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After Emil’s repeated requests here’s one of the most difficult origami models I made: the fiddler crab by Hans Birkeland - posted here with his permission - is made from one single square paper and looks amazing.

I usually make the origami model before I make a video of it, to avoid hang ups and mistakes, in this case the first one I made came out better, even if I made a couple of mistakes. The claws were the most difficult part as it was hard to make it out from the diagrams - you’ll notice I didn’t fold them correctly. Don’t even think about making the fiddler crab simply by looking at the video, be sure to check out the diagrams. If you can’t make it don’t worry, get some experience with some simple and intermediate origami.

An interesting fact I found out about fiddler crab is that if it looses it’s big claw it will develop the opposite claw.

The video was over 100MB and over half an hour, so I uploaded to Google Video, the quality leaves much to be desired, but I do it with what I have.

Diagrams on Hans’s website and another picture with the video after the break.

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Magic rings are also called Umulius Rectangulum, whatever that is. It seems like the paper “rings” are impossibly intersecting, but actually it’s made from 6 pieces, the intersections are hidden between them. The modules are made from half of an A4 paper. I used a thicker paper than normal printing paper to make it, very sturdy. At first when both ends of a module are connected, or when 2 modules are connected, it wont necessarily hold together, but once it’s assembled the intersecting modules keep it falling apart. Made by Thoki Yenn.

The paper has to be folded in 5 lengthwise, since I didn’t know how to do it I used a ruler to divide it before I folded.

Diagrams here and video after the break.

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An origami car that looks like the VW bug. It’s a wonderful, non-polluting, transporting device, but I guess it lacks a bit on safety points. I only had one color paper, but using 2 color paper would make the wheels, the front lights and the rear number plate white. It’s amazing how detailed it actually is for it’s size. By Charles Esseltine.

Diagrams here and the video after the break.

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Another origami by Jeremy Shafer, known as venus flytrap or space monster. It’s a complicated action model, when pulled from the “leafs” or tentacles, whichever you prefer, it opens its mouth.

Diagrams from Jeremy’s website and video after the break.

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After jason’s request here’s the first animal origami, everybody should know how to fold a simple crane, well this is a bit more complicated. You can make the same model with a 2:1 ratio paper by doing 2 traditional cranes, but it’s just not the same. I recommend using a bigger and thinner paper than regular A4 like I did, I ripped it a few times. This is the most complicated model so far and the video takes 20 minutes.

Diagrams here and the video after the break.

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A puzzle origami invented by Piet Hein and diagrammed by Sebastian M. Kirsch. It’s a fun toy to kill time, I spent about 10 minutes assembling it the first time and it didn’t get any easier the second. It’s composed of 7 different pieces made out of strips that look like those in Tetris. You can also make 6 pieces which would make it easier to assemble, here’s a Soma cube with 6 modules made with Sonobe modules. If you really like this model and the strip origami is too hard you can make it out of Sonobe units which are very easy, but I doubt it will be as sturdy.

The diagrams show how to fold the basic unit, once past that you have to figure out how to fold the rest. I advise you to make the 4th piece last since it’s the most difficult one, it’s very unstable until fully assembled.

A video and pictures of the units after the break.

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I took up Castword’s challenge and made an origami spring. At first I failed miserably, but the second try was already much better (on the picture). The origami spring takes a lot of time because it has to be completely creased before folding. When it comes to folding this model in one of the hardest, thanks again for Castword by pointing out a video of the creasing. I found it easier to fold each small flap separately rather than turn each level so that it would fall in place. A magnificent origami by Jeff Beynon.

Diagrams here and some more pictures and a video of somebody folding it after the break.

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A magnificent origami bonsai box made by Katrin Shumakov. At first it looks easy, with all the pre-creasing, but there’s a difficult part to it, I hope you can understand it from the diagrams and the video. I made one with a 20cm square paper and one with 10cm. It’s actually very sturdy and looks nice, tough I’m not convinced it will hold a bonsai.

On the authors site you can see one made with a rose/yellow paper, the great thing is that the inside and the upper border will remain yellow whereas the exterior will be rose.

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Originally this modular needed glue, but I modified it a bit so it doesn’t need any, unfortunately that makes the origami much harder. It isn’t very sturdy when assembled since it was meant to be glued together. I used 6 square papers of 10cm. The beginning is the same as the star, but is folded a bit differently to get to the same result.

Diagrams by Yurii and Katrin Shumakov and video after the break.

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4 cubes made from 3 strips by Heinz Strobl. This is a lot harder than it looks, I wanted to make an icosahedron out of strips, but quickly realized that it was too difficult to assemble, so I went for the 4 cubes. You have to make the strips hold still while you’re tucking them, but once assembled it’s very sturdy. The instructions from Orihouse aren’t very clear on what to do, so I tried the over/under method and it turned out great, perhaps I’ll make some more complex later. Strip origami is way harder on the assembly than modular origami, but requires almost no creasing.

For this one you only need 3 strips of 14 squares, I used a school notes paper and made the squares 2 by 2cm. Since it’s almost impossible to follow the assembly on video I didn’t make one. If you wish to make it you just have to try the over/under method and persevere (about 20 minutes for me). One more picture after the break.

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