The Origami Forum

I precreased the whole thing as shown in http://www.barf.cc/jeremy/origami/PDF_d ... ashbgb.pdf and did as it says there "starting outside in pinch the bold creases first then work in sections pushing the model together as you go" but when I tried to push the model together it does not allow me to.

It does not remain flat, it has a third dimension that protrudes from it and doesn't want to become "round" as in the first scene of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJphcJ292gU

Any suggestions?

Take your time and compress sections of the outside in a flattened state. You're just wanting to get the paper at the edge to start to keep the polarity of those folds. It's very likely that there will be some spreading that gets "worse" toward the outside when you get to final collapse and working on the outside a lot seems to cause it to be more evenly spread out.

Once the outside edge starts to shape up, move a little bit further toward the middle and do the same basic thing. It should start to have a bit of a curve to it, just kind of go with it.

That probably doesn't help at all. If you're still stuck, I can maybe find some time to fold a small one and take some pictures or video of the collapse process.

Oh, and thanks for linking to my video.

What you said made perfect sense and since I was planning on making the center from another paper to analyze what was going wrong, that's what I did. I pre-creased in 16's and folded the center part with kami. It works perfectly, but my large model made out of elephant hide, does not work, some small imperfections are preventing it to twist in the right direction.
Thanks for your help, I'll keep trying.

Event though collapsing it from the outside in did not make sense I followed your advice and it worked! The wet folding approach reinforced the inaccuracies and the model did not turned out so well.

Thanks anyway

This type of model does take a bit of practice. Also, you might find that it starts to work better later, after it has been broken in a bit.

malachi wrote:This type of model does take a bit of practice. Also, you might find that it starts to work better later, after it has been broken in a bit.

You are right, It was very difficult to collapse but afterwards, it does not want to be "spread" anymore, it likes to go "round".

Understanding how it works and how it spirals is not easy. The shape reminds me of those Fibonacci Spirals (such as the ones found in sunflowers).