for the wrapper at dinner after a long day at the origami convention.
Diagrams:
Origami Convention Time!
The challenge for the Pacific Coast Origami Convention this year was using paper or plastic bags to create original models.
First up: a six-legged little monster who looks ready to gobble up the unwary.
I had a Frederick’s of Hollywood bag in the house, so I went with the obvious choice.
Next up: a superhero with a really, really large cape flying through the air.
And finally: Wall-E! Made from several bags of different sizes, with his hat ready for any spontaneous Put On Your Sunday Clothes-ing.
Wall-E Notes/Diagrams:
Droideka
One more model during the origami convention. This time, a Droideka using an equilateral triangle.
A Boy and His Bug
This was a fun little guy I created in the middle of the night. It’s a young child wearing a nightcap, riding on a four-legged bug with little mandibles. It holds a special place in my heart for whatever reason.
Diagrams:
Bantha
A fun little attempt at a Bantha I made while hanging out at a portuguese restaurant in San Francisco set inside an old trolley car.
Wedding Origami
What do you do when you can’t find cherry-blossom themed wedding stuff? Make it! (Or apparently wait two years until that particular theme becomes massively popular… go figure)
In our case, it led to some truly wonderful projects, so I’m not very sad that we couldn’t find things off the shelf. First, we disassembled, spray painted blue, reassembled, and then hand-painted our favor boxes.
Next we get to the origami. In this case, we made pink and white cherry blossoms, koi, and frogs. The ceremony was on a deck looking out onto a koi pond, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to double up on the theme. The frog is a model that actually includes toes on the feet!
It turns out the cherry blossom origami was just too time consuming, so we ended up finding paper punches in two sizes and using dots of that tacky stuff that holds credit cards to the paper they send them to you on to hold the two layers together to form little flowers. On top of that, we found a model for business card holders that we used as frames for the name cards. The “tree” that held them was actually a photo holder by Umbra. We used the same stickum to put the little blossoms on.
One thing we had to consider when we decided on the origami for the centerpieces was that we wanted to reinforce the pond theme. Originally we talked about getting some of that gel that looks like water, but in the end figured the real thing would be just fine (and much cheaper). That presented the problem of how to keep the origami from unfolding.
The frogs were easy enough because it was already metallic green foil paper, so it held its shape naturally. The koi, however, were a different beast altogether. The paper we used had a thick, plasticky texture. We chose it because it had a pearlescent quality to it that fit perfectly for koi. Enter the spray adhesive and aluminum foil. We glued the fancy pearlescent paper to aluminum foil and then folded the fish. They held their shape admirably, at least for the wedding itself. After that the glue couldn’t withstand the water, but they’d served their purpose at that point.
Snub-Nosed Drake
This is another model I designed while toying around with blintzed bases. The tradeoff for the extra flaps is the added thickness, so with standard printer paper the model will tend to open up along the back. Thinner paper or foil paper may help.
Diagrams:
