The Origami Forum

Is 60x60cm red Terry tissue foil strong enough for an ancient dragon?

Easily. I've never used Terry's tissue foil personally, but I've made my own tissue foil and it worked well for this model.

Terry TF--at least from my experience--is actually pretty weak. It also might be too thick.
If you don't mind using MC to shape the model, I'd recommend mulberry or (preferably) double tissue. You'll have to make the double tissue yourself, but there are tutorials on Youtube for it.

Blue worked fine for the Bahamut but I hear that the different colour all have different properties. Sad. I think copper might be stronger though. How about that?

I in fact folded Kamiya's Ancient Dragon some days ago using a sheet of red tissue-foil (40x40 cm) and it worked out perfectly.
I think it's important to be very accurate and make very sharp creases with tissue foil, which I used to be not so serious about, so I made experiences of ripping tissue-foil, too. Now I recognized that the foldability of tissue-foil paper increases immensely the more sharp and accurate you fold.

It is true that the properties are not the same for every color, but there are mainly two types: The first is quite crisp and stiff, this occurs with the colors black, white, yellow, red, green, blue, coffee and brown. The second type is more soft (but still crisp), slightly thicker (not much) and has a more metallic shiny surface, this occurs in the copper, silver and golden papers.

So, in short, Nicolas Terry's tissue-foil paper is perfectly suitable for an Ancient Dragon (And even for complex box-pleated insects, when wet-folded). Just be sure you fold very careful and patiently. The format 60x60 cm is fine, too, I recommend to not to use anything smaller than 35x35 cm, which gets hard for fine details.

I hope this helps, and sorry for my long and boring explanations.

If you are looking to buy paper that you can fold right away without treating, origami shop also sells shadow fold iridescent paper, which I would say is better suitable to the ancient dragon. I have folded with red Nicolas Terry Tissue Foil and didn't find it suitable for very complex models. Here is a pic of an ancient dragon I folded with shadow fold over a year ago. Origami Ancient Dragon by Travis Nolan, on Flickr

Well, my tissue foil ripped, so I might consider shadow fold. It looks impressive folded form such shiny paper. And MotherOfThree, your explanation was not boring and is almost definitely helpful. Thank you for your advice.

MotherOfThree wrote:I in fact folded Kamiya's Ancient Dragon some days ago using a sheet of red tissue-foil (40x40 cm) and it worked out perfectly.
I think it's important to be very accurate and make very sharp creases with tissue foil, which I used to be not so serious about, so I made experiences of ripping tissue-foil, too. Now I recognized that the foldability of tissue-foil paper increases immensely the more sharp and accurate you fold.

It is true that the properties are not the same for every color, but there are mainly two types: The first is quite crisp and stiff, this occurs with the colors black, white, yellow, red, green, blue, coffee and brown. The second type is more soft (but still crisp), slightly thicker (not much) and has a more metallic shiny surface, this occurs in the copper, silver and golden papers.

So, in short, Nicolas Terry's tissue-foil paper is perfectly suitable for an Ancient Dragon (And even for complex box-pleated insects, when wet-folded). Just be sure you fold very careful and patiently. The format 60x60 cm is fine, too, I recommend to not to use anything smaller than 35x35 cm, which gets hard for fine details.

I hope this helps, and sorry for my long and boring explanations.

Following what you said i attempted an ancient dragon with 50x50 red origami shop tissue foil. I previously was unable to fold this model. In my opinion it turned out perfecly. I am so happy about how it turned out! I was super accurate and crisp. The top of the wing ripped but its okay as 1- It was my fault and 2- it's folded over anyway. I'll send pics when I can. Thanks!

Mine actually turned out fine too in the end, I finished it a few weeks later.

I used 75x75 cm sheet of korean hanji paper from origamishop, and i felt that it was slightly thick fr the model. Double tissue would be perfect for a first attempt

I am about to start on my first attempt of the Ancient Dragon but, am not sure what paper to use.
I was thinking of using Alios Kraft from Origami shop.com as 'practice-paper'. Would this be suitable and, if so, what size should I get.


Thanks

Alios Kraft is really strong and really thin, so if you used a 50cm piece you should be able to fold the base really easily. In my experience though its hard to shape the head well at 50cm, because the horns will be so small it will be hard to pleat and curve them. Most really good versions of the ancient dragon I see are folded from 70cm or larger, but at that size alios kraft would be way too thin and it would be floppy. Personally I would look into Methylcellulose sizing if you haven't already, and make a really big sheet of double tissue, or size something like unryu or any large paper with long fibers. Once you try MC paper it's hard to go back to anything else :p

Thanks for the advice. I have already looked into using MC and making double tissue and it sounds like a good choice. My only problem is finding pieces of tissue paper big enough to make a large sheet. Would anyone know any place to get some?

I don't know where you live but the tissue paper I get from the dollar store works perfectly. I bought tissue from michaels that was called "Celebrate IT" and I really dont like it, it was 8 times the price and it started turning white when it got stressed, which I've never seen happen before with tissue paper. It also bled the first time I made double tissue, and then the second time it didn't bleed at all so idk whats going on with that brand haha. Pretty much any tissue should work though you can find it in grocery stores or party stores usually 50x70cm.

I like using non bleeding so I can have 2 different colors if I want to, but others have said it's easier to make it wrinkle free with bleeding tissue. I'm actually never able to get wrinkle free sheets but the wrinkles are so small you don't even see them on a finished model. https://www.amazon.com/Kolorfast-005811 ... B0062TNM3K this pack has some nice colors but really any tissue paper should work.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/origslate ... ed-public/ this is the double tissue that I didn't like called "Decorate It"

and this is single tissue from the dollar store that works beautifully https://www.flickr.com/photos/origslate ... ed-public/

Thanks