Best Paper for Complex Models? What sizes (like Anc. Drag.)?

[bethnor]

i'm gonna go against the grain and recommend against tissue foil if this is your first time. mostly because i couldn't imagine going through the process of actually making the tissue foil and then messing up the model (essentially wasting the paper). i recommend taping four squares of kami together to learn the steps (the end result will not be presentable, however). 50 cm square is a good size. after you familiarize yourself with the pitfalls (the model's not that hard), then go with the tissue foil, if that's what you want.

[origami_8]

You may like to read this topic: viewtopic.php?p=20206#20206
There you can find my recommendation for the best paper.

About tissue foil and foilpaper, they are in fact two different kinds of paper.
Tissue foil is the home made variation made from two layers of tissue paper and a layer of aluminium foil in the middle glued together with either spray glue or white glue. The one with spray glue acting a bit more like foil, being thinner but harder to work with.
Foilpaper can be bought in various qualities at different places. I never had the case that the foil layer had come apart as described by Angrydemon. You can buy 35x35cm sheets of thin, silver, good quality foilpaper at Nicolas Terry's shop as well as 50x200cm rolls of a heavier kind in various colours (you may need to contact Nicolas per e-mail to buy the rolls).
http://www.origami-shop.com/

The good thing on self made tissue foil is that you can combine every colours you want as long as you find tissue paper in that colour, the bad thing is that it is really hard to reverse creases, therefore I wouldn't recommend this paper for the Ancient Dragon.

On bought foilpaper it isn't any hard to reverse creases. The thinner one with its 35cm size will probably be too small for the Ancient Dragon, so cutting the largest possible square from the thicker kind would probably be better.

[angrydemon]

I meant when you stress the foil paper too much, the thin foil layer breaks, revealing the paper underneath and showing a lot of ugly white lines. Robert Lang has mentioned this problem on his website and in some of his books. But the foil paper I use is cheap and probably low quality. One roll costs only RM1.20 (40 cents). It is mostly meant to be used for arts and crafts or as wrapping paper.