Grim Reaper

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Folding Miyajima Noboru’s Grim Reaper is the most fun I've had with a piece of Origami in a long while.

The skull is absolutely tiny - a mere centimetre across and two centimetres in length. I re-folded it three times until I achieved the gaunt appearance I was after.

In positioning the hands I encountered a number of problems. The digits are only white on one side. Furthermore they all the same length and also rather thick. You are very limited in what you can do with them. I attempted a beckoning gesture, which I thought was appropriate given the subject, but couldn’t get it right and compromised with an open-handed grasp, awaiting perhaps the arrival of an origami hourglass.

I sculpted the robe using a dilute solution of wallpaper paste.

One of the hidden strengths of this model is that there is enough spare paper at the back to pinch into a triangular stand, enabling it to remain upright without the need for wire or Blu tack.

Canada Geese

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A lot of the origami I make ends up hanging from my bedroom ceiling. My idea is that, as you cross the room, you journey through different habitats, beginning in the sky (the area around the door) and ending on the seabed (represented by the ceiling above my bed).

The avian population currently consists of a bat, a pterodactyl and this flock of Canada Geese designed by Roman Diaz. I made them from 20cm squares. The completed models are about 10cms in length. It took me ages to get them all pointing in the same direction.

Hammerhead Shark

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Daniel Robinson's impressive Hammerhead Shark is an anatomical study in paper. The primary and secondary dorsal fins, pectoral, pelvic, anal and caudal fins are all present.

Unfortunately the anal fin (not visible in the photo) is a weakness in the design. Formed from the tip of a very thick flap of paper which lies inside the model, it proves to be an obstacle when it comes to shaping the body of the shark. I was able to round the tail-section by dampening the paper with water and dilute wallpaper paste and then holding it in place while it dried. Even doing that I never really achieved the slender look I was after. The head is fun to sculpt. I spent ages messing around with it.

I folded this model from an 11 inch square. The end result is about 5.5 inches long from head to the tip of the tail.

Tree Frog

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This Tree Frog was designed by Robert J Lang – one of contemporary Origami’s great innovators. I folded it from a 15 inch square of Khadi paper. In posing the model I was inspired by a version of it that I saw on the front cover of an origami calendar some years ago.

Lang is a former physicist turned professional origami designer. In addition to his many amazing animal sculptures (you can see extensive galleries on his website) he has also put origami to more practical uses, developing folding patterns for car airbags and the lense of a space telescope, known as the Eyeglass, which is designed to unfold to a diameter of 100m in orbit.