Origami and Insects

Was a little bored at work, I was idly fiddling with a post-it note and made a little origami bird. Then I wondered if I quartered the paper could I make a smaller flapping bird?

My office is near some sewage works and as such we are plagued with flies and the spiders who prey on them. They are forever crawling about on my desk and terrifying me.

Origami Water Bomb - A step by step animated guide

Here's a wee video I drew of how to fold an origami water bomb, also known as an origami cube or play-cube.

Origami Crane - A step by step animated guide

Following on from last week's thrillingly instructive guide and animation for folding an origami flapping bird, this is an animation showing how to fold an origami crane.

The crane is a little bit different to the flapping bird, it looks better, but it doesn't flap its wings when you pull the tail.



This one only took a day to draw, well, I used bits of last week's animation, and also added some more frames to make it smoother and flow more pleasingly.

Is anyone following these animations and making their own birds?

Origami Flapping Bird - A step by step animated guide

Following on from yesterday's thrillingly instructive guide to folding an origami flapping bird, here it is again, but as an animation over on YouTube.

Only took a day and a half to draw and colour in. As usual, I used my Wacom tablet, Photoshop and Windows Movie Maker.

Origami Flapping Bird - A step by step guide

Here's how to make an origami flapping bird.

Start off with a square of paper, I use post-it notes cos I hope one day they'll pay me lots of money or hire me to be some kind of brand person.

You're going to want to fold it in half to make a big old rectangular shape, try to make sure the corners line up proper.

Then fold down one of the folded corners so you get a diagonal crease from the flappy corner to the middle of the top ridge.

And do the same thing on the other side to make a big triangle with lots of paper edges on the bottom.

This bit's kind of complicated, you're going to want to open up the bottom and squash the whole thing into a square. I have faith in your intelligence dear reader, and faith in your spacial awareness and dexterity. Good luck.

Now fold up the two lower edges to make a kind of kite shape.

Turn it over and do the same thing again.

You now want to undo those kiteish folds so we're back to that square thing again. If you want to pursue a career in origami in the 80s and 90s then you'll need to know that this fold is called the 'Preliminary base'

Now some more pre-creasing, can you fold down the top triangle so that its like the cross bar of the kite-like fold we did earlier.

God knows how to explain this next operation, we're just using all thse pre-creases to open up the Preliminary base and make a bit old diamond shape.

If you managed that without any problems, turn the paper over and do the same thing again. Again if you were to pursue a career in origami in the last century, you'll need to know that this diamond thing is called a 'Bird base'.

You're doing well, with this level of expertise you could probably pass for a children's entertainer or a classroom assistant. Lets pretend what you have before you is an open book, with pages on the left and right, what we want to do is turn to the previous page. And then turn over the whole piece and do the same thing.

The two sticking up bits will become the neck and the tail of the bird, lets gently pull them apart a wee bit, this will cause the body to open up a bit, that's fine, just squash it flat again.

Almost finished, what you need to do now is fold down the head part. Again the neck will open up a wee bit, no worries, just squash it flat when you've got enough of a head.

That's you done, you just need to spread the wings a wee bit to make it more like a bird in flight.

Now, a few important things to note.

• Its not a crane, its a flapping bird, the crane is something a tiny bit different
• This is probably your first attempt, so it'll look crap, try it again and be more precise with the creases
• Also, it probably isn't going to flap, it takes some degree in engineering to get these things to flap like they're supposed to, it'll probably just tear if you try to make it flap
• If you really want to try to make you 'flapping bird' flap it's wings, hold its 'breast' (the bottom of the neck, pinching just a little of the wing) and pull the tail outwards

Big Mac in three bites

A couple of days back I stumbled upon a tweet from Rax Lakhani linking to this, some girl trying to eat a Big Mac in four bites.
She managed it, and as is my way, I have to do one better, hence eating a Big Mac in three bites...

• I was almost sick
• Its the first few chews that are the hardest
• The secret is cramming in as much as possible
• I didn't try hard enough

Ooh, the day 5 challenge was to make an origami animal, which gives me a easy opportunity to roll out my video of doing one better, making two origami animals

Latest money spinning idea

Simultaneous Two Handed Origami - More bloopers are a click away
This is a wee video of me doing origami with both hands at the same time.

You may have seen it before when it was on youtube and featured on boingboing. Yes. Well, now I've slung it on metacafe in the vague hope that it'll make me money.

Also this time round, I've used different audio, its an original song wot I recorded in 2004. Have a listen, its got a kick ass solo for about eight minutes.

In another world I'd be proud

Was stuck in traffic on the way home and missed going to dance class, and too knacked to go to the HDIF show in Brixton. So instead I hid in my room, found no inspiration for drawing so I made this.


I couldn't find any 45 second songs to use as the soundtrack so I tried to fit the solo from Stairway to Heaven.

Ooh, should point out that the video isn't speeded up or owt, its done in real time.

...


When I'm a frail and broken old man, months from now, I might look back on this with pride at my abilities, but right now I just feel painfully lonely.

Behin

This one will slay you! Remember a month or so ago I did that video of doing simultaneous-one handed origami and I was all getting excited cos it was on Boing Boing, and then the whole crashing depression realisation that despite being on top of my game and winning at all that kind of thing, I was still crushingly dark, isolated and lonely.

Anyhoo, here's my first attempt at one-handed origami done without looking behind my back. Watching it will waste five minutes of your life, you don't get those minutes back.

One handed origami without looking from Chris Gilmour on Vimeo.

Its not very good. Proof of concept aye. If I did it again, I'd need a cameraman to video it, rather than a fixed camera, also this version the paper was kind of pre-creased, it had a diagonal, and the finished bird looked crap.

*Update*
Aw man, those MIT guys beat me to it in a throwaway moment in what could be the world's first action origami movie.

A Day in the Life

That Bowlie mem thing where you take photies of your day. This is the first time in five years that I've actually been able to participate in it on the site.

Quite possibly the most thrilling day I've had in months, action-packed some would say. Finishing up surrrounded by red hot naked chicks.

mimic

One handed origami once again

With right hand...



With left hand (from last year)...