My 2018: Achievements and Failures - A Year of Folding

This year has been a learning curve and some challenges that I have met and others that I have failed.

The start - I joined Steemit at the end of May after failing at posting origami instructions on tumblr and instructibles.

Instructibles especially was a complete failure. Completely incompatible with my phone. I couldn't even resize a picture.

Steemit at first was lonely. The first folder I found was no longer active and didn't respond to my comment. I read the faq and a few of the introduction posts and tried again.

First success: I found @ivan-g who is a lovely folder from him I have learnt or revisited the following models:

I also started exploring contests and learning where my ethical stand points are. There are a lot of competitions on Steemit to promote start up programs. Some of them just don't have the evidence in their whitepapers to be able to support their aims. I have no desire to bad mouth companies and programs that are struggling to their feet, however I also found that I wasn't willing to add a layer of whitewash to help promote them either even if I could go in the draw to win 5 to 300 steem.

I did find some wonderful competitions:

@Kristyglas held a random-games competition where each week was a different challenge from making bookmarks and secret languages to quilling.
From here I met @cryptocariad and @marblely and now @marblely is holding a weekly competition called Thursday Favourites.

@mermaidvampire continues to hold her guess the colour game.
@jayna continues to hold her fiftywords weekly challenge.
@rentmoney continues to hold an array of easy competitions
@bengy continues to hold a weekly comment competition.

There are many more, but these are the people who helped me move from $0 to $15 Steem which is the hardest leg, harder now with the implemented changes.

Throughout the many weeks I have also been doing what I came here for which is folding and creating new designs.

First major learning point - copyright. It is surprisingly strict when it comes to origami. The final model (Yes even if you've folded it) is copyrighted. The folding sequence is copyrighted. The right to teach it to others is also copyrighted.

This makes sense when you think about it, however when it is your hard work, your photos and you are proud of it. It can be a little tough to accept.

Traditional models are excluded from this requirement.

This is why you see so many crane and pig and boat and box diagrams.

First meeting copyright win - contacting Joseph Hwang and being given permission to create a pictorial tutorial of his bouncy modular ball unit. This was difficult for me as I didn't want to come across as pushy or arrogant to someone I was really impressed by. Thankfully he was quick to respond and quite open to what I wanted to do.

So far everyone I have contacted in the origami world has responded positively. I think it is safe to say that origami artists create because they have a passion for the art. They want other people to learn and share their work. They just want people to ask permission first.

The last thing I want to write about as this post is becoming a bit of an epic is being inspired. Most of what I create is inspired by other artists or people or events and sometimes it can be a cascade which can be hard to keep up with. For every model I diagram there are normally two which which have fallen off my table or been packed away into my woefully inadequate origami storage.

A few examples are:

From Philip Shen's omega star I was inspired to create three different models: The sun wreath The flexagon/napkin holder and the fold flat cube/fake five pointed star

From @ivan-g modular unit I was inspired to create the spinable picture frame

Along with various letters of the alphabet which I never ended up photographing.

From @ivan-g post on Lewis Simon's diamond cube I was inspired to create a three piece modular cube along with a mobius triangle and various little rings. There is also a rose cube and modular chain which I have not recorded.

From @deemarshall I was inspired to dive into butterflies https://steemit.com/origami/@gmatthe2/origami-butterflies-and-variations-6ded8a258a0b6

Lastly the origami forum's monthly competitions have inspired me to create a bunch of new designs:
Sea creature
Hat and masks
Stages of life

I am finishing with a blooper reel to entertain myself and you:

Five seconds after this image

What I should have folded.

What I first folded:

Happy Holidays everyone, Grace.

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