I actually love hats, and I wear them on daily basis. I basically have three different designs with one baseball cap, which I'm not really using for daily basis, but rather when going out casually, with friends or going to any kind of sports events. We have our weekly sports meetings with a bunch of friends - running, street work out and stuff like this. Showing in a hat would be heavily impractical, but nicely designed baseball cap makes you look more stylish, and as for me personally - makes me feel better and thus performance better.

From what I remember, I should still have a nicely done baseball cap from a navy color paper, pretty big, but not sure if big enough to fit around my head actually. Yet this one was the hardest for me to make - I was still pretty beginner back then and making a bigger scale baseball caps is actually pretty hard, hats are much easier for the record - at least for me. Yet, that was a couple of years ago, now it shouldn't be a problem at all and I would give myself 40 minute - 1hr top to make one.

I also have Cricket Hat from local Newspaper - really old-school design, well probably because the newspaper was used, I actually wonder how it looks now over the years, I have hidden it somewhere in the garage pretty well, haven't seen it for a while. Definitely gotta check in on this one. I made myself a typical Police Hat too, although this is the one I surely won't wear to the public haha. Or well, maybe I can, not sure. Got to read on that, I don't want to be later charged with accussation of claiming to be a police officer or whatever, I know that laws are pretty strict on that whatsoever and there is very little room to have fun in this niche. What else - cowboy hat, santa hat, I believe I should still have them, but they were made from a pretty small scale, so I frankly doubt, that I will get to fit them anywhere on my head.

We will see, but that's actually a great idea you had and I'm glad that you came through with it. Wearing an origami hat is surely pretty much different and requires some 'balls' to step on and actually do that. I will try follow your example and we will see what will people say. I believe they will be pretty much chill about it and just have a laugh, maybe I will inspire some to make them a hat though. I can see women looking really great in such hats

Wow, you have done pretty complex models guys. I have actually done most of them. Antique Dragon sure is hard, but after a few completed, it's getting pretty easy. The Violinist though is on a different level. I have done a couple of them and even then I feel like I didn't get it right exactly. Surely the one, that I would put on my list without a hesitation. I will probably give it another try this week, we will see if I will be able to achieve satisfy myself completely this time :)

Gryphon by Kade Chan is hard too. No wonder you have put it as the hardest on your list, it's definitely in my top 5 as well. I have only completed it two times, I wonder if I will be to do any better now as it was some time since I have last created one. Will need to give it a go to.

Mantis is one of my favorite though and I definitely didn't have as much hard time as you did. But, I understand that it's extremely hard to get all those details right. I have completed Mantis around 5 times, last time in January. Possibly I will give it a go too soon, it's always fun to create one.

Haven't built the Crab that you mentioned. I mean, there is quite a few similiar crabs and as long as I have built one that fits the description in the past, I think we are talking about a different crabs. A picture would settle this, but still, those complex animals are always a pain - same with Elephant. Seems fairly easy to do, but once you get on it, there is just so many elements that are imperfect and that you could improve on. Besides, there is many patterns and many instructions, so it's actually better to always refer to a certain book from which it comes.

If I am to be honest, even if I have completed many, many different projects, I still have quite a lot of to do. Books of complex origamis by our masters are full of less-known and equally hard and satisfying models. Surely gotta do quite a lot of them before I give a try to my end-game Ryujin next year :)

Looks great SaraXK. I have indeed used them for everything you have mentioned, but you hade made some great suggestions nonetheless - I'm sure many people here will now find a way to apply their washi tapes and come up with their own ideas along. Well, I haven't build a car track with them yet though. I don't have children, but I may as well have soon, so it could be great to start making one in my spare time, especially as it's quite a lot of work, but as you said can be very rewarding :) I will make sure to chip in here once I made it and show you guys some pics and general feedback. But, don't expect me to do this quickly. Unfortunately don't have much time to spend on new hobby projects and well, it's quite a lot of work, especially with my character which needs everything to be done basically near perfection :)

Ayy, the nostalgy comes upon me when I look at my old Washi tapes. Don't get me wrong, I still make them from time to time, but rather just to create something, anything actually, as I already have applied them eveywhere I could and frankly have no further use for them. Sure, your imagination is the key figure before all that, but the fact is that where else am I going to apply it? I have probably made over 200 of Washi tapes in my life and only found enough room to apply like 30-35 of them, and that's by decorating the very same thing with loads of them. I applied them to my albums, pencils, pens, clippers, made fridge magnets, made tiny flags, changed the design of my computer keyboard, marked a calendar, made my clothes pins cuter, even covered my laptop a little bit. Frankly, I have no slightest idea of what else I can come up with, but yeah, I love to make them from time to time just for the sake of creating something whenever I'm bored.

I basically make them in whatever form I want and just throw them in the box, maybe later I will be able to come up with some more uses for it, but for now just stacking them at the box, along with many other origami stuff. The nostalgy is real though. Back when I was starting it was one of the very first things, that I have making with origami paper and basically learning the whole art from the scratch. Gotta admit, that you have done fairly well anyway as it took your only 5 hours to create some I hope pretty nice washi tapes, but it's hard to go wrong with their design, every single one of them is literally beautiful in their own way. I took much longer, but yes, like I have already said - I was terrible in doing anything related to manual skills, so my learning curve was probably a bit different than for most people.

Well, I forgot about helping you out with the most important actully - paper size. I believe anything above 40+cm is kind of unpractical, unless you aim for a very specific or complex design, that requires you to use a bigger paper. Most people actually use smaller pieces and so do those that make those tutorial videos or are writing instructions. Why? Because it's much easier for 80% of origami arts to be made with a small paper rather than a big one. Basically, the only advantage of a bigger paper is that it folds easier, but anything else is much harder, which is most likely the reason why you couldn't get done the projected mentioned above. It's not because you have too big hands, although if you have overly big hands, then origami can be indeed difficult.

Technically, people with smaller hands should be better at those kind of manual stuff, hence so many Asians are skilled in drawing and origami, but I don't particularly find it true. Unless like I said - your hands are actually too big, but most likely it's the size of your paper, you should swap to a smalelr one and learn how to create from a smaller one before you will scale your way up to the bigger paper. Bigger paper only folds easier, but creating a Lotus for example with a big paper is much more difficult.

Anyway, keep trying and let us know how did it go for you on a smaller paper.

Well, the thing is, that firstly - the projects you have picked for yourself are not as easy as you may think. Both Lotus and the Leaf are of at least intermediate level, at least in order to be able to make them properly. Both Lotus and Leaf are pretty much detailed, I would say leaf is much more, but making a nice looking Lotus surely isn't a piece of cake either. 5-pointed star is easier, true, but still I wouldn't exactly recommend it to total beginners. You can have a look at my thread with various tutorials and you should get a better idea on what to build as an beginner. I would actually recommend to start with a 'Chick', it's probably one of the most basic origami arts there are, and I have wrote a short, but hopefully understandable for beginners guide. Supplement it with pictures and a video, and you should be able to make your first Chick without any problems.

Drawing is really great. I was always pretty bad manually so I never really got into drawing, but I can't say that I haven't tried. I did, and quite a lot actually. I have a friend who is really good at drawing, he is horrible in origami, but I'm sure that he would be able to learn that eventually. But, as far as drawing goes, he is really great - he can draw basically anything you want, although I have noticed, that as far as both drawing and origami goes, i's all about what you want to make. If somebody imposes a certain idea on you, and you yet do not have too much of an experience in either drawing or origami, it's extremely hard to get it done well. Best projects always come straight from the heart, we need to have the desire to really make it. I mean, now that I am much more experienced in Origami, you can drop me an idea, and I will make sure to make it, but at the beginning it's a little bit harder as it requires a lot of time to really master it, and you really need a good reason or feel totally into it to make it good.

So, nice to have you here and I'm counting on you becoming an active member of this community!

Welcome! I'm not too much of an anime fan, but I have watched some relevant series. Glad to see you here, Origami is heavily ingrained in Japanese and Asian culture in general, so I feel pretty closely related to them as well. I may not like their music or anime, but food, Japanese samurai era and the amount of talented origami artists is surely appealing.

Shame, that you have never been to Japan yet and I hope, that you will be able to visit this country someday. It's a really lovely place, although I have only been to Tokyo for a month when I was outsourced to work there a little bit for company. Unfortunately, as I was heavily preoccupied with work I couldn't make any longer travels to other destinations, but I can assure you that seeing and experiencing in whole even a simple Tokyo is way too much for just a month. I feel like I should spend there at least 3 months to actually experience a big and extremely developed city like Tokyo, there is just so much to do, food stores everywhere, anime shops, very cool people, you can literally ask people for directions in English and they will guide you right to your destination, which is kind of the opposite of what I have experienced in Europe and North America.

Just make sure, that you bother people in the evening as Japanese people really value their work and they have very little time to spare during the day, but in the evening, when they are all post-work and are have some spare time, they are the friendliest bunch I ever had the possibility to meet. So yes, you definitely must go to Tokyo, especially if you love Japanese culture so much, you can't go wrong with this city. Hope you gonna make it!

Well, as an example I can give my younger self - I was never good manually just like you, and learning Origami was a pretty much big struggle for me. I have started from the simplest of models there were available and I was struggling with them as well, but I really liked it, so even though I kept failing and failing, I was actually enjoying that and thanks to that I was able to go forward. You have to figure out yourself whether you really like it or not, because after all you are doing it for yourself. You don't do origami to impress anybody, you don't want to have your own designs and compete with world's masters. You just do it because you want to and you enjoy it. For me it's a way to shut down my brain a little bit from everyday's problems and just focus on something else entirely, on something, that I actually enjoy. Some do enjoy it, some doesn't. From what you write you seem like you really love it, but you are not sure what you do because you are afraid of being bad at it. Don't worry, everyone is bad at the beginning, such is origami after all. Some will always be more talented and some will less, you don't even have to tell anyone that you are practicing origami before you actually learn something, that you can show in front of your friends for example. Just keep it to yourself and keep doing it if you really like it. If not, then then quit now, but don't make your decision based on whether you are good at somethign or not.

I was actually lead a small group for a local primary school a few years ago from art. I mean, a friend of mine is a teacher there, he is mostly teaching kids how to draw and he asked me if I would be able to come around and show children the origami. Frankly, much less was interested than I supposed to. I guess the smartphone era, PC games at home etc., draw their attention to a much bigger extent than drawing and origami does. Literally once I showed a couple of projects (they were easy and interested), the kids basically fell asleep. There were maybe 4 kids, that kind of actually tried to achieve something - and they were pretty good at that too, they have completed all the models I have shown them and was eager to try out more. I doubt that they actually followed on this alone as I said - once you get back home, you have more appealing and interesting, at least for kids, world of pc games, online games with their friends and stuff. But at least some of them were interested, yet much less than I thought. Maybe it will be different in your case as after all, you are introducing it to your family, and as it usually is at family meetings, kids are usually pretty much bored. So, you should be able to get their attention, but I wouldn't get my hopes up, that they will stick to this long-term. But maybe, if they really like it and you are a good teacher (I apparently was not) you can succeed.

As for models, that I would recommend: Crane, fish, snowman, simple cat, crown and a boat. Those you have mentioned are great too, definitely show them some animals too if possible. Generally, try to get them interested and get their attention - in my case snowman worked really well for example. Simple cat was good too, kids love dogs and cats foremost.

Good luck! :)

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 ;)

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.

Thanks a lot Albatrose. I'm very glad that you have made it work and a bit surprised, that a Swan was quite easy for you, especially as you said you are a beginner. I remember creating my first Swan was quite of a nightmare for me haha. But then again, like I said - I was literally terrible in anything that required manual work. I never worked much manually and was a typical computer geek, so as long as I was pretty handy with mouse and keyboard, anything else was pretty hard to do for me. I remember how father used to scold me when we were renovating our home and I was helping him. I was so clueless about it and even following step-by-step instructions from him weren't that easy. Now, after years of practicing origami I'm also doing some kind of white-collar jobs myself. Not professionaly by any means, but rather helping my wife to have a nice flat + you can save yourself tons of money if you are handy with this kind work as doing everything by yourself is extremely cheap, apart from time of course. So yeah, origami has definitely led me on the right path and I owe it a lot.

As for you though - you may be simply talented if it was so easy for you, make sure to share some pictures too once you have time, we would love to see some pictures of your Swan - don't worry, even if it doesn't look exactly right, there is tons of time practice and polish your skills! :P

Yup, I know what you mean Catapult - they are not exactly 'complete', but as I said, this is was partly my goal as well. I didn't want to build a step-by-step exact tutorial, but rather highlight the most important things during building something. For people with already some experience with origami, this should totally be enough. Anyway, in my future tutorials, I will try to keep it more detailed and hopefully you will guys be more happy then

Thanks guys. Flying Bird - I appreciate your warm words, yeah, I guess I could make it a little bit more detailed, but then again I already had the detailed video in mind, so just wanted to put those tutorials as short as possible - basically highlighting only the most important steps, as those simple activities are pretty hard to write about and well, you will already understand them once you watch the video or even see the pictures, so I tried to focus on the very foundations.

But, If I am to make any more tutorials I would be glad to make some pics or well, maybe even a video and keep it much more detailed, like step-by-step for total beginners, if you would like it guys.