All the artists in the showcase created fantastic art. Check it out here!
For a few weeks, I’ve had this strange idea stuck in my head. I wanted to create a piece at the intersection of land, sea, and sky. I folded a dragon back in March, and while it has wings, its four, sturdy legs and low pose made me think it was a better fit for the land component. Following the theme of mythical creatures, I decided on a phoenix to represent the sky. There’s also a phoenix on our university crest, so I thought people might appreciate that. The main driving force behind my phoenix design was wanting to incorporate the tail of Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix onto a simpler body. It’s so easy, yet it creates this mesmerizing, braided effect, and I absolutely love it. Once I had the phoenix, it was time for the sea, and for that, I decided on a sea dragon/serpent/leviathan. I’m not sure exactly what to call it, but you can tell it’s a mythical beast built for the water. I struggled a lot with getting the proportions of the body and head just right, but I did eventually land on some decent ratios. When I decided to do a final draft, I hadn’t yet figured out the tail, so I just freestyled for a bit, hoping I would just figure it out. I’m happy with where I ended.
The trifecta was nice, but it felt incomplete. I wanted some humanoids to go along with the creatures, so I started on those next. For the land, I made a warrior, but I don’t know that I can take full credit for this design. On the Wikipedia page for crease patterns, there is an image of a 16-grid CP, and the caption claims it’s for a swordsman, but I couldn’t track down which swordsman design it was for. I collapsed the CP and studied it for a long time before shaping it into my own swordsman. I had to change a few parts of the original CP, but in the end, I created a warrior with a sword, shield, and scabbard. For the sky, I was deciding between a fairy and an angel, and I went with a fairy. The design is meant to give the model the same gravitas as the swordsman, so it’s not as delicate as one might expect for a fairy. The final model wastes a lot of paper, and I’m not super happy with how it turned out, but I like the wings, so there’s that. Moving on from that rough spot, there was only one obvious choice for a humanoid in the sea: a mermaid. At first, I was thinking of making a mermaid with scales covering the tail, but I just couldn’t make it look good. I probably need to study more tesselations before I attempt that again. Instead, I pivoted, using that extra paper to give the mermaid a trident. It only took me a few hours on Sunday to design and fold the model, which was great timing because the showcase was two days later.
With the main pieces finished, I turned to something a little different. About a week prior, the Taekwondo team did a demonstration at a big show, and in it, there was a scene where someone did a flying sidekick over another person, kicking a bad guy in the chest. It was spectacular, and I wanted to recreate that. I have some custom shaping techniques I use when folding humans, so I was able to recreate the flying sidekick pretty easily, but the bad guy was wearing an open jacket, and I wanted those jacket flaps on my model, so I modified the human base to add a simple jacket. It turned out pretty well, and I think I did the Taekwondo team justice with this representation. Maybe next time I’ll add belts.
While I was adding the jacket, I noticed the design had potential, so I kept working on it, and I created a person folding themselves. Éric Joisel’s Self-Made Man is a monumental piece in origami, and it definitely inspired my design, though mine is still very much in my style of humanoid. While mine lacks the details of Joisel’s design, as an ode to the late master, I hope it does justice to his works. I didn’t care that it didn’t fit my theme; I had to include it in my exhibit.
A few months ago, I shared some other designs. I like to think I’ve improved since then, not because I think my new designs are good, but because I think my old designs are pretty bad. I have so many ways to improve the models, and that excites me, because I’m seeing things I hadn’t thought of previously. I have more designs, too. In fact, I designed three models solely so I could give a lecture on how to design origami. I don’t claim to be good, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t getting better. Maybe I’ll get to a point where people want to fold the models I’ve designed, or maybe I’ll just stay where I am. Either way, I’ll still be folding.