May the Fourth Be With You!

I am in the middle of writing final papers, but Paper Moon has never let an occasion to fold origami pass by, especially not an essential holiday like May the Fourth! I thought it was high time I brought back Fumiaki Kawahata's Yoda!

I still use Jo Nakashima's excellent tutorial as my reference.

Yoda front and back. I just love his little hood.

And here are Light Yoda and Dark Yoda watching over my shoulder as I work and giving me conflicting advice.

Dark Yoda has a point. There's so much origami to fold, and so little time without wasting it working.

While avoiding my real-life projects (kids, don't take my example), I discovered Jeremy Shafer's awesome X-Wing Fighter.

Ok, I had better get back to some real work now. May the Fourth Be With You!

Happy Easter/ Revenge of the Fifth!

The good thing about Lebanon, as I always say, is its diversity. We have so many sects and confessions that sometimes it's hard to keep track, but whenever one of them celebrates a holy day or has some kind of commemoration, everyone gets a holiday. If you miss Western Easter like I did this year, then you can still have your chocolate eggs on Eastern Easter. So Happy Easter to whoever celebrated today!

Here are some fun models you can try with your kids.

A little candy basket.

Bunny Basket

 

And here are some slightly more complex ones. 

A rabbit by Jun Maekawa. I thought the face
looked more like a fox's. I guess I did
something wrong...

A hatching chick by Peter Engel. If you look closely,
you can see a little beak popping out.

 









This last one may look simple, but you'll be surprised to know that it was the most complex model in this whole post.


On another note, it also happens to be May 5th, so if you missed May the Fourth (as I did), then there is always the Revenge of the Fifth! What does Star Wars Day have to do with Easter? Nothing. But that's what happens when I get behind on current events.

I made this little guy last year.

Fumiaki Kawahata's Yoda

I like doing "Fan Origami" so much, or as I will henceforth call it, Fanigami (because it's late and I've been listening to an audio book of the Iliad all day), that I couldn't let Star Wars Day pass by without posting a few clumsy models that have been on my list for a while. Here are some of the space crafts from the beloved saga, now in kami paper!

A simple X-wing

 

A clumsy Naboo Starfighter

TIE Fighter by Jeremy Shafer

Simple TIE Fighter

And finally, I am embarrassed to even post these, but they go well with the collection. Note: this is not what they're supposed to look like.

Shu Sugamata's Millennium Falcon

I also made a lightsaber, but I can't possibly post it as it turned out thoroughly inappropriate.

Fan Origami

I made these guys pretty early on for practice. I'm particularly proud of the fact that Yoda actually kinda looks like Yoda.

Here is a wolf I was practicing on that ended up as Amaterasu from Okami for a very special customer.

I thought a little tribute to my heroes at Studio Ghibli would be nice. Don't know where I went wrong with the first one. I should have probably been focusing more on the folding and less on my snack (seen in the background).

A crappy Totoro, and a slight less crappy Totoro.

This was a bold attempt for a beginner, but I managed to get him looking alright.

Yoda by Fumiaki Kawahata

A draft version