The idea of the "Inktober" art challenge is to improve drawing skills. One of the groups I am a part of (Artrangi United) has taken up this challenge. The participants are provided with a list of prompts - 1 per day for the month of October and are challenged to draw based on the prompt. 

Frankly speaking, I am very bad at drawing/painting etc! So what am I doing with this challenge?? Today's theme was "whale"! And there is this Robert Lang's whale that I have been thinking of folding for a long time now. So, I decided to take up the prompt for the Inktober challenge and finally, finally folding this long pending origami! 

The folding is fairly simple. Using black single-sided paper (15 cms in my case) gave me a nice little killer whale. You might be wondering why I have added all these bells and whistles in the pic?? 😆 That is because the Artrangis have been asked to post there creations on Instagram. And in case you have an Instagram account and wish to follow me, please do so! I would be delighted to have some followers!! 

Model Details:

Model: Whale

Creator: Robert Lang

Book: Origami Under the Sea
 
Author: John Montroll & Robert Lang
 
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 6 inch square

Model Size: ~4 inches in length 

Tutorial: Youtube

The Origami Society of Madras, of which I am a part, is a Facebook group, made up of origami enthusiasts in Chennai (Madras of yore). So a few days back, there was an origami folding challenge on the theme, 'Aqua' ie., any origami that is related to water can be folded - shells, fish, frogs etc. The event will be coming to an end on 17th March. Well, I only recently came to know of this challenge but life has become quite hectic recently, so I wasn't sure I would be able to participate. But I did find some free time this weekend, so set about figuring out what to fold, what paper to use and how to fold.

John Montroll's book 'Origami Under the Sea' came in quite useful and I finally decided to fold the Angelfish from the book. It turned out to be quite challenging for me, especially the final few steps which included the final shaping of the fish, the pleating. I had used banana paper, a thin but strong and crisp handmade paper, but in spite of that, the final fish was quite thick. I ended up wetting those thick folds to shape the thin fins and pleat the other 2 fins.

So, here is my angelfish :) I am quite happy with the result and might even screw up enough courage to try out the complex models from the book! Soon.. Hopefully in the near future!

Model Details:

Model: Angelfish 

Creator: John Montroll

Book: Origami Under the Sea
 
Author: John Montroll and Robert Lang
 
Difficulty Level: Complex

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 6 inch squares

Model Size: 2.5 inches across and 3.25 inches fin-to-fin

The peacock is a beautiful bird and I have been trying to fold it for quite some time now - ever since I got the book 'Origami Sculptures' by John Montroll. And I did manage to fold it on 15th August. That is the Indian Independence Day, and in case you did not know this, the peacock is the national bird of India - an added incentive to fold!

The paper I had used was blue/dark blue origami paper, 9 inches square. The resulting bird had a height of about 6.5 inches and a wing span of 6 inches. Double-sided paper works well, especially the colour combination I had selected :)

Making the peacock stand by itself was quite impossible for me. The reason being that the wings turn out to be quite heavy. So the bird kept falling backwards! But other than that, I am pleased with this peacock..

Model Details:

Model: Peacock 

Creator: John Montroll

Book: Origami Sculptures
 
Author: John Montroll
 
Difficulty Level: High Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 9 inch squares

Model Size: 6.5 inches tall, 6 inches wing span

Recently I tried the origami barracuda from John Montroll and Robert Lang's book 'Origami Under the Sea'.

The model is designed by John Montroll and is a complex one to fold. I started with a large square of paper, 14 inches side. I didn't want to get stuck in the middle because the paper was too small! But I think a 12-inch square would have worked well too.

This is the first time I am folding a complex origami animal. I hadn't realised that they would turn out to be quite that thick! I am not too happy with the way the fins turned out. I think they are  a bit displaced. And the eyes aren't too prominent but other than that, I am quite happy with my first effort 😀

The paper I have used is a very crisp and thin banana paper. This is the first time I am using such a paper and it worked out really well for a complex origami.

Model Details:

Model: Barracuda 

Creator: John Montroll

Book: Origami Under the Sea
 
Author: John Montroll & Robert Lang
 
Difficulty Level: Complex

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 14 inch squares

A Decahedron is a solid polyhedron with ten plane surfaces. As per the wiki, there are 32300 topologically distinct decahedra!

The decahedron is yet another design from John Montroll's 'A Plethora of Polyhedra in Origami'.  The design is for a decahedron made up of 10 equilateral triangles and is of intermediate difficulty.

The paper that I have used is hand made paper with streaks of gold in it. I found the paper great for folding the model. And I like the end result as well.

Model Details:

Model: Decahedron 

Creator: John Montroll

Book: A Plethora of Polyhedra in Origami
 
Author: John Montroll
 
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 7 inch squares

Did you know that the Platonic Solids were named after the Greek philosopher Plato? He believed that these were the fundamental components of nature and associated fire to the tetrahedron, earth to the cube, air to the octahedron, water to the icosahedron and the element cosmos to the dodecahedron.

As the name suggests, the Octahedron has got 8 sides, each of them equilateral triangles. I had thought that folding it would be more difficult than the Cube, but surprisingly, I found it easier to fold this! It is completely folded as a 2-dimensional model, till the last step where it is inflated to form the 3-dimensional Octahedron. The dual of the Octahedron is the Cube.

Model Details:

Model: Octahedron 

Creator: John Montroll

Book: A Plethora of Polyhedra in Origami
 
Author: John Montroll
 
Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Paper Ratio: Square

Paper Size: 5 inch squares