Hello from Oldie

[Ratatouille]

Well, the title probably says it all: I'm Pete, based in UK, just retired and in my 60s, time on my hands and looking for things to do (or get frustrated about) and resurrecting the old origami stuff which I've neglected for almost 40 years.

So I'm not a complete newbie, all those years ago I got to some quite advanced stuff (well, it seemed 'advanced' to me, more on that later) in my time, e.g. Robert Harbin's Origami Step by Step and Patricia Crawford's models described in that book. Some I managed, some I gave up on. I've still got the book, plus a few others.

More recently, in the past few weeks, I've been googling, I found this forum and also hit on Robert Lang's website, I went so far as to order one of his books (Insects and their Kin). Well, maybe it is a bit too advanced for me: I've tried one or two from the book without much success. The nearest I got was when I thought I'd completed the Scarab, but alas! It split clean down the centre line as I was doing the final folds. I was using old computer printout paper: I'd tried with hanji specially-bought, but couldn't quite master the 'slippery' (?) feel of the paper. Perhaps someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong?

One thing I'm learning fast: if you want to have a successful hobby in retirement, you have to shrug off the failures and frustrations, and keep at it! So I'm not giving up. Not yet. The same degree of frustration I've suffered in some of my other hobbies, which include astronomy and piano-tuning.

Any tips most welcome (about Origami - not about the other stuff)!

[Razzmatazz]

Welcome to the forum!

And about just failures with origami in general, often it takes time to learn how to handle certain folds. Folds that you can't do now you will learn later through other models subliminally. And so it is always best to come back to a model you failed and try again.

Concerning paper--yes printer paper and other relatively weak papers will rip easily--especially with Lang models. I do not know about Hanji, but a lot of people suggest tracing paper for Lang models (especially any insects). But with different papers, different models will be suiting. So perhaps Hanji would feel so terribly beautiful with another model that you have just yet to fold.

Well anyways, welcome!