Triceratopses

702 and Still Counting

The origami is really piling up and I am behind in taking pictures. The total count is now 702. Not exactly smooth sailing to the finish, but the end of 1000 giraffes is definitely in sight. Here are a couple of recent additions to my expanding paper menagerie.

Western Pond Turtle by Robert Lang

This is my first attempt at the Western Pond Turtle from Lang's Origami Design Secrets. (Actually it is my second, but I am not counting the first officially, since I realized as I was pre-creasing that my original choice of practice paper was never going to work, and gave up before attempting the pleats that give the shell its texture.) The design requires marking the top of the square into 39 equal divisions, so to keep things simple I just started with a piece of elephant hide cut to 39 centimeters. I fudged the legs, since the alignment of the paper by the time I got past the pleating was too far off to sustain the fine folds required to bring out the details of the toes. And the shell is rumpled where it should be smooth. But I think the form on the whole is clear enough, so that it is worth sharing an image. (I've been experimenting a bit with HDR processing, but haven't committed to a purchase of the software; hence the watermark.)