Comic Relief

It's Comic Relief, also known as Red Nose day today in the UK, People all over Britain do silly things for Charity. I've folded some noses and am going to sell them at work.

The big one at the top is Jeremy Shafer's Clown Nose, diagrams available on his website at http://www.barf.cc/ It's a Stellated Octahedron and in fact a clever open backed variation of the Water Bomb.

The one being modelled by my mask is a False Nose and Moustache by Gabriel Alvarez, diagrams to be found in Paul Jackson's The Complete Origami Course

And the Pinocchio Nose is by Kunihiko Kasahara from his excellent Origami Omnibus.

Robert Harbin's Origami 4

I've finally found a copy of this very rare book!

I bought volumes 1 to 3 as soon as they were published. Number 4 came out in 1977, but by that time I had moved to France and wasn't aware of it. It couldn't have been in print for very long because so few copies have survived.

Like the others, it is a compilation by Robert Harbin of some of the best designs around at the time. It includes some highly original designs by leading folders such as: Martin Wall, Max Hulme, Dave Brill, Patricia Crawford and Neal Elias. Some of my favorites are Patricia Crawford's grand piano, Martin Wall's rose complete with stem and leaves and Neal Elias' fantastic series of Buddhas.

I successfully bid for the book on Ebay and it should arrive today...When it does I can delete the pdf version of the book I downloaded 2 years ago: I was a bit naive then and didn't realise it was an illegal copy until I posted a mail about it on the British Origami Society message board. The BOS own the copyright to this and all Robert Harbin's Origami books, so you can imagine the reaction!

Mask

Looking through a box of my old folds the other day, I found my first design:

I was quite pleased with it at the time. Looking at it again now, and being much more objective, I can see that the eyes look completely wrong: they stick up over the top of the head. Why didn't I see that before!...So I fiddled with the top of the model and came up with this:

Much more satisfactory... and simpler to fold too. Plus, by shaping the eyes individually, there is scope to alter the expression remembering what Eric Joisel says about symmetrical masks looking "dead".
It's folded from a modified fish base. I diagrammed my first version and am now working on the diagrams for this one. I'm looking forward to uploading these and more of my designs soon.