The Trial Run

Before I could volunteer to make life size origami at Star Wars Celebration III I needed to be sure it could be done on that scale. I chose to make Jabba the Hutt because it has some complex folds as well as being one of my personal favorites. I figured if the 8 point sink fold could be done with a piece of paper this size I could do any of the figures I had planned to make. The first problem was finding paper that size. Once that was licked, the next problem was finding a place to fold paper that size. The Lancaster High School allowed me to use their auditorium and the advanced art class students were my volunteer folders. It took almost 90 minutes to make the big guy and I learned there were a lot of problems that needed to be addressed which you don’t normally deal with when working with regular sized paper. Large paper has a tendency to rip when folding so we ended up patching a lot of holes and assigned 2 people to “Tape Duty”. I had bought several small rollers used for smoothing wallpaper to make the creases. It turns out using one’s feet made better creases on this scale. Lastly, and most importantly, I learned it could be done.

40 minutes into the folding and it looks like we haven’t done a thing. Notice all the creases which the 8 point sink fold will use.

The infamous 8 point sink fold…

A valley fold here, A sink fold there, some well placed squash folds and Presto.. Jabba comes to life. A quick note to the students. Thank you all. It wouldn’t have been possible without your help.

This is an 18 x 18 foot piece of paper. The look on the student’s faces when I told them what they would be doing was priceless.

… and the results of an 8 point sink fold.