Making a Micro-Fox with Origami

1. Introduction: Hi. I'm torture And I must stop motion animator on I also love or rig Army. Recently I got into really teeny tiny origami A bit like this little fox que hay, But I've never actually combined my love of origami with my skill set off stop motion animation. So I thought that this video would be a great opportunity to challenge myself to go from a flat piece of paper like this into a cute little fox all through animation. So I'm going to start by walking you through fold by fold so that you, too, can make yourself one of these adorable little creatures. I think they're incredibly cute. Literally. I have been making loads of these. I have had so much fun. I've even named them different names, so let's get started. 2. What You Will Need: So to make your own little origami folks, you will need a pair of scissors, a blunt implement like a plastic needle or the soft end of a T pin to get some really firm folds on a piece of square paper that is colored on one side and white on the other. If you want to make books exactly the same size as mine, you need a piece of paper that is six centimeters square. 3. Foxy Folding: so actually might expect these tiny little foxes use hardly any paper it all. So the first thing that you want to do is take your square of paper and fold it in half on usual blunt implement to make sure that your crease is really, really sharp on. Fold the paper inside out as well, just to ensure that you've got really good fold. There you want to come in with you scissors. Cut that down the line, and now you'll have two pieces of rectangular paper, so essentially you can make to Fox's out of every square. Now turn your piece of paper over so its color side down, and take one of those bottom corners on. Pull it up to meet the edge of the opposing side on, push it down nice and firmly and use your blunt implement to get that nice, sharp crease and then you want to do this on the other side as well. So pull up the other corner, pull it across to the opposing side on usual blunt implement to get a nice firm increase. The next step is to fold a piece of paper in half again along the length do this on both sides again to make sure that you crease is nice and strong on. Now we're on to the first complicated fold. So to do this, you want to take the bottom edge of your piece of paper and you want to pull this up on kind of folded inwards. So you've getting this l shape the inner part wants to be white, and the outer part wants to be the color of your paper on what you need to ensure. Is that the fold that you made diagonally across your paper lines up with the top edge of the inner white part that will make sure everything is in the right place to achieve the perfect fox. Now, the next thing you want to do is on the white part. Off the l take the corner. Andi folded upwards to about halfway up. So you've got a little tiny triangle that you've made there. Then turn your paper shape over and do the exact same thing on the other side to take the corner and pull it up on. Make sure that your crease is nice and firm. Now you want to fold that bottom flap in half. So you wanna pull up from the base so that it reaches that top edge on. You also want to do this on both sides. So once you have pulled up, made sure you got a firm crease turning over and do the same on the other side. Now we're at the point where it's probably the most tricky fold to get right in. The whole process we want to do is you want to splay out the bottom fold that you've made there and you kind of want to turn this inside out. You can see I'm pulled it. And I flattened out the folds that I've made there. And then you want to kind of pull the two sides down together to create a different L with a really skinny tail. If you're familiar with origami, I believe that this fold is called an inside reverse fold. It took me quite a while to master this fold. But once you've got the knack, it is quite simple to pull the paper in that way. Now the next part of the process is to make the fox's tail. So what you want to do is take that skinny part of the L, and you want to fold it upwards as far as you can to get this sort of fan look, And then again on the other side, turning over on, fold the edge up as well. Now, to make the fox's tail have a nice point. Open those flaps back out on fold the corner down to meet the crease in the middle on both sides. This will give you a nice tip to your fox's tail. And then you can just fold the sides back up and you'll see here. You've got a lovely little brush tip with the white end and and it looks nice and foxy. Now, the next step is to make the foxes chest and head. And to do this, you want to fold from the other side. So the larger part of the L that you've got left, you want to fold it out to the middle so you get this triangular shape. Andi, do this on both sides again on then. From this point, you want to fold the other way, so take the edge of the paper and fold it back towards the middle. So you have got an even smaller triangle. Andi, do this on the other side as well. On what? You've done this. You actually want to unfold what you've just done. So take that final fold their skinny triangle and fold it back on. Then from the top, you want to take that corner down on reach the opposing side. Now, this is how you're gonna make your ears for your folks. Eso make sure that that creases nice and firm and do this on both sides as well. And then we're going to unfold that to on go back to the earlier fold with the skinny triangle. So you want to fold that back across and then this fold where you pulled the corner down? You want to use that to make your here so you'll have a fold line and you kind of you want to puff the ear out and then push it down flat so you'll get this little overhang which will create your ear. Now, the final step of making your fox is to puff his chest out and pull his head down. And to do this you want to put one finger in between the two halves of the white at the front and then put your other finger behind the back of his head and kind of pulled the head down on this will make your fox come alive, and then you can just pinch the front part where he got the white for his legs on. That will give him a bit more shape, and it should enable your folks to free stand on a table or a flat surface as well. 4. Stop Motion Origami Tips: So before we move on to you, seeing the time lapse of me making my own stop motion origami folks, I'm gonna give you a couple of top tips to help you along the way throughout your own animation process. Tip number one, you need to get yourself some sticky stuff. By that, I mean white tack or blue tack. It kind of looks like this comes in packets. It's sticky on that you can pull bits off on. This is ideal for origami. You take small bits and you stick it underneath or between the folds of your paper, and it will keep things in place and make things look really sleek and smooth. Now, another thing to bear in mind when using blue or white tack is be mindful of the placement where you put it. Try on obscure it from view from the camera. Because if you're seeing that in a short, it's gonna kind of ruin the illusion on you may wanna have to edit out in post production, so if you complacent it underneath or a position where the camera can't see it, then that is ideal. It may take a little bit of time to figure out where to put it. But it's worth taking the time to do that, because it will save you so much time later on, and it will make your work looks so much more professional on just cool. My second tip revolves around probably the most common question that I get asked about stop motion animation, and that is how far to move something each frame. Now, honestly, there is no easy answer. It kind of its instinct. Andi. Through experience and practice, you learn how far you need to move something to make it look good and look the way you want in its animated form. My tip. So if you're not quite sure how far to move something, whether to do a complete fold or a partial fold her picture always go with moving something less than you think, because you can always take more pictures and have more movements and speeding up afterwards. If you haven't taken enough pictures, then you know you can't slow it down. So always go with a lesser movement and take more pictures on, then afterwards. If it if it too slow, you can just speed up those frames on make it look how you want. So little movements are better than big movements. In that respect, Don't rush it. Take your time and take care. Pay attention to movements. You can always flick between frames as well to make sure it's moving. How you'd hoped on play back what you've already animated just to see if it looks right. It's better to find out 10 frames in that things aren't looking right so that you can start again then then to do the whole thing and then realize that you should have taken more pictures. Hopefully, those tips will help you get good results the first time around. Andi. Now we're going to see the time lapse of how animated my foxes. 5. Animating Your Origami: if you have felt inspired to make a little fox yourself, don't forget to tag me on social media because I would love to see. But now let's get stuck into the animation where I'm gonna turn this ordinary piece of paper into this magnificent and majestic little fox. So now we're onto the animation part of the process. I'm doing all with stop motion animation, using real paper on a piece of software called Dragon Frame. I've put some guides up there just to ensure that my paper stays in the plane of Focus and doesn't move around too much. And I'm basically doing the process that you've just seen to make a fox frame by frame. So this ended up being about 450 pictures altogether, and I'm just using some blue tack there to make sure that the folds look as sharp as possible in my animation. On trying to conceal the blue tack from the camera so that there's nothing that I need to edit out. This takes a little bit of patients, but it's worth it in the end because it means that there's no editing to do afterwards. I couldn't just stop there, though, could I? Fox's need friends, so I made a 2nd 1 as well 6. Outroduction: Thank you so much for taking my class today. Don't forget to leave me a review. If you have feedback, positive or negative, it helped me create better content for you and future students as well. Also, don't forget to follow me here on skill share to be notified every time I make a new class on if you want to see other content from May, I also have a YouTube channel on. You can find me elsewhere on the Internet as well. I post up quite consistently, so yeah, check it out if you're interested. If you have managed to make a little box yourself whether it's just a static image or an actual animated video, don't forget to draw pictures and links in the project window because I would love to see what you've created. Thank you very much for watching. I hope you're having a fantastic day and I'll catch you again in the next class.