The Origami Forum

Hey there! Recently got back into origami (I tend to drift away/have reinvigorated interest spurts) but this time, my aim is for more 'exotic' works. Just yesterday, I made two tissue-foil papers. The first one I made, I ended up tossing since the model I was working on didn't turn out well. For the second tissue-foil, I was able to successfully fold the Fiery Dragon.
However, to put it bluntly, I found working with tissue foil a nightmare. I'm rather use to printer paper's crispness in that, for example, I wanted to do squash and/or waterbomb-esque folds, all the creases work together nicely rather effortlessly. Even practice with box pleating type folds, it seems pretty easy too.
For my homemade tissue foil, it felt more like as if I was actively sculpting the paper to do what I wanted it do. Some would say the ability to smooth out or 'erase' creases with tissue-foil is helpful, but for me (I admit, it's probably above my skill level to be working with tissue foil), when I find myself doing a lot of pre-creasing, along the way, those pre-creases tend to semi-vanish. In other words, I have a difficult time making my creases work into each other with ease. Not to mention, the wrinkles, wrinkles everywhere!

So my question is, what are some paper suggestions that you all recommend that offer that printer-paper folding experience but can last those complex and thick folds. Ideally, I'm aiming for the 30cm-50cm range.
I'm a little tempted to buy some 50ft roll (48"/roughly 121 cm width) bulletin paper due to this pictured Phoenix and its description.

PS- This post isn't meant disown tissue-foil origami models/folders. It's just simply not for me (and I realize there's a myriad of factors during the homemade process that could be attributing to my tissue-foil woes). Although, I do give props for the paper being suitable for tiny details.

I think biotope paper from origami shop http://www.origami-shop.com/en/origami- ... 4_628.html or their tissue foil http://www.origami-shop.com/en/tissuefo ... 4_354.html fit the bill nicely. They're both really nice and easy to fold, you can find reviews for both papers (and many more) at Happyfolding.com http://www.happyfolding.com/paper-reviews_introduction
Kraft paper can be a cheap alternative (its very strong, if you get the proper stuff), if you can find a thickness to suit you. Hope this helps!
ps. personally I don't like using homemade tissue foil (hard to reverse creases, easy to tear etc), but I reckon it improves your folding skills no end... I wish I'd stuck with using it!

Tracing paper works quite nice, and for about 800x the price per sheet, sekishu, origamido, o-gami, or just about any other paper like those will work good, along with everythong Edg had said.

@Edg

Thanks for the multiple suggestions, including the link to those various paper reviews! Gives me an idea of what to look for to buy. Biotope seems pretty awesome!

@phillipcurl

Wow! Thanks for the tracing paper suggestion, never considered that option before. Found a random sketch pad of tracing paper lying around in the house and was able to fold surprisingly well! Didn't experience any tearing issues and it handled the box pleating/layering parts. Only downside is that I only had a 9" x 14" sized paper.
Thinking about getting a roll of this stuff though since it's cheap (I'll consider the options by Edg once I get really good with a particular model), but was wondering if gluing tracing paper to tissue paper would be of any value. Particularly curious to know if it adds to the folding experience or ruins it. Biggest factor of course being that it could handle reverse folds and what not.

I've never tried gluing tissue paper to it, but I did think of it once or twice. Tracing paper tends to wrinkle when it gets wet, so if you can manage getting the two glued together, you may be able to get a good result. Worth a try anyway. Good luck!

After hearing of your trials and tribulations while experimenting with various papers, I really am perplexed as to why , in the world, have you not yet tried the origami-shop tissue foil .
Yes, the older tissue foil was nicely patterned but a tad soft.
The newer tissue foil is crisp and folds excellently .

Also, elephant hide is far better than printer paper. Much nicer result . Works for all except for super complex and some multiple layer box pleating .

As to tracing or bulletin paper, I believe that white tracing paper would get boring after a few models, probably only useful for practice models.
Bulletin paper might be tempting, some models do very well with it, some not so much . Not as much charisma or character as elephant hide in the final result though .

Biotope and origami-shop tissue foil are famously enjoyable to fold, almost ideal papers when origamido or o-gami are beyond budget.

Obviously, avoid using squares of paper that are too small .

I've folded with tracing paper before (I'm cheap, so I haven't bought origami-shop paper before, or any other paper except onionskin) and it works pretty well. The creases are easy to see and collapse, if you make them crisp. I folded Kamiya's lyrebird, Lang's Kabutomushi. and a few others, and they look wonderful. However, it must be taken into consideration that this is a super thin paper, amd it will rip if you don't treat it right. The finished product will probably be thick enough to be played with and shaped, so don't worry about it ripping then. The paper is translucent, so winged models look stunning, but the downside is that it's so thin you can't really paint a side, or wetfold, for that matter.

TL;DR- nice paper for complex and super complex models, winged models especially. Don't use with models with a color change or that need wetfolding.