49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great book full of variety!!, August 3, 2006
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Origami Zoo: An Amazing Collection of Folded Paper Animals (Paperback)
This is the first origami book I have bought,Origami Zoo. Before I got this book I had to print heaps of stuff off the internet, and before long I had a huge collection of stuff I put in a folder. I soon found out that all the models I had printed out were way too hard for me, even though I'm around the intermediate to advanced level!! As cool as they may sound, the Biplane always confused me, the Bee always ripped and the Alien always became too small and thick.
But then I discovered Amazon.com. Here there were millions of choices of origami books, but I chose to get "Origami Zoo, an Amazing Collection of folded paper animals." This book was at my level exactly!!
My fav models are, so far:
- The Penguin. Even though this is one of the easiest, it still looks lifelike side-on.
- The Owl. This model is also 2D, but it perches on a thin rod, and looks lifelike as well.
- The Duck. This model is a particularly cute 3D one!
- The Sea Turtle. This model is both fun to make and cool to look at!!
- The Fox. This model is rather easy, 3D, and lifelike!
None of the models in this book are very easy. Most of them are at the intermediate level, but the last 10 or so models are complex. I still haven't gotten to the real complex models yet, but when I do, I hope I have a lot of large origami paper on hand!!
This book contains info at the start, about folds, paper, designing models and so on.
I would recommend this book to people who like to make a variety of animals, not just plain four legged animals, but insects and sea creatures as well!!
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32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Some of the best animal models around!, September 21, 2000
This review is from: Origami Zoo: An Amazing Collection of Folded Paper Animals (Paperback)
This book deserves 5 stars just for the praying mantis...probably my favorite model I ever folded. So completely true to life, it's scary. My dad was never very impressed with my origami, but many years ago when he saw that mantis I folded sitting out on the table, he swiped it to take into work to show off. So I folded another one just for him, which he still has to this day. My only complaint is that this model does not use square paper, but a little measuring and cutting is well worth it for the finished result.
There are plenty of other good models in here, the crab, the eagle, etc. There are some intermediate models to get you started on (dolphin, penguin, swan), but this is definitely a book for an experienced folder and will take some practice and patience to get through the harder models. The mantis is not the only model with non-square paper, and I find that Lang does have a tendency to be fairly sparse on his diagramming in comparison to someone like Montroll who really doesn't skimp on helping you through the intermediate steps. This does make these models a bit more challenging than they would be if more thoroughly diagrammed, so if you are a fairly new origamist, I would recommend starting with some of John's books before moving up to this one. Even with my experience, some models like the butterfly continue to frustrate me due to some steps that I always seem to get stuck on.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Splendid, Scintillating, A must for origami fan., December 2, 1999
This review is from: Origami Zoo: An Amazing Collection of Folded Paper Animals (Paperback)
This book contains dozens of origami animals, ranging from med to highly-complex. At first we may doubt this is just another routine four-leg animals. However, two authors give us models unexpectedly various, and most of the figurations are wonderful. We have some of the most beauitful modeling here: A crab, a eagle in full-spread wing(with the feathers!), A dog in the doghouse(single paper), A very vivid rabbit. And the folding steps are full of wonder. The only disadvantage in this book is that for a new folder the diagrams are very neat and succinct, usually Several steps combined in one diagram. But this deserves since this book contains so many models and they are arranged by level of difficulty. This is a must for any origami fan.
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