Origamido (Some help in advance!)

[JumPurge]

Now, I plan on getting some of the origamido that came into origami-shop.com.
One thing I am curiouse is, I bought it before. It's thin as hell and hard to fold say... Hojyo Takashi's violinist. -_- I tried, and she stayed up, and the upper body was good. But the dress was so flimsy! I tried to do a starch spray, then a glue-water mix but that just crinkled the paper and made her look worse. It still looks bad.

So then I thought of putting to peices together. Is that a good suggestion? Or perhapes do a sort of tissue foil thing with it?

I don't know what to do with such thin paper. I bought it thrice.

1. Played with green paper and came out with a great Frilled lizard from a CP I found on dA and flickr. I still have scrap paper from it. 0-o Made a little sea turtle (not satoshis, not enough )

2. The violinist and... well, not too well.

3. Hojyo Takashis skull and Jason Ku's fairy. The skull made in black was good until I tried to starch spray it. Then it just looked crinkled again (I am seeing a pattern here), also the top of the skull and the sides were thin again. It wasn't layered like say, by pleating the model. With the fairy in pink... well, I sprayed them at the same time, but the wings, like I said from the lack of layers and thickness, didn't turn out the best. But it was only the wings and hair. Everything else was really good; and using the scrap black origamido, I made two of Ronald Kohs Blackmoors (15x15cm papers). They're so small and cute! The only thing I don't like is the eyes aren't 3-D like the book says to make them, and the mouth is... well, a little sloppy, but still holds true to the fish. It's because it was like, 3cm tall, 6cm in length x-x

So my questions, about origamido, are as follows:
What kind of models are best for it (hur dur)?
If I go outside, like with what happened to the violinist, what are the courses of action?
To prevent those disasters from happening again, what should I do?
I don't want to have $10.00 a sheet go away because I'm naive in what I do >.<

[ahudson]

The only thing I'd use origamido paper for is those insects and boxpleated models with TONS of layers, that don't work well with any other paper because of how many layers there are. It's not really a general-use kind of paper IMHO.

[JumPurge]

That's understood.
Still stuck on how I might treat the paper to make it a little more general D:

[PhillipORigami]

Scorpions, and other insects. Try Lang's insect models. the paper does not work for things like satoshi kamiya like models

[OrigamiMagiro]

Origamido is the strongest ultra thin paper you can buy for origami. It is composed of very long paper fibers that intertwine, often held together additionally through some paper sizing, usually a chemical called methyl cellulose.

First off, if you're not folding a model that will take advantage of the thinness and strength of Origamido, you should probably use different paper as it is not cheap. But if you do want to use Origamido, it is common practice to paste sheets of Origamido together, either for color change or to add thickness to a given sheet. This is typically done by adding a layer of methyl cellulose paste between two sheets and letting them dry. You can even add thickness only to areas of the model that require thicker paper and leave other portions of the paper thinner for more detailed work.

Many folders (ex. Robert Lang, Brian Chan, Satoshi Kamiya, Sipho Mabona, etc.) add additional methyl cellulose after folding, adding extra sizing that will help the model retain its shape. Unlike many commercial starch sprays, methyl cellulose does not contain formaldehyde and is non-toxic, making it a good choice for preserving archival quality models. However, because methyl cellulose is water soluble, it can be quite susceptible to high humidity environments. In a recent post on the O-List, Michael LaFosse suggests that a dehumidifier can solve many problems with humidity.

Water-glue mixtures can often be a suitable substitute for methyl cellulose, but, as you mention, can crinkle the paper. Sometimes you can combat this problem by brushing the paper onto a solid surface so that it is constrained from stretching while drying. On glass, this may give a glossy look to the pasting side of the paper.

Re: PhillipORigami, Origamido paper actually can work quite well for Satoshi Kamiya's models. Indeed many (if not most) of the recent models shown on his website were folded from Origamido paper.

[the modern einstein]

Here are sources of models by Robert Lang that will take origamido paper: origami insects 2, and origami insects and their kin (both of these have complex to super complex models, with many layers).
Importantly, If you do not already have it, try to buy Origami Design secrets, in which there is a bull moose that will take origamido paper quite well, as well as several other models, and all the other content in this on designing models makes it worth buying anyway (though with a price like what we've got where I live can make it difficult to get a good price-US$140, so you might be having to shell out quite a bit for it).

With origamido paper treatment, just don't do anything with it other than fold it, for models like the ones in the books I mentioned, (esp. the bull moose, which you can hardly get a good result for with most other papers {tissue foil works well though! }), as fiddling around with it (with wheat starch, and all those other chemical nasties) probably isn't worth it to fold a model that has fewer layers than origamido paper can support, kind of ruining the whole idea of buying it for a particular model when you could use a cheaper paper, that could work just as well.

There are also several miscellanious models that might take it on Lang's website, such as the privately commissioned stag-beetle, but I'm not sure if it will work for this, as the crease pattern is annoyingly complex to fold. If Eric Joisels more complex works were published, I would recomend these too.

[JumPurge]

Phillip: Insects were a given, as ahudson suggested.

Magiro: I bought Starch spay because it was suggested by a few people, figuring it would function as the same as MC (I couldn't find any) ^^; I'm curious, since I can't find any locally or in town, what products might work best? Like say for example if you just say a food colouring, some brands might be better than others, or at least, there are multiple brands. Can you name a good couple products that would have MC in it that can be used?

My use of origamido was purely from novice instincts. Get good stuff, try and use it, fail miserably.

Thanks, this helps a lot Speaking of Kamiya... I have enough to make a small sheet of origamido, double layer (black/white). My assumption is it's maximum is 15x15 cm. If I practice enough, might it be good for his Killer whale? Or would something smaller like Roman Diaz's panda suffice for such a small peice (I can probably make that a 3 layer sammich if it is :U)?

Modern Einstein: Just mentioning his moose would propably connect in my head xD

Yep, I learned the hard way D: Believe it or not I bought the white paper for the violinest in the first place. And like I said, not a good turn out. Hence I wanted to plan ahead.

Looking at his stag beetles CP... it doesn't look that hard 0-o

[OrigamiMagiro]

The thread on Methyl Cellulose should be able to point you in the right direction...

viewtopic.php?t=4578&start=240

[the modern einstein]

on the stag beetle CP- I don't work a lot with CP's so it's hard for me, though I could fold it if I had the patience.

[JumPurge]

Magiro: Aye, I'll read it

Einstein: Username is false advertising
It's just a bit of box pleating. You have to look at the right as where to fold, and the other as packing.