I'm attempting to fold the model, but I just ran into a wall.
I've collapsed the whole thing (well, sort of, I did the tail and body separately because the piece of paper I was using to figure out the body/reference points was a bit small):
However, I'm hesitant about doing the whole thing on a big sheet of paper because I have no idea how to proceed after the collapse. My main doubt is how to get the back of the body to look like this:
Wondering if anyone has folded this model or is knowledgeable enough to offer some insights. Have I misinterpreted the crease pattern? Or am I just not aware of how to shape the model?
I haven't folded this model, but as far as I can tell, your collapse looks to be partly correct. I would personally unsink the pleated layers along the wings (fold them inside-out, reversing the creases), which will allow you to lock some of the pleats together on the model's shoulders.
The V shapes on the back of the finished model come from the diamonds along the line of symmetry in the crease pattern.
When I collapsed the model I wasn't sure if the black lines were actual folds or hinges, ended up precreasing and folding them, which was wrong. Folding them as hinges after collapsing the rest of the base makes everything easier to understand.
I was also misunderstanding the size of the model. I thought I needed to unfold some paper from beneath the diamonds to get the body to its proper size, now I'm pretty sure that's not needed.
(That's just the fish base portion of the CP, it's missing the legs and extra paper for the wings).
That looks mostly correct--I think you're supposed to wrap the raw edges around the wings to get them color-side-out.
And yeah, Robert's strategy for designing birds like this seems to be making the wings as large as possible in relation to the body.
Incidentally, what reference point did you come up with?
Hoping it's ok to post this since the crease pattern is public in Robert Lang's website:
X: Starting from the top left corner I folded diagonally in half 3 times (45°, 22.5°, 11.25°) and the crease aligned perfectly with that point. With it you can fold the two edges of the fish base.
C: The distance between A (edge of the paper) and B (edge of the fish base) is the same as the distance from B to C.
D: This one's easy once you've found C. It's the point where the vertical crease that passes through C intersects the fish base. The horizontal line that intersects it is the edge for the structure used for the legs.
