Tanabata Hikoboshi's Bull

So a while back I made this bull designed by Toshio Gohara. A fairly simple design, but I pulled it out just a moment ago and considered the possibility of it being used as a generic base design (perhaps to make cows or pigs or other similar animals). Here's what it looks like:

The front legs are kind of formed from the torso, so in that sense they are attached instead of being entirely separated folds. That limits the possibility of them being formed into a variety of different shapes. Also, the hind legs are fairly short and, as you can probably see, the front legs are basically attached to the horns. Because of each main body part, like the legs and horns, relying on one another by the fact that they are attached, I think that this design wouldn't be very useful as a base to make other animals.

Now, some people say that when making this bull, their animal turned out to look more like a pig than anything else. Based off of that, maybe this design has potential if you unfold it a few steps? But because I have so much doubt in that, I'm not even going to waste time messing around with it. Especially if there is a better base out there that can be used to make all sorts of pigs and cows! So, for now I will keep looking.(:

Four-Legged Base Progress

Well I am currently working on the design from this this link. It's an origami dog designed by Komatsu Hideo, and yes, it has four legs, a head, ears, and a tail. The first attempt I made on this design was last night... at three in the morning. So, not only did I not finish it but it turned out looking like quite the mess, as you can see:

Okay, well you can see the tail and the legs, but I didn't even get to the head (which was supposed to be where those little flaps are on the opposite end of the tail, if you can see them). The hind legs also became quite crumpled, and I fell asleep before I got any further.... Haha sorry guys but I am going to remake this today so don't worry.

Either way, if you get my point, by the time I get to the base of this design where it will have all of its limbs intact, it will be a fairly generic four-legged piece. So, from there, if my (simple) theory is correct it will be able to make not only a dog but also perhaps cats and other basic creatures. And, if the base has some adjustments made to it, maybe other animals can be created from it, too. We will see after I remake this. Just wanted to keep updated on even the slightest progress I was making.

A First Attempt!

Okay, so I was messing around with one of my favorite designs, an origami peacock designed by Adolfo Cerceda, and I began to wonder if I could create a four-legged base by messing around a bit with this design. In theory, a four-legged base, as I mentioned on the About page, could be used as a generic base to expand upon to create many four-legged creatures, such as dogs and cats. Here's a photo of some of the origami peacocks I made:

Ignore the untidiness of the orange ones (their heads and feet aren't even properly folded), I made those pretty quickly the other day when I was messing around. Anyways, if you ignore the flaunting tail of the design, you can see that the other side clearly has three main folds that stick out-- used to make the two legs and the neck/head. 

Based off of that, I managed to make this... fairly interesting base design:

You can ignore all of the folds in the top square, those were all made when I was attempting to make this base into something with a head and tail. Anyways, as you can see it's kind of a mess. I mean, my theory was correct and I managed to make four legs out of it, but I was left with a bulking amount of paper on the top that made this base look more like a walking paper airplane than anything else. I was able to make a basic head and tail out of it but the paper became pretty thick, and it also seemed impossible to create ears out of anything.

So, this base is probably pretty useless. Maybe it could be played around with to make some sort of insect like a butterfly, but then it wouldn't have the full six legs and there'd be no antennas and blah blah blah so clearly this base doesn't have much use at the moment. But hey, four legs! That's got to be some sort of progress!(: Well, don't start doubting me now, this was just me messing around and you might see a few of these here and then. Sometimes playing with designs that you already know and are comfortable with is the best way to learn more about the paper and folds that you're working with! But don't worry, I'll get on that four-legged base asap. Just wanted to show you all the first attempt (if you can call it that)!