Loving Deidara

Hello, I'm pretty new to this forum. I have earlier made my introduction in a suitable section, so I won't focus too much on myself this time, but just wanted to say that I'm very happy that a forum like this exists. There is a couple pretty big origami forums, but frankly, I just couldn't fit there.

The atmosphere kind of made feel like I didn't belong there. Anyway, I'm into origami for a couple of years now - 4 to be exact and I have always loved both the art of creating something as well as anime. I'm a big anime lover, I have over 4 months spent according to MyAnimeList, which surely puts me in a top 5% or so on the website. I watch everything, from shounens (not much anymore now) to dramas and horrors.
The point is, that I'm just extremely addicted to anime and Japanese culture and as we know, they are great in drawing (mangas), creating origamis and all other manual stuff. We surely saw some arts of Japanese or Chinese artists and they are really amazing, something that is extremely hard to replicate and probably cannot ever be learnt - pure talent, so I call it.

So, being heavily addicted to Japanese culture and origami, I really got into creating figures of my favorite characters - and well, not only humans, but dragons, monster, anything basically. Just it's extremely hard to do, I had a couple of tries from the not too big amount of tutorials I have found over the internet and a few Japanese books, but I was hardly successful. I know, that you can't address any general tips here, it's not an easy thing to do after all, it's totally advanced stuff, at least in order to make the figure look as real as possible, but I thought I could make this thread for all other anime lovers, that would like to apply this love to origami as well and create some characters.

Don't have to be anime characters, I would say any movies or tv shows characters would work too, just I feel like anime figures are much more characteristic and thus much easier to build than real humans we see at movies, unless they are dressed in some kind of costume or something, that makes them look totally unique and different, kind of like J. Depp in Pirates of Carribbean. By the way, Star Wars also seems like a great niche to do this and a movie Avatar by James Cameron, which I wanted to make a few origami characters off, but have failed unfortunately.

I know, that there is very little advice we can give to each other in terms on how to create a certain figure, as not only every figure is different, but also this niche is advanced enough, that it requires certain skills much more than knowledge itself. I guess, beginners shouldn't even start to try, although they are free to do that, but if not for thousands of origami-made simple projects, like chickens, flowers etc., I would never be able to even make a simple human in origami - or well, I probably could, but if you want to make it any more personalized and tweak it accordingly with your own liking, that's the whole other story. Just folding the paper to make simple head, legs and arms is fairly easy, but anything else, like covering it with a jacket, pants, highlighting some of its most distinguished visuals.

Well, this is on a whole other level and I still feel like I'm years from even being able to make it as my imaginations tells me to.

So far from the typical anime figures, I have made: Son Goku - classic, everyone, even those people that aren't really into should know how this character looks like. I got to admit, that I have been able to create one, but it was far below my expectations, so I have thrown it away. As a matter of fact, I have thrown away every single anime character I have created so far. Don't get me wrong, I love to save my work, but it needs to be properly done, I kind of don't see myself saving anything that I don't particularly like. I rather throw it away and keep trying and trying to finally get it done accordingly with my own liking. I have also created Princess Yona from Yona the Dawn (really good anime, and god, I literally love her). I have failed with her too, so thrown her away. Apart from that I also tried to build Luffy, Sasuke, Kagura (from Gintama) and Kuroko. All of them, despite me having spent really a lot of work on them and multiple efforts were are all below my expectations.

Of course, I tried to redo them, sometimes with a better success, but most likely with my efforts ending up in vain - the outcome of a second or third try was actually worse than the first one. Sometimes I also tend to destroy one during creating - it happened with Sasuke. Simply had my motivation kept pretty low and was already annoyed, that I cannot make anything right.

So, as you see. I'm far from being good at that and despite having quite a lot of experience in origami - I have done probably 3/4 of all tutorials found on the internet and in the books, from easy to semi-advanced ones. I used to think that they are advanced, but after trying to make anime characters, I started considering them semi-advanced top. Frankly, making characters is where your skills are really challenged.
Anyway, did you guys have any success with building anime or all other kind of characters, figures resembling humans or any cool figures actually? Sure, some stuff that I have mentioned earlier apart from humans, like dragons for example, are fairly easy to do, but once you want to do a really personalized dragon - like if you took it out from the anime, is I believe extremely hard. Hopefully there is many more anime fans like me!

Leonard

Wel, that's surely an intereting thread. I have quite a lot of experience with Origami as well and I gotta say, that I'm not satisfied with my work figures as well. Let's be honest - it's extremely hard to make it right, tons of little details you have to include and very little tutorials for what you actually want to achieve. Best way to learn how to make characters accordingly with your liking is to keep reading and creating projects of Asian books focused on creating characters, there is quite a lot of them if you know how low to look. Just go to amazon and you can get yourself some amazing books for really cheap, I own a few from them to be honest. But yeah, creating origami figures is hard and it's an art itself, not really a skill that you can learn, it's an art and way of expressing yourselves.

I'm not as bigo of anime fan like you, well, I could say that I'm actually not a fan at all, but I have watched some series and I have managed to create a few interesting characters. I could even say, that I have created far more anime figures, that I have watched animes as I only focused on those top-rated and most popular series, was never intrigued with anime to check any more of them, but not saying that I won't. I'm rather more of an Marvel guy and focused on creating american comics characters like Daredevil, Hulk (which was exceptionally easy for me somehow), Wolverine and bunch of other X-Men characters. I love my Spider-Man, probably one of the best creations that I have ever made and it was over two years ago, and my skills have surely developed since then. So it's not even about your skills alone, but rather how much you want to create something, your focus, attention to detail and sometimes simply a luck - some projects may just simply suit us better than others and thus will be easier for us to create. At least that's how it was with Hulk and Spider-Man for me as even though the latter was really hard, I managed to finally make a character that I am really proud of. Funnily enough, I have also created the Johnny Depp character, that you have mentioned. Failed miserably though - as long as I love Pirates of Caribbean and I know his character inside out, I wasn't able to make the details fit at all. Seems like his costume was just too much for me, especially as I also focused on all the details and kind of an appeearance as well, but I will make sure to get back to this once I improve my skills a little bit more and get myself in a good, confident and positive mindset.

So, as you see I'm far from reaching the level where I will gladly show off my work of origami characters and I have 3 years more of experience than you do + I consider myself to be pretty good at this anyway. My advice would be to think less, create more. After all, it's all about practice - just like with everything. You can't overthink everything you do and question every single decision, sometimes you just simply have to go with the flow and... just make stuff, whatever the outcome is.

I would also advise you to keep your work after all, even if you don't like it, you have put a lot of effort into making it and then later, you can use it to compare your work from before to your future one. Seriously, it helps a lot. For example, you may have improved your skills and your characters look much better, but you don't see it - because your expectations are too high. You want it to look like stuff done by absolute professionals or those included in anime books. I will tell you what - those people make decent money off it and are in less than a few percent of most skilled makers in the world. I used to make the very same mistake and had my expectations too high, but after all, I do origami just for the sake of creating something, freeing my mind and having fun.

Following professionals and hoping to be like them is, I am sorry to say that, a distant dream for most of us. And that's the truth, whether it's sport, programming or other fields, only a few are able to become the absolute best. So don't worry about that, keep your work, store it in the box or something, like I do - you don't even have to look at it, just keep having it somewhere securely stored, so you can compare your work in, let's say, a year from now and I assure you that you will feel more satisfied about your work, because you will then clearly see the progress you have made.

Anyway good luck and if yo ureally love anime and making anime character, then you should stick to your passion - that's the best way to improve your skills.

Baby Z

Wow, some pretty long posts here. I only have a few years of experience with origami and haven't really practiced all that much too be honest, but I have been able to recently make a pretty sweet Zoro from One Piece character. I'm rarely watching anime nowadays, mostly just following my favorite series on weekly basis, like One Piece, but I believe it turned out to be pretty good. Of course, it's much worse than some of those I saw on the internet or in the books, but considering my skills and that I haven't really built all that much, I'm really happy about myself. I will just add that just like Leonard said, you should indeed lower your expectations.

You will not ever make it perfect, not a single origami project is perfect. After all it's an art, and arts are usually flawed and far from the the real perfection. That's what actually makes art an art - because it's flawed, in it's own and unique way. The real art cannot be replicated, because it's the effect of your failures to build something else that you have primarily wanted to create, and this is what makes it beautiful. So, I will second Leonard on this entirely - just keep creating whatever you love and be happy about it, reach the perfection you so desire in your own, respective manner of hundreds of tries of imperfection.

SaraXK

I'm not a big anime fan to be honest and I was never a fan of creating characters in the fist place, but I did give it a shot. Have created a few, but never had the very desire to create them, so only tried it out of curiosity. I have manged to make a simple Wolverine from X-men and Storm from X-Men as well. They are from perfect, well, if not for the fact that I know what I created, I'm not sure if I would even be able to recognize them as Logan and Storm. But that's how it works, only a handful of people can create origamis so detailed, that it looks like on the screen. Just enjoy your work and nice introduction, definitely seems liek you a person who thinks everything through and always do their best, which is also probably the reason for why you tend to be not satisfied with your work so much. Just keep it easy, I even kept some of my origamis that were half-done in a box in my garage :D

Beacon

I am far from being experienced - got overall like 1 experience with origami, but I have tried to make a few of more advanced characters - dragon and elephant, both turned out to be pretty okay in my opinion. Of course over the inter were much more detailed and this is where I find the biggest struggle to be honest. It's not about making a certain character, it's about detailing them, adding certain features is extremely troublesome. I haven't tried creating any anime characters yet nor any other to be honest, but I will gladly try soon. I don't hope to make anything that will actually resemble them, but hopefullly I will at least be able to keep a human form haha.

Loving Deidara

Thanks for your suggestions guys. It's true, I may be overthinking this a little bit too much. After all, I will probably never reach the level I would love to, doesn't matter how much I will keep practicing, so I should just keep it more simply and just enjoy the work I do. I actually think that I will take a break from creating anime characters or any other characters for this matter. There is already tons of many other advanced projects, that I could take advantage of and there is many tutorials around the web for them. For example, I found a pretty solid for really great looking roses. As long as making mere roses isn't that hard, to make them as detailed as those is tons of work and requires a lot of skills, so I will focus on something else for now. I would love to keep this thread alive though and I hope it will be so, as in few months I can get myself up to creating another anime character and I hope others will show some of their work regarding characters as well as share some tips along the way. Though, it's all true what you said - it's an art, and arts are far from being perfect. I do realize that, just I want to create something that I will personally like, then I will gladly keep it. Otherwise, I just can't. I want to focus only on having the collection of stuff that I really look upon with kind of admiration and I can get satisfaction from. For now, with figures I have created it most certainly wasn't the case. So, yeah, keeping my expectations lower would be a smart thing to do, just I'm not sure if I will be able to do that. We will see, but for now I'm swaying from creating characters and I will focus on something to successfuly improve my skills, and get back to characters..., well, god knows when. Probably when I feel like I'm up to the task again.

Thanks for kind words and suggestions towards my attitude - I'm sure it has been playing a big part in my recent performance and I promise to improve in this aspect.

Leonard

Sure, take your time Loving Deidara. It's something we do for ourselves foremost, not to show on forums, not to brag about to our friends. Do whatever you feel like doing and you should be much happier about your work. By the wya, I can see how attached to art and anime you are even based on your name - I'm not a big fan of anime, but I had a chance to watch Naruto so I remember Deidara pretty well. I'm not too much of an Naruto fan, and well, other animes of sort, but Deidara was really cool and characteristic figure. Besides, he actually was the master of creation and I cannot say, that it didn't help me get a better connection with him as a character ;)

Flying Deidara

Yes, Deidara was really awesome. I haven't tried to build him yet, despite it's one of my favorite anime characters ever. Probably because I don't want to a bad-looking one, that would be a real boomer :D But once I feel ready, I would gladly make a Deidara's origami character and I promise to do my best here :)

Coffeegirl

Nice thread! I'm a beginner in origami and I'm 100% certain that I don't have any talent for that, so it will probably take me a while before I will even make my mind to try and make some figure or an anime character, so for now I'm only enjoying doing simple stuff and slowly polishing my stuff. Just wanted to say, that justl ike you I'm a big anime fan and hopefully I will be able to make some characters as well - for now I have resorted to drawing, which I am actually much better in, but it unfortunately doesn't bring me as much joy as origami does. Anyway, I will follow the guidelines you guys have mentioned here -> less thinking, more creating and simply enjoy whatever I make :) Thanks!