Extraterrestrial being - Origami for the connoisseur

[esato]

Hello !!

I want to try to fold the model "Extraterrestrial Being" from the CP that is in the book "Origami for the connoisseur". It doesn't seem too difficult it has different line colours for mountain and valley folds. The only problem is to find the all the creases/landmarks. Has anyone folded this model sucessfully ?

[Aznman]

Hi,
I do not have the book, nor do I do alot of CP's, but I shall give my answer none the less.

I would suggest that you copy the Cp onto a piece of paper then just fold on all the lines, that way you will not have to find landmarks. You could copy it using carbon paper, or just use a copy machine. but with the latter method you will be limited in the paper choice.

Aaron

[esato]

I thought about doing something similar to what you suggested: scanning the CP, enlarging it and printing it out. But what if I wanted to fold the model again without a computer and a scanner to help? If I am not able to make the creases or if I don´t find anyone to help me do it, I will try to print the CP out and see if doing that helps me find the landmarks.

[hermanntrude]

this is why crease patterns are only good for those that can't be bothered to diagram their models

[wolf]

Just for giggles, I'll throw in a counter-argument: once you know where all the landmarks are, memorizing the CP for a model becomes much much easier than memorizing the equivalent diagram.

[esato]

I agree with wolf

Anyway, I was able to find the landmarks and solve the CP!!!
Finding the landmarks for that CP is actually pretty straighforward if you actually try to fold the CP.

[wolf]

Here's another trick that's sometimes useful: instead of finding landmarks, find the square - ie, start drawing in the creases individually, using known things like crease angles, then use these to determine where the square outline of the paper should be.

[JMcK]

This was maybe the first crease pattern that I worked out. There aren't any obscure landmarks, so it's a good one to start with. However there are extra folds required to form the feet that aren't shown on the CP.

I later discovered that the ET had been diagrammed:

http://origami.kvi.nl/models/humans/et/index.htm

It was sort of interesting to see that the folding method in the diagrams above differed from the one I had worked out. (I used less pre-creasing.)

[Brimstone]

Here's another trick that's sometimes useful: instead of finding landmarks, find the square - ie, start drawing in the creases individually, using known things like crease angles, then use these to determine where the square outline of the paper should be.

You completely lost me here. Could you please explain what you said? It sounds interesting but I did not get much of it.

What is the "square - ie" thing?

[wolf]

I'll use Miyajima's buffalo CP as an example:

http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~origami/e/buffalo.html

Now, instead of trying to find landmarks for the creases, I can start filling in the creases from the bottom left corner of the paper, drawing in the creases with a protractor and ruler. Here's the process in illustrations:

[img]http://www.spinflipper.com/origami/cp/cp-square.gif[/img]

1 - Draw in the 45 and 22.5 creases starting from the bottom left square.
2 - Now, pick a spot at random to put in the second 45 degree crease, then add the vertical crease until it intersects the 22.5 crease from step 1.
3 - Draw a long 45 degree crease through the intersection point in 2.
4 - The intersection points of these 45 degree crease mark out the two corners of the square. Cut off the excess paper beyond the square. Now you're left with a square with the major landmark creases - every other crease in the CP can be located just with these.

So basically, instead of starting with a square piece of paper, you add the creases until you find the square, then cut it out and fill in the rest of the CP.

[Brimstone]

Amazing

I have a question though. If you say pick a random point to place the second 45 ° line. Doesn't this "random" position affect the size of the final square? I might be talking nonsense but I am at the office and can't go check Miyajima's page at the moment.

[wolf]

Yes, the random pick affects the final size, but if your guesstimate in step 2 is good, or if your starting sheet of paper is large enough, you should end up with a decent size square to work with eventually. With a bit of estimation practice, you often only have to trim off maybe a few millimetres of paper off your original square.

It's kind of a back-to-front way of solving a CP, but sometimes it's easier to figure out the square instead of being constrained by the square.

[Brimstone]

I will work more on this and then the "origamipatrones" yahoo group will know about it. I'll see if people have worked with CP's this way.

Thanks Wolf, as always so helpful.

[esato]

Wolf rules !

[Brimstone]

One question Wolf, can I use your drawing when I ask if someone has used your method?