Turning Gears Origami Tessellation

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I really haven't landed upon any new origami tessellations of mine own as of late. Instead, I've been having a good time finding those of others and figuring out how to fold them. It's a wonderful way to spend a few hours.

This one was simple enough to figure out, but pretty difficult to execute. It's comprised of mostly fussy folds. A lot of off grid work and tight vertices.

It also requires a bigger grid. Even just one repetition needs at least 19 pleats on the half.

Whenever I'm trying to fold a design that won't fit on a 32 pleat grid I always go for a 48 pleat grid. It's the next easiest to fold from a hexagon. You can get thirds pretty easily and then just keep doubling. I haven't yet found a tessellation that I couldn't fit into one of these two sizes of grid. Mine don't always have as many repetitions, but I don't mind that. The end results still turn out great.

Still, I wound up folding it pretty small. Even the largest hex taken from a standard piece of printer paper yields pretty small pleats when folded into a 48 pleat grid. Nevertheless, the result came out awesome.

I'm pretty sure my overall patience with everything and everyone has increased tenfold since I started doing complex origami tessellations. You just have to be willing to put in the extended effort and wait for the slow finessing to eventually yield results.

First image is my fold. Second is the picture of the original I used to recreate it. Last is my sketch I used to map out the pattern.

I accidentally spaced my repetitions further apart.

The original design appears to use spacer shapes that are one pleat smaller.

From the first two photos they almost look like different designs, but they're not. It's just how the light comes through different kinds of paper.

This unlit image of my fold shows their sameness.


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