The Discworld
Folded by Annalisa for my brother Jeff in memory of Terry Pratchett.
ââŠThe Discworldâflat, circular, and carried through space on the back of four elephants who stand on the back of Great AâTuin, the only turtle ever to feature on the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram, a turtle ten thousand miles long, dusted with the frost of dead comets, meteor-pocked, albedo-eyed. No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum.
Much that is weird could happen on a world on the back of a turtle like that.
Itâs happening already.â
âfrom Pyramids by Terry Pratchett
Starring: Riccardo Foschiâs âSea Turtleâ as Great AâTuin Fumiaki Kawahataâs âElephantâ as Berilia, Great TâPhon, Jerakeen, and Tubul cahoonasâs âRed Blood Cellâ (modified) as the Discworld itself
To find out more about these models, there is a Behind the Scenes post here.
So I admiringly reblogged this likeâŠa year ago, possibly more. And finally I have made a Discworld!
I did a lot of mods, however. I went to the Behind The Scenes post for the diagrams to the figures, but of the three I only ended up using one of the recommended designs.Â
For the turtle, itâs a beautiful turtle but I didnât care for the video (it was very hard to follow) so instead I used the Origami Clubâs turtle here.Â
I did use the recommended elephant figure with video by Leyla Torres; I think itâs one of the more adorable elephant figures out there. Itâs not easy to fold but I had a really good time folding it anyway.Â
The elephants are also remarkably stable, which is good because cramming them onto AâTuin took some doing. No wonder the fifth one fell off.Â
The original post recommends a modified version of @cahoonasâs Red Blood Cell figure for the Discworld; they were playing with coloring and paper so I get why theyâd choose it. I love that figure, itâs an interesting combination of complexity and simplicity and itâs really satisfying to fold. But for this purpose I found it a little too uniform; I wanted more texture for the surface of the Disc.Â
So I went back to Origami Club and dug up the Ferris Wheel, which had the additional advantage of a blue rim for the oceans with a white center for the landmass, and central tips that could be folded up to create the mountain ranges at the Discâs hub.Â
With that many layers it gets a little tough to photograph convincingly, but Iâm very pleased with how it came out and I had fun improvising around the original. Iâm indebted to @foldswithinfolds for such great design and inspiration!Â
Discworld Heritage Post
