So the video I mentioned previously is finished! Take a look below!

Zappos Origami Spot from Subversionz Media on Vimeo.

It doesn’t seem that it will air on television, as it unfortunately didn’t place for Zappos’s “Celebrating the Art of Gifting” contest. The theme was, “Create a 30-second video that celebrates the art of gifting during the holiday season” (and after seeing the top eight, I’m a little surprised it didn’t place…). But regardless, I’m happy with the way it turned out, and it was definitely a fun experience working with Subversionz Media. See their posting here.

Hey everybody! For once I’m not posting just because I feel obligated to. I actually have something to show!

(If you were wondering if I designed anything during my time in Alaska, well, I didn’t :/. Go figure.)

Not long after I returned home to Bellingham I got a comment on this blog from Subversionz Media, a production company based in Seattle. They needed an origami artist to fold a few things for a stop-animation Zappos.com advert (for the internets and possible television!), so I took the offer (after a bit of persuasion from the girlfriend). I designed a few clothing items over a few days and went to the shoot, which was a lot of fun!

The final product is still in the works, but here’s a sneak peek at my designs!

Dress Origami Stop Motion from Subversionz Media on Vimeo.

Origami Jacket Stop Motion from Subversionz Media on Vimeo.

Origami Shoe Stop Motion from Subversionz Media on Vimeo.

And don’t forget to check out THIS LINK to see some more behind-the-scenes shots and some of the other great things Subversionz Media is doing! I’ll post again once the final advert is released!

Well, I completed my North Pacific Groundfish Observer training today in Anchorage, then pretty much got called to depart for Dutch Harbor tomorrow morning. No phone, probably very little if any internet, and just being on the ocean means you probably won’t hear from me, if at all, for around three months (but maybe I’ll get lucky and can get internet somewhere). Wish me luck, and enjoy your summers for me!

P.S. Almost at 30,000 views. I hope to see that it’s ticked over that amount by the time I check this blog again. If that’s not the case, I can’t blame anyone but myself for not updating with more interesting things. You may have more of a reason to visit this blog when I update it in November.

Hey folks. Once again, apologies for my infrequent updates. Not much origami-ing has been going on. But I thought I should make a new post, as it will be my last for a few months. Here’s a quick summary of what’s been going on:

I graduated in the spring with a B.S. in Biology – Marine Emphasis, cum laude, with a minor in Japanese and Environmental Science. A few days after I got a job with Alaskan Observers, Inc., under which I will be trained and deployed on Alaskan fishing vessels as a North Pacific Groundfish Observer. Essentially, I’ll be doing biological sampling for management and conservation purposes. Training is three weeks, deployment will be around four months, and debriefing may last a week or two. I hope to be back at my new apartment in Bellingham around the end of October or the beginning of November.

Hopefully, in the off-time of my grueling work schedule, I will be able to work a bit on origami. But my number one priority will be contacting my wonderful girlfriend, family and friends, as I am expecting to be, for the most part, mentally and socially isolated.

This is definitely going to be an adventure, and will be a good test of my independence and will power. I’ll post an update when I return, and will hopefully have a few origami doodles to show for it.

Thanks for visiting, see you again in a few months!

First off, sorry if you were expecting something about my Galapagos tortoise design. I have yet to make myself the properly presentable paper. It’s still a WIP.

Secondly, I hope you all had a happy new year. Mine was terrific, spent with my best friends. Let’s hope this year is productive and my blog sees more than a handful of new posts.

Lastly (keeping this power-writing thing goin’), I haven’t worked on much recently, other than some refolds of my older works. There was a sheet of white MC’ed double tissue laying on my floor for a few weeks and I finally decided to cut it into four 15x15cm (I think?) squares for folding. I dedicated the products (in the following photo) to perhaps my biggest fan of this blog, my three-year long crush and at long last girlfriend.

Hey guys and gals. Dead week starts in two days and finals a week after that. So of course I decide to start working on my origami again. I’ve actually spent the majority of my thanksgiving break in a chair working on stuff so here’s what’s been happening:

In the interest of finishing my Galapagos giant tortoise design (didn’t I start this almost a year ago?) I decided to experiment a bit with methylcellulose and tissue paper. After multiple failed attempts (I got impatient and tried too hard to push air pockets out while it was too wet rather than drying more with the blow dryer, which resulted in ripping and subsequent cursing) I got the confidence to try to make a sheet of brown paper. I had red and green tissue paper, hoping they’d bleed and make brown. I turned out to be an idiot because they didn’t bleed at all but I ended up with a good sheet of dark red and dark green on opposite sides. Naturally, I made a rose out of it. This was my first time making anything out of MC’d tissue paper and I think it came out better than my tissue foil one. The red and green together made both assume a darker hue and it held its shape 90% as well as the tissue foil, but without wrinkles!

Model: One-Sheet Rose (2005)
Designer: Brian Chan (http://chosetec.darkclan.net/origami/)
Folded from diagram, Tanteidan Convention 12
50cm red/green tissue paper w/ methylcellulose

Folding the rose yesterday set my back in a day in terms of progress on my tortoise so I got crackin’ last night and today, and about 10 something hours later I’ve nearly come up with the finished design (though not it’s presentable form). Here’s a sneak peek of what’s taken me months and months (on and off, that is):

Excuse any typos. I just got back from Boundary Bay after having their winter ale, the Cabin Fever. New all-time fave.

Well, it’s official. I kind of feel bad for receiving so many views (without frequently updating the content of the site). But not really.

I’ve been working on the project (a Galapagos giant tortoise, more specifically, Lonesome George) that I must’ve started half a year ago, and I’m getting close to where I can make a final, presentable product. I’m currently in the process of cleaning up the design and finding the right paper for it.

But now that school is starting up again in three days, this whole project might get put off for indefinite amount of time. Again.

My goal is to at least have it done by the end of fall quarter, because in winter, I plan on taking a papermaking class at the university, just for fun. It’d be awesome if I could make a nice sheet of paper for this project.

Anyway, thanks again for viewing. And to those of you downloading my CPs or diagrams, post a link to a picture of the final product!

So my fifth year of working at my best friend’s mother’s art camp has concluded and was a great success. I wanted to switch up the origami unit I teach, from unit origami to something that can provide even a newbie to origami a little room for creativity. I’ve always loved tessellations, so I designed a fairly simple one (most likely not original, kind of a modification of the one you’ll see on Sipho Mabona’s fugu or Kade’s magic ball). I wanted the kids to be able to color their lamp how they want and to shape it how they please, as well.

I had to find a very large sheet of paper so that after the pattern was folded it could wrap around a lightbulb with plenty of clearance and I also wanted the paper to be capable of supporting wet media for water coloring. The kids as a group didn’t have much of a problem folding the pattern but some still had trouble collapsing it, even with one-on-one help. But in the end they figured it out and I used wire to rig up clamps so they sit on a lightbulb. The project turned out a lot better than I expected, and the water color was a fantastic touch. Below is a picture of a few of the lamps that were on display during the exhibit for the kids’ parents.

Other than doing art, I had a fantastic time with my friend’s family and friends. The summer has been great so far, especially due to my six week marine biology course in La Paz, Mexico, and this last week at the art camp definitely has been keeping the high going.

Anyway, I’ll hopefully be getting back to finishing my old project I mentioned a while ago. Hopefully.

Hello. I’m back. My lack of updating comes from a severe lack of folding. I haven’t been inspired. Spring quarter sure has been a roller coaster of good times and low times, but my finals are wrapping up tomorrow! This post is the result of nervous feelings preventing any hope of sleep at 2:00 A.M. I have an exam in 8.5 hours… AHH!

Anyway, I finally got something to post. It’s the CP of my Russian Tortoise design. You’ll notice the design basically starts off 3-D, and the final product includes many partial creases (more like straight bends along precreases). I tried my best to make the notation clear, but I need a fresh pair of eyes to try to fold this design and see if it makes sense. Give it a try and post your results and/or critique!

Model: Russian Tortoise
Designer: Geoff Mayhew
Folded from 10.7cm recycled paper

Good luck!

My bad, once again I’ve failed to update my blog for an extended period of time. But the fact is I haven’t really folded anything until now. Finals got done not too long ago (rocked them! didn’t even study for my genetics final and still aced it, hahaha), and I’ve returned to Spokane for the holiday break. Oh, and did I mention I have a girlfriend now? Long story short we went to high school together but hardly were aware of one another’s existence until we both graduated and met one day in the summer at a mutual friend’s house. She is absolutely wonderful, but that’s a severe understatement.

Oh but right, this is an origami blog. I’m going to make a segue. I folded my girlfriend’s favorite animal for her, which I completed a few days ago, but I’m not going to post things up just yet. I decided to draw the CP and submit it to the Christmas Book on the origami forum, so I’ll make an update on that after January, and hopefully draw up diagrams in the meantime. Fat chance, but that’s my goal.

However, I’ve been doing more folding than that. I found the urge to make a modular piece from unit origami, so I decided to play around with the equilateral triangles/hexagons. I finally came up with something I was happy with after a couple days. I intended to include color change in the units but that was a failed effort, and the way the units work, I couldn’t get any particularly interesting color patterns with different colored units. Hopefully I’ll get around to revising the units or plain make a different unit altogether. Anyway, here it is. I don’t know the name of the geometric shape and I’m too lazy to research it, so someone tell me if they know it, haha.

Model: Modular
Designer: Geoff Mayhew
Folded from 20 sheets of 7.5cm Japanese Kami

This was a Christmas ornament dedicated to my girlfriend’s generous family. I designed it and folded it in a day, and completed it at around 4:00 am and delivered it at around 4:30 am before they left for their holiday trip, haha.

Model: Modular
Designer: Geoff Mayhew
Folded from 20 sheets of 19.5cm Gold leaf/black heavy paper I bought in Japan years ago and forgot about. Don’t remember what it’s called anymore, heh.

This is a much larger version, with which I wanted to play around with arranging colors. Because the units are large, it’s a bit restricted in that regard. With a color-changed unit, this would be a much more interesting design, but it’s too late to change anything when you’ve Gorrila-glued the units together…

Oh, by the way I also got a new camera as a very early Christmas present, so my photos from now on should look much better.