Owl – Designed by Kyohei Katsuta

when I first saw this model was in a Russian origami magazine, < ІІ ОТКрЫТая Всероссийская Олимпиада По Оригами >, which roughly translate to < Opening of the II All-Russian Olympiad on Origami >, published in 2008.

The design released in this book is a CP with pictorial folding instruction. Apparently , this is a 24×24 grid design.

CP – Owl (24×24) Designed by Kyohei Katsuta

Kyohei Katsuta has released another simpler design in < Origami Tanteidan Convention 17 > published in 2011, using a 20×20 grid.

I got confused when I first started folded the model from the CP (24×24). As the pictorial instructions are highly simplified, I did some cross reference on the folding instruction between the 2 books, not knowing the differences in the grid specification. This resulted me folded and refolded twice before I finally got it right.

The main difference between the 2 designs is on the head. The 24×24 grid design has a much detail and life like head features, including the eyes and beak.

Close up view on the Owl head
(24×24 grid design)

Other than that, the wings and feet are the same.

Close up view of the owl’s wing
(24×24 grid design)

Close up view of the owl’s feet
(24×24 grid design)

After a good shaping and setup for the photo shoot, here’s the final results.

Owl (24×24 grid) – Designed by Kyohei Katsuta

The back of the design is equally spectacular…..

A back view of the spreader wing owl

Here’s a close up static view of the owl landing…

The Owl has landed

An action shot with the sky as the background.

Owl – Designed by Kyohei Katsuta

Fairy (ver 5.6) – designed by Jason Ku

After I’m done folding with the 2 Ladies (White and Amber), I felt like folding another human form model. Although this Fairy model by Jason Ku is not exactly ‘human’, but the drawing of the good proportion human figure caught my attention and I decided to give it a go.

The folding instruction is published in the Origami Tanteidan 16th Convention (2010). Try to use paper of at least 50cm square or you will have a hard time pulling the paper from tight corners. Use a tough paper to withstand the multiple in-out folds, and of course, the thinner the better.

I have use a 50cm square shimmer art paper (about 100g/cm^2). Not really a thin paper but pretty tough. it has survive my folding nicely until the day I folding it while waiting in my car, with the cool air condition blowing directly at it. Then the unexpected happened, the paper became quite brittle  at a low temperature and started to crack and tear, and both my hand and heart stopped.

When I started to fold it again days later, under normal room temperature, the paper regained its toughness.  Therefore the final model has a ‘battle scar’ across its left chest from the tear.

Nursing the Battle Scar

The design of this model may be very complex but the folding skill required is only intermediate. Although there are many in-out open sink (about 18 times if I’m not mistaken) but it is still manageable if the paper is large and thin enough. When you folded until step 71, you will get a result similar to a model fighter plane.

Fairy (designed by Jason Ku) – Step 71

When you are done collapsing all the 18 in-out sinks by step 123, you will get a fully compact model with the whole sheet of 50cm square paper reduced to a 25cm x 5cm stack of paper. I did a count of the number of layers for the stack and the maximum number of layer is 84!

The thickest stack of paper of the Fairy Model

The remaining folds for the head and the arms are quite straight forward by just forming back the pre-crease. When folding of the 2 pairs of wing, just need to be caution with the symmetry of the model. As usual, the toughest but the most enjoyable part is the shaping. And here is my model of the Fairy.

The Fairy under hostage….

Back view of the Fairy

The Descending Fairy

Maitreya – designed by Hojyo Takashi

When it comes to ULTRA SUPER COMPLEX human form origami model designer in Japan, I would say Hojyo Takashi is among the best. His design now only captured the the human form in good proportion and anthropometric ratio, but also include much details to the human features.

The Maitreya model is a very early design published in Origami Tanteidan Convention Book Vol. 4 back in 1998.I first folded this model almost 10 years ago and was really excited and amaze on the intricacy of the design then. Hojyo more recent design has even move up another level now, but these model mostly are released in CP format. Hence to fold Hojyo’s model, the folder needs to be very experienced. (follow this link to see more of Hojyo’s work).

The Maitreya model is considered quite an easy model to fold. Folding the first 87 steps to get the base is less than 2 hrs job. Although there is a slight difficulty at step 17 and 18 (diagram seem to be misprinted), but it is not difficult to execute the necessary fold judging from the diagram before and after. Once finished step 94, this is what you get.

Base fold of Maitreya

Then come the next 12 steps which just guide you on shaping. Again, different folder will shape the model differently and my interpretation of  the model are as follows:

Maitreya – designed by Hojyo Takashi