Octopus, by Sipho Mabona. It’s about 2 inches in diameter.
This model is a foray into “one-piece” origami. Or at least, I like to think of it that way because I usually use multiple pieces of paper. More specifically, this is the kind of advanced origami where they no longer give you instructions. Instead, they simply show a square with all the folds (a “crease pattern”). Check out the image below the cut.
Bellflowers Ball, by Yuri Shumukov
As a gift, I got this new origami book called Origami Kusudama Garden: Delightful Paper Spheres. But when I looked inside, I was dismayed. This isn’t modular origami! The flowers are all glued together, or sewn together. Call me a traditionalist, but I prefer my origami to just have folding.
Of course, it turns out I was wrong. Using sewing to make floral balls is in fact an old tradition, and modular origami is the modern innovation. Well, okay, it’s worth a try, I thought. I was also briefly tickled by the idea of assembling a dodecahedron using squares.
Snub Cube with Windows, from Unit Origami: Multidimensional Transformations by Tomoko Fuse.
The snub cube is one of those fancy Archimedean solids, for when you’re bored with the Platonic solids. Each vertex lies at the intersection of one square and four triangles. All together, there are 24 vertices, 60 edges, 32 triangular faces, and 6 square faces. And can you imagine, it’s only made of 12 sheets of paper? [Read more…]
Reverse Square Tessellation, a model by yours truly.
Most of the origami I do is modular origami, but I dabble in other branches of origami too. This here is an origami tessellation, a folded pattern that could hypothetically repeat infinitely in the plane. I’ve made a few tessellations by origamist Eric Gjerde, but this here is an original. Further photos below the cut.
This was built using Ray Cube units, designed by Meenakshi Mukerji, contained in her book, Origami Inspirations.
This model shows how you can take a standard unit, and make something more out of it. First, this is obviously not the cube it was designed to be. Second, the colors form deliberate patterns. It’s not difficult to make, but required a bit of planning.
This is a monthly feature wherein I show off my origami skills, mourn my photography skills, and talk about math. I primarily do modular origami.
A dodecahedron made of 108 degree modules, apparently invented independently by Robert Neale and Lewis Simon.
I think this is a fairly simple model, since it comes from Beginner’s Book of Modular Origami Polyhedra. But once I tried to teach it to kids, and it’s not a great model to teach to kids, trust me.
