The Origami Forum

Hi, friends.

I'm a keen practitioner of origami (what's our noun, by the way?) I discovered the art form a couple of weeks ago after I injured my thumb on my fretting hand, so couldn't play guitar for about a week. During that time, I took up origami and became an addict. I'm having issues with the bird base at the moment, though, as my diamond seems to be more a diamond photo frame than the long diamond shape you're supposed to end up with.

Hope to get to know you all a bit better, and improve my skills while I'm here.

Happy folding,

OrigamiGuitarist

welcome to the forum. you play guitar?

welcome to the forum! U'll come to love origami even when ur thumbs heals.

I do indeed, orislater. Eight years' experience- it was a wrench when I injured my thumb but luckily it appears to be back on form. I haven't yet purchased any proper paper for origami, so I'm using general A4 office paper- any insight into my problems with the bird base?

OrigamiGuitarist wrote:I do indeed, orislater. Eight years' experience- it was a wrench when I injured my thumb but luckily it appears to be back on form. I haven't yet purchased any proper paper for origami, so I'm using general A4 office paper- any insight into my problems with the bird base?

yeah, these are the 2 things I would check if you dont have your bird base correct.
- Make sure it is a perfect square (measure, fold in half diagonally, trim edges if not perfect)
- Fold accurately (crease only if it looks exactly like the diagram, always make corners as pointy as possible, etc)

You can take pictures of what you've got, it's easier to help then =)

I find I make a more precise petal fold when I inside reverse fold the 2 corners of the preliminary base first, then flip the point up, instead of pulling the bottom point up first after pre-creasing. Works for me!

I struggle with reverse folds and petal folds at the minute- should I get to grips with those before I even dream of bird bases? Reverse folds are the nightmare, because I can't get any of the diagrams to make sense- going to have to try and find video, I guess.

OrigamiGuitarist wrote:I do indeed, orislater. Eight years' experience- it was a wrench when I injured my thumb but luckily it appears to be back on form. I haven't yet purchased any proper paper for origami, so I'm using general A4 office paper- any insight into my problems with the bird base?

i play guitar too! what kind do you have? i have a godin and i like to play dethcore stuff

I practically singlehandedly support Tanglewood Guitars. I have the TW-28 SNQ, the TMO 10NC, and their TU-4223 ukulele.

I use the majority of these instruments to play country music.

Sara's video demonstrates the method I use for making the bird base, on the first side. For the second side she uses the petal fold or stretch method you see more commonly diagrammed.

http://www.happyfolding.com/instructions-bird_base

She's also got a number of other videos explaining origami basics, definitely worth a look.

Cracked it. Thing is, now my crane's wings appear to be stuck together- I can't separate them. This is not normal, but I don't know what's gone wrong. Help?