The Origami Forum

Hi All! -

I'm working with our local museum, the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm to create a temporary exhibit entitled "Prehistorigami," for which I'll be folding the models. The exhibit will feature models of prehistoric animals and include information about both the animals themselves and the models. I have been successful at contacting the creators of many of the models we want to feature to obtain permission to use the models in the exhibit (the creators will be credited in the exhibit itself, too, of course). However, there are a few models by Japanese creators that we want to use but for which I have been unable to find any contact information for the creators, and I'm hoping someone on the list might be able to point me in the right direction for some or all of these people! These are:

(1) 木村哲夫 (Kimura Tetsuo, creator of the Tyrannosaurus model in the
9th Origami Tanteidan Convention book)

(2) 高井弘明 (Hiroaki Takai, author of in Dinosaur with Dyed Paper [紙を染めておる恐竜 (こだわりおりがみ)] as well as several models in past Tanteidan convention books)

(3) 桃谷良英 (Yoshihide Momotani, author of Origami Dinosaurs)

(In case anyone is curious, I'm interested in contacting these three authors for permission to use their respective Tyrannosaurus models, which will be used with several other Tyrannosaurus models in a single display to show just a few of the myriad ways there are to approach a single subject in origami!)

(4) 神谷哲 (Satoshi Kamiya; the e-mail address on his web site does not
seem to work, and yes, I've read other posts on this forum about contacting him, but have not gotten any responses to my inquiries at the address on his web site)--we would like to use several of his models!

(5) whomever holds the copyright to the models of 吉野一成 (Issei
Yoshino)--we would like to include his skeletons of Tyrannosaurus and
Triceratops

I should also note that I have tried contacting both the JOAS and NOA about contacting these creators; the NOA simply suggested contacting the JOAS, but I've not received a response from the JOAS...and the exhibit is set to open in a little over a month! For Takai, I have tried going through the publisher of the mentioned book, but have not gotten as response that way, either. I suspect a lot of this is the language barrier: I don't speak a lick of Japanese, sadly, and I don't expect that they know much English! But if anyone here has any information on how to contact any of these creators, please let me know via private message so that the information isn't made public. Thanks very, very much for any help you can provide!

hiroaki takai has a website. i can't really find his contact info on it, as it's awful busy, but you could give it a try.

Hey Bethnor! - Thanks for that! Yes, I know about the site, which isn't run by Mr. Takai himself, sadly, and it seems to lack a "contact me" button or anything equivalent. I did try writing to the person running the site in the hopes that the message would be forwarded to Mr. Takai, but thus far I've not had a response. However, someone else pointed out that the site does mention that he's an OUSA and BOS member, too (which I'd missed previously!), so I will try those groups to see if I can get through that way...

According to what I rememeber from what's been discussed on the O-list, you do not need the permission of the creators to exhibit the models you folded. As long as you give them proper credit, you should be fine.

If you have a hard time getting in touch with them, you could always substitute models from other folders, I suppose...I know Ares Alanya has a nice T-Rex, and doesn't John Montroll do some dinosaurs?

i do think dr. harris is a paleontologist by trade, and so most of the montroll models would not be acceptable, since they are not physiologically correct.

i mean, we've known dinosaurs simply did not drag their tails behind them all the time for some time now.

i do agree that ares probably has the finest t-rex model out there now, the right combination of posture and bulk.

and a tongue

bethnor wrote:i do think dr. harris is a paleontologist by trade, and so most of the montroll models would not be acceptable, since they are not physiologically correct.

Well, true, but some of his models can be modified slightly in terms of the positioning of the legs and tail to make them acceptable, and indeed I've done this for his Tyrannosaurus and Brachiosaurus for the exhibit, and Mr. Montroll was kind enough to give permission to use them in the exhibit (as well as his dollar bill Triceratops and Apatosaurus). And we'll be selling the newest version of Dinosaur Origami in our gift shop for the exhibit, too--anatomically correct or not, it will hopefully convert at least a few people into folders!

Yeah, I'm an annoying stickler for anatomical accuracy, particularly in prehistoric animals. With extant (living today) organisms, it's easy enough to find photos of actual specimens, or go to zoos, wildlife parks, etc. to see the real things, making it much easier to produce models with a high degree of anatomical accuracy. With prehistoric things, though, it's a matter of finding a restoration by someone that's up on the latest science, and without being in the field, that's not at all easy...that is, there's just no good way for the average person to distinguish between a restoration that's erroneous (either because it's out-of-date or because the artist just didn't bother to do any research) and a restoration that's pretty good! But a lot of folders seem to be doing their homework based on the newer models I've been seeing, and I've been quite happy about that! This even includes things like putting feathers on appropriate non-avian theropod dinosaurs, making sure that theropod dinosaur hands face palms-inward, rather than palms-downward, and making sure that no dinosaurs drag their tails on the ground!

Oh, and yes: I am a bona fide paleontologist that specializes in Mesozoic archosaurs (dinosaurs [including birds] and pterosaurs).