The Fitful Flog

December 27, 2005

Puff Star, Redux

Puff Star
A Mister Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey writes in to say, “Hey, what’s the deal with the Puff Stars? How do I fold a Puff Star? Does CP stand for something? How will I know if I have folded a Puff Star or something else? What’s a perf strip? Will folding Puff Stars have a positive or negative effect on global warming?”

You sure ask a lot of questions for someone from New Jersey.

But it does raise a valid point. Posting pictures of complex models with CPs that only a few people could understand would seem to undercut the appearance of my missionary zeal for Open Source Origami. I was delighted when Mawelucky folded a Puff Star, but she is clearly an advanced folder of great intuition. I’m not sure I could collapse that Puff Star CP without some guidance. We need to democratize the CPs.

Knowing myself to be a most dilatory and inefficient diagrammer, I have made shift to combine two different techniques of documenting the fold, hoping to spread the astral puffery on the gestalt. Might happen, you don’t know. I stomped and stomped on the graphics until I got a PDF of reasonable size, 369 KB. The arrows – surely, the lamest arrows, ever – are embedded soft fonts. We hope so, anyway. If you see dancing lizards or happy faces instead of arrows, please let me know.

The only thing I don’t do, is show you how to make a regular decagon. The method of making one from a square is not difficult, but may not be universally known. But I’ve already kind of fried my diagramming circuitry. Here’s a PDF of just a decagon. Choose Fit to Page in the print dialog. Should work on any size paper.

CP for American letter paper.
CP for A4.
(These are the files I posted in October – just so you wouldn’t need to go looking for them.)

Here’s the new file, the Sequenced CP and Photo Diagram.

21 Responses to “Puff Star, Redux”

  1. 1
    Jean-Pierre Says:

    I really enjoyed folding this puff star !
    I couldn’t do it without the photos, indeeeeed !

    Thanks for the folds and thanks also for the humor (or is it humour ?) – brings souvenirs of Robert Benchley, somehow.

    Bons baisers de la France
    jpp

  2. 2
    Charli Says:

    me parece un trabajo muy bonito, aunque un poco complicado de doblar.
    buen plegado

    (And Google says: It seems to me a very pretty work, although a little complicated to duplicate. Well folded.)

  3. 3
    oschene Says:

    Charli, you are entirely right, it is a complicated fold.

    But as my yoga teacher tells me frequently, if you take the move apart, the pieces are all simple ones – you just need to sequence them. (And then she proceeds to bend herself into a pretzel and I am moved to despair.)

    Update: In early April, 2006, I noticed that Charli succeeded with this fold and rather beautifully, as well. Look here.

  4. 4
    Su Says:

    Very aesthetically pleasing… It makes me wonder if one could fold the back flaps in such a way as to facilitate using the star in kasudama…. *pondering*

  5. 5
    oschene Says:

    Su, it’s funny you should mention it, but I did see the kusudama possibilities and actually did create a connector for this model, based loosely on Robert Neale’s Star System connector.

    Trouble is, I realized it would take 12 Puff Stars and 60 connectors to make the kusudama and I have the attention span of a gnat. Someone waved a bright and shiny object in front of my face and the brain was off to the next thing. Oh, well.

  6. 6
    Rebecca Says:

    Did I miss the place where you mentioned what CP stood for? I have gathered that the red and blue line-covered papers are called CPs, but would also be interested to know the origin of the term — Coveted Pathway? Collapsible Pattern? Colored-line Puzzle?

  7. 7
    oschene Says:

    CP is Origamijargonese for Crease Pattern.

    CPs were originally, I think, shorthand notes for designers and later on, a method of construction. Dr. Lang’s discussion in Origami Design Secrets is probably the best explanation of this. (Dr. Lang’s dedication to communicating his methods makes him the true prophet of Open Source Origami, I think.)

    When a CP is all black and white, folders know that every other fold has an opposing direction: mountain, valley, mountain, valley. And this is mostly true, but the intersections can be complicated. When there are two colors, one will represent valleys and one mountains and it isn’t usually too important which. If you guess wrong, you just flip the paper over and you’re suddenly right.

    The idea I am trying on here of a Sequenced Crease Pattern is a reaction to the problems posed by CP folding. Even if you succeed in correctly collapsing the pattern, has understanding taken place? Do you know why the designer did thus and so? I was trying to incorporate more clues into my instructions so that more people could see what I was on about.

    On the theory that in explaining it to others, I might begin to understand it, as well.

  8. 8
    The Fitful Flog ? How to Make A Regular Decagon (or Pentagon, Whatever) from a Square Says:

    […] Of course, once you have trapped the wily and elusive regular decagon, what do you do with it? Well, you could do something simple, like the above waterbomb – you-all know how to make a waterbomb, don?t you? Or, you could get all jiggy with it and make a Puff Star. Kind of up to you, the faithful reader. […]

  9. 9
    DShpak Says:

    Thanks for posting this! I just now (over 18 months after it was posted) found this, and after over an hour (with interruptions) of puzzling and persevering, I successfully produced something that may or may not have all the flaps in the same place you intended, but a puff star it certainly is; one of the more satisfying things that I’ve folded lately. I may endeavour to produce some more traditional diagrams for this wonderful piece.

  10. 10
    oschene Says:

    Please do — I am well aware of the shortcomings of these directions.

    And having just finished new designs for the seven and nine pointed puff stars….

  11. 11
    mawar Says:

    Dear Oschene,
    thank you for your respond. I’m glad. I had tried to downlad the Puff Star SCP and diagram but the page just wouldn’t open and I have tried for so many times. Could you assist me in any way?

  12. 12
    oschene Says:

    That link goes to a PDF — and you’ll need a program on your computer that can open that sort of file. Adobe Reader is the most common one and is free in the sense that it doesn’t cost anything and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. There are a wide variety of open source programs that read PDFs, as well.

    It may be that your browser doesn’t have a plugin to open PDFs — you might try right-clicking and saving the file locally and then opening it.

  13. 13
    mawar Says:

    Hello Oschene, I have the PDF file and had printed out the cp of puff star but there were only creases and no diagrams/instructions on how and where to start folding them.

    The new file, the Sequenced CP and Photo Diagram above can not be viewed at all. Please help.

  14. 14
    oschene Says:

    When I click on it, it comes right up. Try right-clicking on the link and saving it locally. If that doesn’t work, let me know and we can mail it to you.

  15. 15
    mawar Says:

    Hello Oschene! Firstly, thank you for all your help. I had done three Puff Stars so far. And not just that, I have managed to do several others on your menu. I really enjoy coming to your site. I’m sure many were delighted to see your art works.

    Thank you for sharing your talent and passion. You are one good artist. Keep it up!

  16. 16
    oschene Says:

    Delighted to hear it. That’s a fun model, isn’t it?

    For me, given origami’s viral nature, part of the art is sharing the work. It’s a real pleasure to find that someone on the other side of the world can decipher my diagrams and recreate the model. I hope you’ll share the model with your fellow folders.

  17. 17
    Cesar Says:

    Hi there!
    First of all, thanks for posting this amazing puff star! It is, indeed, quite a challenge to make.
    I have a question. I’m having difficulties with steps 11 and 12. I can get to 11 fine (I hope) but what do the arrows on 12 mean? Is it taking left side UP and the right pushed ?? I’m not sure that I follow that afterwards (’cause one’d have to get the little peak underneath .. as shown on step 13.. Would you be able to help out on this one?

    Thanks!
    Have you got written instructions or youtube clips?
    Thanks!

    Cesar

  18. 18
    Fernanda Gomez Says:

    Thanks for all the step by step instructions

  19. 19
    w Says:

    actually, i can follow this, just from the pdf.

    very nicely done. documentation is not easy work. many thanks!!

  20. 20
    Ann Says:

    Thanks so much for this; it’s beautiful. I just shared your link in a collection of folded stars.

  21. 21
    Tutoriales de Paper Star plegados – Quilling Says:

    […] 1. 1. Estrella de ventana 2. Estrella plegada en 3D 4. Una linterna de la estrella 4. Estrella dimensional s en un jarrón con cara Origami stars 6. Puff Star […]

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