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Showing posts from October, 2021

Ganan's Intricate Triangle Twists

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  Folded another tessellation from Miguel Ganan's book 'Twist and Tess'. While the central module was simple enough to bang out pretty easily, I did fumble a little with folding the repetitions.  Nevertheless, it did come together.  My spacing is a little closer together, but I think everything else is the same.  Back in my early days of learning tessellation I did many triangle twist based designs. Still, I don't remember them ever rendering such intricate patterns as his do.  It really makes me wonder what other configurations are out there that I've not realized.  All these years later, I still have so much to learn. 

The Other Side of Tessellations

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  I got the basis for this tessellation out of Migel Ganan's book 'Twist and Tesss'.  I used his main module idea, but I changed it up a little bit.  Maybe it's just me, but I kinda feel like a lot of triangle twist based tessellations have a more interesting reverse side than their fronts. So the first pic is what he envisioned as the back.  The way the reverse sides of some of his tessellations backlight remind me a lot of the ideas of Arseniy K . He has lots of beautiful origami tessellations on his instagram. He's a brilliant paper artist.   It's almost as if these two designers see the shapes from completely opposite perspectives. Me, I just mostly fold. Sometimes figure out. And occasionally  have a unique idea.  Mostly, I'm just glad to be a part of it all. 

Pawns and Queens Origami Tessellation

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  A post I saw on Instagram caught my eye. Don't remember to whom it belonged. I'm a little obsessed with figuring out how to fold tessellations I find on there. It's a great way to learn.  I didn't realize it at first, but this one was incredibly similar to the idea I had executed in the previous post.  I suppose every origami tessellation is essentially a variation on a few basic fundamental principles. There are a handful of ways to fold things on a triangle grid. There are a limited number of shapes to be extracted. And there are only so many ways they can be neatly combined.  The creativity comes in with how to distribute and arrange all these choices.  At any rate, I just straight up folded the pic I found. Although, I did have to make the proportions larger.  Some people are great at doing these tiny, micro folds, but I am not. My paper isn't up to the task and my fingers are just too short and stubby..  It's a wonder I can tessellate at all with these ch

Butterflies Origami Tessellation

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 Inspired by the (new to me) concept of rotated grids, I came up with a configuration which seemed to work on paper.  It also worked in a small tester fold.  It worked on a larger scale as well, just barely. It's a tight fit, but it can be convinced.  It starts with rotated open back hexagons on the rear.  On the front side there are these odd propeller shapes. They are similar to the shapes in some other designs, but a little different.  It's tricky to get the quads to of those shapes to come together neatly, but it can be done. 

Grinning Triangles Origami Tessellation

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  This is an idea I had very suddenly and pretty much out of nowhere. It's probably been done many times before, but I had not previously come across it.  It's hexagons and two sizes of triangles. I actually began by just placing the two sizes of triangles in groups and realized the hexagons were needed.  The hexagons and small triangles are on one side and the large triangles are on the other.  Instead of twists, it employs that technique of folding a small hexagon in on itself to create a triangle on the opposite side.  It was not too difficult to fold.  A lot of prep work was involved before the actual collapsing is ready to happen.  Ordinary paper held up pretty nicely during the process. 

Daniel Kwan's Accidental Pseudo-Flagstone

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 I've fallen out of practice with square grid tessellations. Used to do them all the time not too many years ago. The clover tess. The high density clover tessellation. Hydrangea. High density hydrangea. Recursive stuff. And many more.  But when I started to get into triangle grid flagstone folds I became pretty obsessed. So other types became somewhat neglected.  I found the crease pattern for this on Daniel Kwan's flickr page. I could tell to look at it that it would probably be intense. But in many ways that just made it all the more enticing to attempt.   I did a large 16 division grid trial fold at first, to try to better understand it. That turned out to be a good idea.  When I went to fold the 32 division version I already had a pretty good understanding of what should be happening on both the front and the back of the paper.  I used the sturdiest paper I had at my disposal, which was kraft paper.  I figured anything weaker would not survive the process.  It was still a

Kaleidoscope Origami Tessellation

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 I was messing around with Miguel Ganan's crease pattern for what he calls 'A ring to rule them all'. Nice Lord of the Rings reference.  Removed some stuff. Re-oriented a bit. This is the end result.  I can't publish the crease pattern. His is a part of a recently published book and mine is probably too similar.  Suffice it to say, there are a lot of triangle twists happening.  It's a pretty easy fold. Mildly tricky at times.  Collapse the third size hexagon onto the second. Do some twists off of that that. Tuck under the flaps. That's the gist of it. 

Gjerde's Negative Space Stars Variation

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  Decided to fold Eric Gjerde's 'Negative Space Stars'. Even though I've done most of the designs in his book, this is one I had not.  Way back when I was first learning from his book, even after most of the structures and methods began to coalesce for me, this one still felt difficult.  Today, it's fun and easy.  Not to take anything away from his design. It's really interesting and not something I would ever come up with on my own. I love his ideas and his book. It just blows my mind how many levels there are to the simple act of folding a single sheet of paper.  It's amazing.  I unintentionally altered it some. Wasn't paying close attention to the valley and mountain folds in the crease pattern. Didn't have a pic of the original finished model. I put my hexagons and rectangles on the back side. I put the big triangle points on the front.  Small changes, unique results.  I guess to fold it the way he intended is still on my to do list after all.  :

Lens Stars Origami Tessellation Reverse Engineer

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  I've gotten into Instagram lately. So many origami tessellators are on there. It's a great place to find ideas and inspiration.  My latest fold is courtesy of that community. I saw someone else's fold of this and decided to see if I could figure it out.  @cmorigami had uploaded their reverse enginneer of a fold by @gatheringfolds. A little tricky to determine, but nothing crazy.  A little tricky to fold as well, but again, nothing really frustrating.  I think I've done some similar designs in the past the used the same triad config of rhombuses rotating around a triangle.  Apparently it falls under the sub-genre of rotated grids. This term was new to me.  It's a really interesting configuration. It doesn't seem to have a definitive creator. Apparently several people have come up with it on their own.  It was a fun design to map out  and execute.  Crease pattern is below.