The Origami Forum

i'm working hard on instructions for the angel i've designed in memory of eric joisel.
if i'll manage to finish them until sunday night i'd like to share the diagrams with the interested among you - but just for one day:

st. nicholas on monday, december 6, 2010.

if anyone's interested, please post a picture of what you're going to fold - to my pleasure and in honour of monsieur joisel. and if there'll be mistakes or inconsistencies in my instructions, do not hesitate to criticize and correct me.

why not publish in the christmas book?

Orislater, probably because St. Nicholas day is nearly three weeks earlier than Christmas and is a different (less well-known) festivity. Would be a bit strange to hand out diagrams in honour of St Nicholas any time other than December 6th.

Adam wrote:Orislater, probably because St. Nicholas day is nearly three weeks earlier than Christmas and is a different (less well-known) festivity. Would be a bit strange to hand out diagrams in honour of St Nicholas any time other than December 6th.

Except maybe Dec 5th, since I believe it's celebrated in some countries on this day.

Personally, I'm going to try to adapt a Santa model into something which resembles Sinterklaas, and also fold a horse, and probably improvise a staff, and maybe fold a book.
Hopefully, I'll have something to contribute, but I don't want to promise anything.
I should probably add that the models won't be of my own design...

i'm really sorry for the fact, that i wasn't able to finish the instructions in time.
there'll be a model of mine in the christmas book so i thought it a good idea to give you something festive before december 24.
postponed isn't annulled - if i'll come to an end with my drawings i'll post the result on an other day.

i've got them finished!
if you won't have a problem with getting just jpg's this time you'll find the instructions right here:

... time's out and the angel's gone but not forever ...

picture-posts of folded angels and some fair critics on my instructions are highly appreciated! i would be really glad if some of you could decide for a try on my angel - if not for my pleasure, do it in honour of master joisel.

'cause these instructions were thought as a st. nicholas gift i'll let them online for one day - that means availebility until 10 past 3 p.m. of december 8 ...

I'm glad that you managed to get them finished.

You copied the link for Page 1 twice, though, so Page 3 isn't there, although, it's not too hard to figure out where it should be.
I was going to put a link to it here, actually, but then I realised that I would have to take it down tomorrow, so I'll let you edit your post, in case people have trouble changing the "Angel01.jpg" to "Angel03.jpg"
Unless you're just going to take the diagrams down, in which case it doesn't matter... but I won't link to them anyway.

Like you, I have some trouble with getting models done in time - not designing, but folding... I had some models planned, which I will finish before Christmas, but not soon, unfortunately.

thanks for your kind hint, falcifer! i'll correct the link for page 3 right after this post. i wish you good luck and success with your chistmas-foldings.

I folded this! the result was really good and it was really fun to fold!

fine! so please, if there's the time and technique, post a picture of the result.

i will fold it later

Angel (close up) by Falcifer (Ben), on Flickr

A wider view of it on the tree:

Angel (on the tree) by Falcifer (Ben), on Flickr

As for the instructions, they are a little faint in some areas, mostly the crease lines and when it came to splitting angles - it's not easy to see exactly where some lines are.
The writing, too, was a little faint, but readable enough for me.

The only other thing was flipping the model. I use Photoshop a lot and when you flip an image horizontally, it means that you flip it from left-to-right (or vice versa). In your diagrams, turning the model horizontally, means turning it about the horizontal axis (from top to bottom), which is clear from the diagrams, but it was something that stood out to me. I don't know if other people find it as ambiguous as I do, but it would be less confusing to say "left-to-right" or "top-to-bottom" when you talk about turning the model over.
As I said, it's clear from the next step which way the model should be facing, and the arrow shows which direction to turn it, so maybe it's just that I'm used to Photoshop. Although, it took me a while to get used to Photoshop, because I expected "Flip horizontally" to mean top-to-bottom, so maybe Photoshop has it wrong...

Anyway, thank you for the diagrams! I enjoyed folding it, and I hope you enjoy my version of the model.
I thought the square body was quite nice at first, but now I don't like it so much. I have a test version in front of me and it has a narrower body at the top, which looks better, I think.
I folded the tops of the wings backwards, too, and completely crimped the wings to make them more curved.

I think, with all the layers in the head, that a face could be sculpted, too, but it's beyond my skill at the moment. Maybe someone else will try.

PS: I hope you didn't find a branch in your boot yesterday.

thank you for folding the little angel, ben. it doesn't have to get a square body. may be you want to try to half the angles in step 8 once more for a rounded dress ...
did you already install and decorate your christmas tree?
no, there were just sweets in my boots yesterday, even i was late with the promised instructions.

I know the body doesn't have to square. I did a test fold, to get an idea of the finished size, and added some curved folds to the body, which look quite nice in the smaller version, but it wasn't until I looked at the photos that I wasn't happy with the larger version with a square body.

The tree that's up at the moment is in the spare room, so it's not our "official" Christmas tree, but it's up and decorated, yes. Unfortunately, it has a star on the top (which I moved to put the angel in place while I took the photo), so the angel is resting on the branches at the moment.

If I can find some larger paper, I'll fold another angel, with a more rounded dress, to put on top of our proper Christmas tree, once we pick it up.
I'll also round the head a bit more next time...

the time is out and i hope that there were some more people who gave my angel a try. if someone's still interested in the instructions but missed the one-day-availebility he/she has to wait a little while - the angel will probably reappear at a friends website ...

@ orislater and anonymous_person - please post a picture of your folds if possible.