Origami: Fold Types

orothrim (28)in #origami • 7 years ago (edited)

Origami Fold Types

Hello Steem!

Origami is a simple hobby, involving the folding paper into various shapes without using any cutting implements. The Origami crane is the best known piece to create, however there are many different piece that can be made. In this post I will go through the basic folds of Origami, which is to say the valley fold, the mountain fold and the squash fold. A pre-crease is when a fold is made, and unfolded, this is used to ensure later folds are easier at a later time. It is commonly necessary to do a number of pre-folds when doing a squash fold.

The Valley Fold:

The valley fold is very simple as it is merely folding along a line to create a valley on the top side, above is a valley fold which is the first step in creating an Origami butterfly. In many tutorials it is often represented by a dashed line, in which case fold one side up along the dashed line. In the event that you are doing a pre-crease, fold the valley fold then unfold it.

The Mountain Fold:

The mountain fold is the opposite of a valley fold, where the paper rises up like a mountain. It is sufficient to do a valley fold on the opposite side of the paper to create the mountain fold, but ensure you don't rotate the paper as you might place the mountain fold in the wrong place.

The Squash Fold:

A squash fold is more complex than the valley or mountain folds, as they tend to utilize various pre-creases in order to simplify the folding. A squash fold involves opening up two layers of paper from a specific point and then squashing the resulting creases out. It can also be described as following through on a number of pre-creases simultaneously. It often results in several mountain and/or valley folds occuring at the same time.

The above is a squash fold that uses three pre-creases and results in four simultaneous valley folds. This is a necessary step in folding an origami butterfly. Often on tutorials it can be difficult to understand what is occuring in a squash fold due to the difficulty in interpreting a single image of the paper.

I hope you enjoyed this small rundown, if you have any particular pieces you would like to learn to fold, leave a comment telling me what you would like. If you already do origami, I would love to see photos of one of your pieces in the comments.

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