The Origami Forum

Hi, how are you all?

Although I have only just registered for this site, I have been browsing through the threads for a few days now and would like to thank both the admins and the other members here for making this information freely available.

My name is Richard and I am a 20 year old student from Glasgow in the UK. I am actually a guitarist and have only became interested in origami during the last week or two. I have already folded all the beginner designs I could find including the Traditional Crane and a design I found called Spring Into Action.

As I am only a beginner, I was unsure if the Dancing Crane design by Robert Lang would be too difficult a piece to move onto but thought I would try it anyway.

As I could not find step-by-step instructions for the design, I printed the CP on his website and tried to follow his folding instructions. I have spent around 10 mins lightly folding all the creases. If I just continue to define and sharpen the creases, will the crane start to take shape or am I going about this in completely the wrong way?


Here is a video showing what my attempt looks like after ~10 mins...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iFehA-NOO4

Anyway, any help would be greatly appreciated, and thanks again for making this site available

From Richard

Hello Richard,
I'm glad you came on board!
Sorry though, i haven't heard of the dancing crane.
As for the Spring into Action, i'm currently working on that right now lol. Anyway, i'm pretty sure somebody will help you
Well enjoy!

This is the dancing crane in question (CP here). You are close to collapsing it, but you just need to dive in. You should sharpen all of the creases at the start to make it easier to collapse. There are also intermediate stages of collapse that you can use. For the dancing crane, I would Extend the diagonals all the way to the edges and collapse it like a preliminary base with the edges reverse-folded in and out. Then work on the more complex creases-forming the wings and thinning the legs.

Oh, ok
Thanks johnnycakes. That crane looks complicated, but i no experience
with CP patterns. All those crease lines look confusing so i haven't done a CP.
But please tell me, are CP patterns easy?

It depends. Some are very easy, and some are very difficult. Some are difficult to understand, but some are easy to understand but difficult to fold. As you fold from CPs you learn very quickly to interpret certain structures.

Thanks for the advice!

Thanks for the help, I've been taking it slowly and trying to do it well, I have almost collapsed it now... once it is completely collapsed is there still many steps to make it look right?

Probably-CPs generally just show the creases for the base of the folded model. There are detail folds that must be done afterward on your own. Different CPs have different amounts of steps required to go from the base to the finished model.

Actually, there is a diagram in Origami Tanteidan #90
http://www.origami.gr.jp/Magazine/Index/85-90-e.html

but unless your ready to pay $50 just for those diagrams (if you don't intend to fold any of the other models)then it might not be something you want to do...

Bumblefoot wrote:Thanks for the help, I've been taking it slowly and trying to do it well, I have almost collapsed it now... once it is completely collapsed is there still many steps to make it look right?

welcome

Well there are many steps to make it look right however you dont have to fold it exactly the same because how you think it looks right is what matters. Fold it until your satisfied with it.