Learning Project: Shapes 4 & 5

🎵Baby Origami Shark Do Do Do-Do Do-Do🎵

This week I thought I’d give a shark a try. I was going to start with a great white shark first, but then I saw there was a video of a hammerhead shark so I thought I’d jump into the deep end (of the ocean) and give it the old college try. Let me start off by saying that was a big mistake. As you’ll see, it was a bit tougher than I anticipated. I guess the fact that it was a 12-minute video should have been the first hint it might be a bit more than I can handle. The video I chose was from the YouTube user Amazing Easy Origami – Yakomoga. This video was different than ones I’ve used in the past in that it was completely silent during folding. There was no illustration of folds or any sort of narration but the video was good quality with a clear and close view of the hands folding the shark. I’m not sure if it was the complexity of the folds or the lack of narration/illustration or some combination of them both, but I did not find this video as helpful as previous videos I have used. 

I chose my paper and got started. Right off the bat I realized I was folding the paper the wrong way so the white side of the paper was going to be on the outside. I was committed so I kept on…believe me, the white paper was going to be the least of my concerns. I kept on folding…

…and folding…

Until I finally got to the finished product. I’m hesitant to call it a hammerhead shark because, well, as you can see, it doesn’t look like much. The head was really difficult to fold because the more I folded, the smaller it got and the harder it was to make subsequent folds.

In case you can’t tell how awful it turned out from the side profile, here’s a shot of it from the front. Yikes!

This was a pretty complicated shape to fold and I think it must be beyond my ability level at this point. The video was 12 minutes which speaks to its complexity. Here’s what the head is supposed to look like:

Once I stopped laughing at how hideous my hammerhead is, I decided I should go back to my original plan and try the regular great white shark. This time I used a video by Wonpyo Lee – Origami&DIY. Again, this video did not have illustrations to show the folds, but it did have narration giving instructions. Unfortunately for me they were in Japanese (I think it’s Japanese). But the narrator’s voice is very soothing and I did enjoy listening to him for the entirety of the video.

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This shape had some similarity to the hammerhead at the beginning, but was not nearly as complicated when it came to the head.

Turned out much better! I’m happy with how it looks. Here are my sharks together.

It would have been wise to start with the great white and then move to the hammerhead. I mentioned last week that I wanted to get bigger paper but I didn’t have a chance to pick any up. The hammerhead likely would have been easier with a bigger piece. I might revisit it again in the future to see if I can redeem myself.

I think next week I might try to venture away from the animal kingdom and try a flower of some sort. I would also like to try a t-rex at some point as I’ve seen that pop up a few times. But it may have to wait until I get that bigger paper because its teeny tiny arms look like they’d be difficult with the smaller pieces I have right now. I also noticed on the Wonpyo Lee – Origami&DIY YouTube page, he has some multi-paper pieces that almost look like tops (they can spin) that I would like to work up to. But those are weeks away. Until then I’ll just keep swimming… 🎵🎵🎵