The Origami Forum

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone can point out where I can buy some large folding paper from? Preferably over 20" in size. I'm searching for paper that can hold it's form quite well and something that will allow me to shape the finished model into a specific pose (like Satoshi's ancient dragon with bent wings and head tilted etc).

I've made several models with tracing paper and while it's thin enough, it's not strong enough to stand properly.

Thanks

Your best bet is to find tissue paper, which is large, but not strong. Find out how to make it stronger by using the search function with the subjects 'tissue foil' and 'methylcellulose'. Large, good folding paper can be expensive, so experimenting with tissue is a good idea.

Otherwise, you can buy large rolls of foil on the internet. Check it out here:
http://design.origami.free.fr/boutique/ ... paper.html

Any more questions, feel free to ask.

If you are looking for handmade paper you can buy lokta or mulberry online at http://handmade-paper.us/. The papers are fairly large and are not too pricy.

Thanks for the quick reply guys.

Just one more question regarding the lokta & mulberry papers...from experience, which would be better suited to make the ancient dragon? I'll also experiment with the tissue paper & methylcellulose.

You could try stiffening Mulberry Paper with Methyl Cellulose, that would most likely be a good material to fold the ancient dragon with. I would just use tissue foil though.

Yea, when I first visited these forums I only used kami, foil, and some other plain types. When I first made tissue foil, I was amazed at how much better my work looked. I made my ancient dragon out of a 42 cm square, and it looks great. It's a bit small, but as long as you fold very carefully, a 42cm square should be plenty. Depending on your materials, you can easily get over that size though.

MC the heck out of the mulberry paper. Lokta is usually pretty thick. It's also not always of uniform thickness. And it has a soft look--something that works nicely on mammals, but might be a little weird on a dragon.

But yes, I would recommend MC-ing the tissue paper together. It works nicely, and you can dry-fold it pretty well.