It is easy to spot a Robin in a variety of songbirds. That´s due to their prominent red (or orange) belly. Recreating this with paper led to my most complex colour changes up to date.
Development
At first, I needed to find a general layout. This actually took the longest time, because I struggled to find a way for the belly. The difficulties were:
- A partially colour changed head
- a clean transition on the neck
- a colour changed belly, that changes colour again near the legs
- as few visible folds as possible
In the end, I started with the head. Due to the colour changes, I got a pattern similar to Satoshi Kamiya´s Japanese White Eye for the head. So, I checked, wether I could use some references from his design, which worked well for the neck and the legs. However, the had, body, wings, back and the tail are different than in his design. Here´s why:
If it were possible to achieve the final form I wanted, with minimal changes, I would have done so. However, I needed the belly to change colour again, because only the front should be red.
Additionally, I wanted wings without creases. Due to the colour change, I knew I couldn´t make the whole body perfectly clean. Therefore to make the wings stick out, I wanted them to remain uncreased in the base.
The crease pattern partially locks the back ( the rest of the back closes itself automatically). This was great for shaping.
The crease pattern is a 22.5° design and can be found below. Due to the many differences (to the Japanese white eye), I think I can call it my original design.
Folding process
It´s one of the rare cases, where the crease pattern could be folded like following an instruction. I´m very satisfied with the way the model turned out: The colour changes works, it can stand on it´s own and it is closed from all sides.
The Robin was designed as a birthaday gift in 2024.
