Origami Star Tess : Origami Tessellations

Origami Star Tess

This tessellation is pretty simple really. It begins with a hex twist at the center. Rabbit ear sinks are used to creat the points of the star surrounding the center hexagon.

I kept adding 'points' off the the original points with more rabbit ear sinks. As the points extended outward the space between them would increase. Simple partial hex folds manipulated the gaps to allow the paper to lie flat.

As always, a single sheet of paper was used. A classic triangle gird was the starting point.

The first pic is the model backlit and the second is the same model laying flat on a solid surface.

To create the crease pattern, draw a hexagon at the center of a triangle grid on a hexagonal piece of paper. Grid should be at least 32 interations.

Off of the central hexagon draw your tirangular points and use rabbit ear sink folds perpendicular to each side of the points to fold them flat. You'll need to unfold the initial hexagon to do the rabbit ears. As you're flatttening those you'll be able to twist the arms of the hexagon so that it twists back into place.

Once you've got the first star done, unfold and create the rest of the rabbit ears for the remaining radiating star points. As you create each successive point set outward you should be able to see how to fold the gaps between with partial hexagons in order to flatten everything.

Some experience with hexagonal and star tessellations is required.

Comments

Infinite Triangles Origami Tessellation

This is just a flash idea I had. There was no planning involved. No inspiration. I just started folding and followed the lure of the creases in the paper. Upon seeing the finished result, It kind of reminds me of Robin Scholz's Triphilia tessellation, but the construction is definitely different and I was not thinking of that as I was crafting it. The similarity is that you can arrange the layering of the triangles into different patterns of your choice. I went looking and discovered I had folded this a few years ago and called it Triangle Temptations . I didn't realize this until after I'd completed this model. Apparently, according to my original post, I'd seen someone else fold it on flickr and recreated it. This happens sometimes. You hit on an idea and it's something you've done and forgotten. They linger in the back of your brain and come forward unexpectedly. That previous version differed from this one slightly, in that it used double sized cross g

Micro Rhombus Stars Origami Tessellation

This tessellation is micro rhombus star twists. I'm pretty sure I've seen this done with larger size rhombuses, but not with ones this size. They are the smallest natural rhombuses of the triangle grid. The center is achieved by collapsing a small hexagon. On the other side there are small hex twists and open back triangle twists. Since the shapes are rather small, it's a little bit difficult to fold. It's probably more of a cool weather tessellation. Humidity does the paper no favors on such small designs. But the ideas come when they do. Reverse view and crease pattern images follow.

What If Caviar Could Talk Variant

This origami tessellation is a variant of one by Arseniy K. He named his 'What If Caviar Could Talk'. After I had solved his design, I decided that I wasn't up to reproducing it exactly as he had folded his. Perhaps another time, in the future. So I changed things up a little to make it slightly less difficult. Both designs have a foundation of open back hex twists with triangle twists around them, He used micro rhombuses between the repeats. In my case, I used larger natural rhombuses instead. Still a difficult fold to execute, but much less so. It still required thick paper. I used tant folded into a 32 pleat triangle grid. You can see from the photo of the reverse side how densely packed everything is. It's a few layers deep. So be prepared to wrestle with that. My crease pattern for this iteration is included at the end. To fold his, sub out small natural rhombuses in place of my larger ones.

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