When working on a new model, it’s not unusual for a designer to start from a single idea to boost creativity. In my case, I like to project a personality into the model, so I start by focusing on the face or on an amusing body position. But this squirrel had a very peculiar origin. I had two powerful ideas in mind, one for the head and one for the tail. The challenge was to design a connection between the ends.
For the head, I was hoping to reuse the steps that Peterpaul Forcher found for his awesome fox a long time ago (beside Roman Díaz, Forcher is my favorite origamist). For the tail, I wanted to try an easy lock that was perfect for 3D purposes.
Both ideas were appealing to me, so I felt lucky that I could find a body that was the perfect transition and fit well with the distribution of paper that the head and tail required.
I think this model shows pretty well the aesthetic concept that I like: clear edges and — hopefully — a cute aspect. I recommend not shaping the legs (although I diagrammed that option, too) and also folding the head big enough to avoid a long neck.
Comments
Don't be afraid of a stiff paper for this one. Folded from 12" stardream, and found the most of the multilayer folds can be made in stages, focused on corner alignment, leading to a strong sculptural model.