The Origami Forum

I wanted to fold the hummingbird from the diagrams in "From Angelfish to Zen" from Peter Engel, but I'm kinda lost right at the beginning. It says to start with the result from step 2 of the angelfish, however, that looks totally different.

Is the image shown in step 3 of the hummingbird a normal bird base? Or how do I get from the angelfish picture 3 (result of step 2) to the step 1 picture of the hummingbird?

Those instructions are indeed wrong. Skip them. Make a bird base and you will be at step 3. You know how to do a bird base don't you? In case you don't, check http://www.cs.unc.edu/~snoeyink/c/c6/bird.pdf

That hummingbird is really nice, but it takes a lot of shaping to make it look right. Good luck and if you get stuck again, just ask.

Yes, I know how to do the bird base. I just wasn't sure if step 3 really is a bird base, as you can never tell how that diagrammed paper looks on the inside

So thanks for the pointer. I'll give it a try tonight starting with a bird base then.

now I'm just getting one more step ahead. I don't understand what's happening in step 5 and 6. I don't see how to get those 3 parts shown in step 6. Are the valley folds shown in step 5 a reversal of the existing mountain folds in the bird base? and why is the color side outwards in step 6.. everything I tried somehow ended up in a preliminary base with the color inside

There are two things that must help you to do this steps:

1. Once you've done the bird base, bring every point up, crease and then bring it down. Repeat to all 4 points.

2. Do it with the bird base points "looking up" instead as looking down as shown in step 4. When you see it this way, it is obvious that those valley folds shown in step 5 are mountain folds of the bird base as you have mentioned.

Pull two oposite points and bring the center of the paper up. It was pointing down, make it point up by pushing it from below as you pull the opposite points. Now you should be at step 5. Close the model and you should be at step 6.

I would make you a video but I am alone at the moment and there is nobody to hold the camera while I do the folds.

Thanks a lot. I think I'm almost there. Probably I already did it correctly.. this is what I got now:


One general question on those diagrams: Could it be that they do not distinguish colored and white sides? The other diagrams in the book properly distinguish that and show white and dark gray areas, so I was always trying to make all the white parts in the above picture orange as well.

You are correct on the assumption that these specific diagrams do not make any distinction between white side and color side.

Ok, good luck in completing the hummingbird and if you get stuck... well you know the answer to that.

Thanks to your help I could finish the hummingbird now:


As you can see it's pretty rough and the paper I've chosen was too small, so I couldn't really finish the details (especially head and feet are lacking). I'm also wondering if I did the wings right, as they look so different from the image given in the book.

However, being an origami beginner, I would like to know if there is any easy way to do the crimp folds often occurring at the final steps of models. I always have tremendous problems making decent crimp folds especially when multiple layers of paper are involved. Is there some kind of trick to make the folding easy there, or am I just lacking practice?

Nice hummingbird! Maybe I should try it!

Visionary wrote:Thanks to your help I could finish the hummingbird now:

As you can see it's pretty rough and the paper I've chosen was too small, so I couldn't really finish the details (especially head and feet are lacking). I'm also wondering if I did the wings right, as they look so different from the image given in the book.

The picture doesn't show much, but your wings are good, at least descent.

Visionary wrote:However, being an origami beginner, I would like to know if there is any easy way to do the crimp folds often occurring at the final steps of models. I always have tremendous problems making decent crimp folds especially when multiple layers of paper are involved. Is there some kind of trick to make the folding easy there, or am I just lacking practice?

You just answered to yourself. Just a lot of patience and practice. Try to make them as symmetrical as possible.

Instead of jumping to the next model, why don't you go back and re-do this model? From what you know now, choose a better paper (in size and quality maybe) and refold it. That's the path to sucess. Practice, practice, practice