Progressive Crease Patterns

Origami diagrams are difficult and time-consuming to draw, but (hopefully) easy to follow. Conversely, crease patterns are easy to draw, but difficult to follow. I myself can usually manage a simple crease pattern, but I tend to struggle with complex ones, especially if mountain and valley folds are not differentiated. Sometimes it seems that a crease pattern is presented more as a demonstration of the cleverness of the creator, rather than as a genuine attempt to assist the potential folder. Indeed, there are some folders who are so intimidated by crease patterns that they do not even attempt to fold from them.

I therefore present the idea of a progressive crease pattern as a kind of halfway house between full diagrams and standard crease patterns: easier to draw than full diagrams, but easier to follow than a standard crease pattern. At the moment this idea is purely experimental - if you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. I would especially like to hear from creators who feel this may be a convenient way of passing on designs, and from folders who have difficulty with standard crease patterns. On the other hand, you may feel that the whole idea is pointless and unnecessary - feel free to tell me that, too.

If you've taken the trouble to read through this lot you'll probably be wanting to get to the patterns themselves....

Beetle - Horse - More to follow (?)

Progressive crease patterns on other web sites

Kael Kael Origami by Mickaël Courouble - featuring a PCP for Staro's Mutant Crane

Design in Origami by Nicolas Terry - another version of the Mutant Crane, plus Nicolas's beautiful Little Big Duck

Star Wars Origami at the Happy Magpie - a PCP for the creature from the movie Pitch Black. (If you like sci-fi stuff, check out the rest of this site for lots of Star Wars and other sci-fi folds.)

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