From A Single Sheet Of Rice Paper, This Artist Created An Elaborately Armored Samurai

Larry Campbell
Jan 26, 2022
Jan 26, 2022

It took Juho Könkkölä 50 hours to score and fold just one sheet of Wenzhou rice paper to create this painstakingly detailed samurai complete with plated armor, traditional helmet, and sword.

Source: YouTube

Beginning with a 95 x 95-centimeter page, the 23-year-old Finnish artist used a combination of wet and dry origami techniques to shape the 28-centimeter-tall warrior of his own design.

Source: YouTube

“There are several hundreds of steps to fold it from the square and there are probably thousands of individual folds,” he stated, noting that crafting the geometric patterns for the armor was the most difficult. “The asymmetry in the design allowed me to include (a) sword on only one arm while being able to make the character look symmetric.”

Source: YouTube

The samurai took three months to complete from planning to execution. In fact, Könkkölä folded the character four times before folding the final one. He spent a couple of days to pre-cease the paper, and then a month finishing and shaping the figure.

Source: YouTube

In subsequent photos, Könkkölä shares how the samurai started to come together, bit by bit. Using binder clips as well as folds that start large and grow increasingly smaller, the three-dimensional form eventually became big enough to stand it on its own.

Source: YouTube

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