Spinosaurus -Kamiya

    I finally folded it!

    Designed by: Satoshi Kamiya
    Diagrams: Origami Tanteidan Convention 17
    Paper: one 19" square of tracing paper
    Time spent folding: 4-5 hours
    Size: 13" with tail stretched out

    Comments and faves

    1. langko (16 months ago | reply)

      Cool! this looks really good :) great job

    2. ★

      langko added this photo to his favorites. (16 months ago)

    3. shuki.kato (16 months ago | reply)


      Thanks man, you commented really fast!

    4. 100dodo (16 months ago | reply)

      Great fold !! Really good

    5. Magic Fingaz (16 months ago | reply)

      Bravo,fantastique......

    6. Sayac (16 months ago | reply)

      Excellect!

    7. langko (16 months ago | reply)

      it was just good timing, I went on flickr pretty much the same time that you uploaded the picture :)

    8. EyalR (16 months ago | reply)

      Great fold and shaping,Shuki!
      And the shadow looks great,very good photo!

    9. Arturori (16 months ago | reply)

      Very nice.

    10. Ferorigami (16 months ago | reply)

      Very good fold! Ilike the claws!

    11. joshua goutam [deleted] (16 months ago | reply)

      Another pretty much perfect fold, well folded!

    12. gj0kyz (16 months ago | reply)

      That really is an amazing fold Shuki; the toe, claw and head details are amazing. Many congratulations.

    13. ★

      DebugMode added this photo to his favorites. (16 months ago)

    14. folding~W.EL.L (16 months ago | reply)

      Very nice!

      Too bad it was recently discovered it was anatomically inaccurate... xD

    15. origamifolder (16 months ago | reply)

      wow! the head is shaped perfectly!

    16. ★

      raudonasrubinas added this photo to her favorites. (16 months ago)

    17. shuki.kato (16 months ago | reply)


      Thanks as always!!!

      I know, right? Time for me to design a new one...

    18. folding~W.EL.L (16 months ago | reply)

      @shuki - I wanna see if I can be the first one to design a "correct" version of Spinosaurus... >=D

      I happened so to tell Pete about Spino's anatomic error and he seemed to be interested in it...

    19. Phillip Curl (16 months ago | reply)

      I need to fold this soon, seeing it can be done with tracing paper, and that i have the book just sitting on my desk collecting dust.

    20. shuki.kato (16 months ago | reply)


      I would design another in a heartbeat, but the new construction isn't absolute either, for sure the sail was higher than imagined behind the midsection, but how far did it extend and what was it's shape?

      For those who haven't seen it, the first image talked about at the origami forum:
      link

      Either way, sadly my own design is now super atomically incorrect...

    21. ★

      WendoSingers added this photo to his favorites. (16 months ago)

    22. Danielle Verbeeten (16 months ago | reply)

      Oh wow! Great rendition!

    23. ★

      Danielle Verbeeten added this photo to her favorites. (16 months ago)

    24. Marco Pasini (16 months ago | reply)

      Good job!!

    25. ★

      love20075 added this photo to his favorites. (16 months ago)

    26. love20075 (16 months ago | reply)

      谢谢您的教程！！那是我最棒的新年礼物！！

    27. gailprentice (16 months ago | reply)

      Really perfect.

    28. origamiPete (16 months ago | reply)

      This is an excellent fold, but your own design is great too, even though the sail doesn't extend to the tail ;-)

    29. shuki.kato (16 months ago | reply)

      I wish it was that simple, all we really know is that the sail was taller farther back, check out these links:
      browse.deviantart.com/?order=5&q=spinosau rus#/d4lzp4d
      qilong.deviantart.com/art/Spines-Thorns-and-S pikes-198287540

      and according to some sites, they actually found the hind limbs (first time ever) and they were significantly shorter than envisioned!

      translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=i t&u=http...
      3.bp.blogspot.com/-ewibs2_LWiE/TX6GF3CXBZI/AA AAAAAAAvw/Po...

      I've thought about modifying the base for Giganotosaurus, which shouldn't be to difficult, to a spino, but I have no idea what proportions are now the most accurate.

    30. origamiPete (16 months ago | reply)

      yeah, it's really hard to do an accurate model of an extinct animal...
      about the short hindlegs... it's possible, i've even seen a spinosaurus reconstructed walking on all fours, plus it didn't have a sail, but a hump (like a bison), but I fear theropod arms with palms turned inwards aren't the best starting point to evolve into something that can support weight, and actively aid the locomotion, the nail to the coffin of this idea would be that the wrist wouldn't allow this, and besides I think the animal held its fishing hooks off the ground in order to not damage them =P
      There are so many variables and spinosaurus has been such a mysterious theropod for such a long time, the original type speciemen has been destroyed during WWII so there were no recorded remains for much of the rest of the 20th century, until photogrphs have been found, that it really is hard to reconstruct the animal, but there have been some new discoveries of related dinosaurs, like Irritator, Suchomimus and Baryonyx, all of whom were used as a guide on how to reconstruct the missing parts, but if the hindlegs are from aan adult, then it only shows that we cannot be sure until we find the actual remains. What is sure, though, is that the long vertebral extensions continued on a signifficant portion of the tail, that can be implied from the image you posted above, where you can see the spines in front of the pelvis aretilted towards the head, while the long spine behind the pelvis is tilted towards the tip of the tail. this is true for othr dinosaurs with similar long vertebral spines, like acrocanthosaurus and more obviously ouranosaurus, where the spines are longer and the "sail" covers the majority of the tail and follows a downward slope from the hip towards the tip of the tail.
      To say the least, I think the spines are quite too massive to be just a sail like dimetrodon had (it is really hard to imagine dimetrodon or edaphosaurus having a bison-like hump, because the vertebrl extensions are very thin, whereas spinosaurus has far more massive ones. Even though Spino' was incomparably larger animal, disregarding the hump-backed reconstruction wouldn't be wise at all, and I'm fairly open-minded towards this idea.
      That said, If the hindlegs are really shorter than previously thought, a question arises, whether it evolved the ability to walk on all four or whether it retained its bipedal stance. I think shorter legs make sense, making the large animal able to reach the water with its forelegs without having to bow too much. Spinosaurus shows many distinct differences in comparison with other spinosaurids, namely the nostrill very near to the eye, making a large portion of the upper jaw solid bone and thus able to withstand forces delivered by a wildly fighting prey, while is "cousins" had a nistril midway on the snout or closer to the tip, making the upper jaw weaker. I think spinosaurus had many adaptations that were extraordinary among spinosaurids and theropods in general, naming the snout and the "sail", so shorter hindlegs, if the fossil record says so, should be accepted as the way the animal looked, but if the proportional difference is too signifficant, then I would definitely want to know whether the bone could be from a younger (smaller) individual,but I think if that was the case, the bone would have to be thinner too, if the bone is thick enough in cross section to belong to a mature individual, while being proportionally shorter, then it just is the way the animal looked like and we shouldn¨t be so surprised about it, Some birds have long legs, some short, so we shouldn¨t be all that much surprised to see a theropod with shorter legs than we see fit, it's entirely possible. =)
      I'm interested in making my own model of a spinosaurus myself, but not before I gather enough information.
      It would be nice to fold one in such a way to display the possible reconstructions (hump or very muscular structure - without a sail - but extending over the tail, short hindlegs, just for the fun of it, and to show that things are so many times very different from what the mass media and the internet feeds us with =D

    31. shuki.kato (16 months ago | reply)


      I knew you would be interested, wow you already have a ton of info!!

      I don't want to discredit the possibility of a "buffalo hump" either, but from what I've read, the dorsal spines were quite slim and weak at the top to support so much mass, and their height would dwarf that of a buffalo's hump.
      More than anything, I'm surprised at how little we used to know about this dinosaur. Back in 2008 when I designed my own version, I looked at as many reconstructions as I could find and seeing no definitive version, decided to go with with a baryonyx skeleton with attached sail for proportional references. One thing I always had in mind was to keep the height of the sail at about the same amount as the length of the head (in real life, ~6-7 feet), one of the big differences from Satoshi Kamiya's interpretation.

    32. origamiPete (16 months ago | reply)

      Hmmm... Then it probably had a "sail" after all =)
      it's good to have someone to talk to about this. ;-
      Yes, I think Kamiya pretty much nailed nothing except the forelegs, the torso is too short, the hindlegs of his model are too long (of which he couldn't know when making the model though), the head, no matter the detail, is done after an outdated skull reconstruction (of which he COULD have known), the sail is minuscule in comparison with its possible extent and the tail is too short and thin. I think your one looked far better ballanced, which is the reason why I prefered your model over his and still do =)

    33. shuki.kato (16 months ago | reply)


      Lol, I would never have the guts to criticize Kamiya that harshly! Nevertheless, it is a very elegant design with plenty of details.

    34. origamiPete (16 months ago | reply)

      Of course I was kidding, truth is I would not mistake his spinosaurus for a different dinosaur, which is good, right? =D
      besides, I like the model, but it worths pointing out that no matter the model itself looks nice, it is proportionally off in places where it was avoidable. Even though kamiya improved the overall appearance of the model, he didn't use the new information to his adwantage, but I think i'm too nerdy sometimes... =D
      Actually, this

      is the spinosaurus I'd feel bad for criticising, because it was made in line with the current knowledge at the time it was made - it has been a while since it has been done - and it's far older than Kamiya's updated one. It's too bad it would probably be pain in the neck to draw diagrams for that thing, but i think it would win over Kamiya's one in the number of people who would fold the model. It has also a monsterish spirit, it looks dangerous.
      Your model has its own charm too, it looks very elegant, it somehow grew on me the first time I've seen it, it didn't look overly complicated and the crease pattern is very clever. ;-)

    35. folding~W.EL.L (16 months ago | reply)

      I don't think Kamiya's was that bad... I think the snout is somewhat blunt and the sail is not that high, but otherwise I thought it was a decent work...

      The legs may or may not have been short or long for that matter; there's no conclusive evidence about the size of Spino's legs, so that was simply a matter of interpretation for Kamiya.

      I think Tran's Spino has the most detail, but it has the same anatomical flaw that pretty much every other Spino has (spine placement... well maybe not Yoshino's...). With the limited information about Spino's true form, I think it's a matter of time to see who is the first to make a Spino with the adjusted sail.

    36. Phillip Curl (16 months ago | reply)

      I agree, Tran's is the best. After that, I think its a pretty good tie between Shuki's v2 one and Satoshi's one.

    37. Raptorex (16 months ago | reply)

      I am new to any sort of online forum or online origami resource but I want to say how incredible your models are! In addition to origami I love dinosaurs; and I can say that according to past knowledge all models mentioned are spot on, as far as origami goes. There is no need to design a perfectly accurate model every time - just to capture the essence of the beast. The "new" knowledge of the spinosaurus will change again just as it has changed already several times.. The shape of the sail was never really established, Jurassic Park just that shape popular so this isn't reall y news to scientists. My favorite reconstruction is Todd Marshall's painting The Pharoh's Prize which combines many different atonamical theories with ornate horns. I suggest you take a look at it. Also, my main reason for posting. What kind of tracing paper do you use??

    38. shuki.kato (16 months ago | reply)


      Thanks and I'm glad you're interested! The spinosaurus you speak of is indeed pretty awesome I agree.

      As for the paper, pretty much any "parchment" tracing paper will do. For this one used "Bienfang fine tracing paper", though "Strathmore 300 series" and "Speedball Tracing Paper" both work just as well.

    39. Raptorex (16 months ago | reply)

      Thank you for taking the time to respond! I have two pads of Strathmore tracing paper, though I can't get a usable square from them because the edges are not parallel, I suppose it is just a defect in the particular pads I have. I'll try again sometime soon. Thanks again!

    40. ★

      origami J S H added this photo to his favorites. (16 months ago)

    41. 米北的小铁匠0 (16 months ago | reply)

      cool

    42. ★

      Mike's_Braveheart added this photo to his favorites. (13 months ago)

    43. Mike's_Braveheart (13 months ago | reply)

      amazing shape

    44. sin cynic (13 months ago | reply)

      Spectacular work. Your effort shows with all that shaping on the pleats for the toes, the curves on the jaw and tail, and the overall posture--it looks lifelike!

    45. ★

      Peter Saydak added this photo to his favorites. (12 months ago)

    46. Peter Saydak (12 months ago | reply)

      Really awesome! Especially the claws on the feet.

    47. ★

      米北的小铁匠0, Anson Chang ORIGAMI, hanan bercu, and dargom2012 added this photo to their favorites.

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