Back to portfolio
Puppy
Designed and folded November 2020
Paper: 30cm double calligraphy paper
This design is perhaps one of my favorite examples of how origami is a blend of both art and engineering. On
the art side: when you think about it, this puppy is basically the same paper material as a model like this,
yet through folding the puppy can create a very different soft, fluffy, and peaceful vibe. Yet underneath all
the layers, the structure uses a very efficient and clever crease pattern, as explained below.
I ended up teaching this model at the 2021 Origami USA online convention, and also sent the diagrams
for that year's convention book.
This model was my first exploration into the tilted grid design method,
a not-well-documented design method which at the time that I came up with the puppy, only one other artist
(Shuki Kato) had understood. (tl;dr about tilted grid: it's one of the best ways to make very 3d animals,
it's very space efficient, but it's hard to design and fold.) It took me many more months to figure it out well enough to make that video;
the puppy was mostly freehanded, rather than systematically designed. However, this does mean the puppy has
a very smooth folding sequence unlike a lot of other tilted grid models