Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figures.
I’ve always thought the making of origami was beautiful; the way we can make intricate shapes and forms out of a single sheet of square paper is almost magical in a way. Origami is a symbol of transformation and mindfulness; the process of folding paper into delicate shapes requires patience and focus, reflecting life’s journey of growth and change. Much like us, paper holds memory. If you make a mistake, you can’t fully undo it, the file remains, faint but permanent. But even those missteps can be shaped into something meaningful. You can press new lines, stronger and more intentional, guiding the form towards its final shape. And once you’re finished, the mistakes only add to the character of the final piece, making it unique and beautiful.
In my 3D design class, we were tasked with recreating a piece of origami on a larger scale out of cardboard. I chose to work with an origami dragon. I went through several different kinds of dragons, but I eventually landed on the one with the most panels and complexity in the design. I thought that out of them all, the details in the more complex one would look the best scaled up.
Figuring out how to approach scaling up the pieces of the dragon was the most difficult part of the project. I tried to approach it mathematically at first but quickly got confused and decided that wasn’t the way to go. Eventually, I landed on relying on my eye for space and proportion to build up the pieces. The process of building it was made up of a lot of checking and referencing proportions. For example, I studied the smaller version of the dragon and realized that the head of the dragon was a little less than half the size of the tail. From there, I would try my best to apply those ideas to the bigger cardboard version. Finally, once the whole thing was built, I added texture to the piece by ripping up some of the cardboard and uncovering the lines beneath it. I did this to the wings to draw attention to them, creating contrast and making them feel a bit thinner than other aspects of the body. Then I did the same treatment to certain areas of the body of the dragon to balance the whole piece out.
Overall, I really loved how this piece turned out, I had a lot of fun making it and gained a newer appreciation for origami. Additionally, the work that I put into scaling the dragon up really helped remind me of the value of maintaining proportions and helped me build up more trust in my vision/judgment.
