Help with Michael LaFosse Penguin

[Tkal]

I'm having a bit of trouble with one of LaFosse's penguins. I can't remember which book it's from since I got it from the library a while back and just scanned them for my own reference, but some pictures of it are found in this thread: viewtopic.php?p=66020

Anyway, I'm having problems with a few areas:

1. The feet become really thick and difficult to work with. I'm guessing this has to do with me using regular printer paper, but I'm not sure. This results in me never being able to lock the feet into place with the surrounding flaps and it looks awkward.

2. I can't seem to make the chest of my penguin to be nice and puffy. When I try to play around with it, it usually overly distorts some other part of the penguin.

Otherwise I can make him look semi-decent.

[Adam]

The feet always end up being pretty thick. I've made it from some nice quality, thin Unryu and it still ended up being thick. There's not much you can do about it ( except soaking it in MC and letting it harden ). However, printer paper may be rather weak in staying in place. I folded the model several times from 20x20 cm kami and while it didn't stay in place perfectly, it's good enough.

In order to make the chest puffy you should put your finger inside from the back and simply push out the chest a bit. Don't push too far, or the model will unfold, but push hard enough to kind of 'pop up' the chest.

[Tkal]

Hmm, the chest is working out a little better now, I just need to experiment with sections of the chest to puff out.

But what baffles me the most is how the folder managed to make the feet look so nice, crisp, and tight to the body. The feet actually look pretty thin in the second picture and they seem to be staying nicely. Now I'm sure their technical ability and the paper they use has a role in it all, but I can't get mine to look anywhere near that.

Thanks for the tip and insight!

[HankSimon]

I haven't looked at it, but I bet that it was wet folded to get that effect.

- Hank Simon