Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Origami for Halloween by Stephane Gigandet
Stephane Gigandet has released his first book, just in time for Halloween! Origami for Halloween is a collection of models designed by him around the Halloween theme. Now you can learn to make origami Halloween ghosts, an origami bat, and an origami skull, among other things. Many of these would make excellent origami Halloween decorations. Stephane was kind enough to provide a copy of the book for me to review, and also one to give away – thanks Stephane! More on that in a minute…
Note: This post contains affiliate links. See Disclosure below for more information.
The Author
Stephane Gigandet is a relative newcomer to origami, having only started folding in 2015. Despite this, he is a prolific designer, having created over 100 of his own designs. I need to up my game – I’ve only designed one model (my Olympic Rings) in over 30 years! Stephane is based in France, but is very active on social media & has fans and followers all over the world through his website origami.plus and his YouTube channel Origami Plus.
The Book
The first thing I noticed about this book is that it is attractive to look at. I have said before in other book reviews that I think this is important for origami books. Thankfully, most origami books are well designed now and the days of producing origami books as cheaply as possible on poor quality paper seem to be gone. The quality presentation continues throughout: Origami for Halloween is well presented, and the models are colourful and look appealing.
There are pages showing Stephane’s models folded by other people and how they have put their own ‘spin’ on Stephane’s designs. I think this is a nice touch – there doesn’t have to be a ‘right’ way to fold any model and it’s good to see how other people have interpreted the models.
The diagrams are clear and colourful. Stephane has adopted the diagramming convention of a ribbon of steps that flows down one page and up the adjacent one. I prefer diagrams that arrange the steps left to right on the page, top to bottom, on every page. It’s personal choice though, and many origami books do follow the convention that Stephane has adopted here. This book is suitable for people of all abilities, including children and complete beginners, so it’s good for people to get familiar with this diagramming style early in the folding career.
The Origami for Halloween Models
There’s a real sense of playfulness and fun about all of Stephane Gigandet’s models in this book, typified by designs such as Mr & Mrs origami Ghost. Each of the ten models in Origami for Halloween is given a difficulty rating of one to three stars. The models given a single star are very simple and certainly suitable for children to fold unaided.
The first model is an easy origami Ghost, but it’s one of my favourite designs in the book! There a couple of different fun origami pumpkins among the two star designs. These models are still child-friendly, but they might need a bit of a helping hand at intervals – like squashing the top of the Origami Pumpkin Box. The three star models such as the origami Spider Web are a little more challenging, but children and people new to origami should still be able to fold them once they’ve got the hang of the other designs.
Win a Copy of Origami for Halloween!
Stephane Gigandet has kindly offered one e-book copy of Origami for Halloween to one reader of Origami Expressions. To be in with a shout of winning this e-book, all you have to do is join the Origami Expressions Mailing List. Current subscribers will be entered automatically. The competition will close at 19:00 UK time on Sunday 29 October 2017. The winner will be drawn shortly after that and I will be in contact to make sure they have their e-book in time for Halloween!
Buying a copy of Origami for Halloween
There can only be one winner but if you are not lucky enough to be the name out of the hat on Sunday night, you can buy a copy of Stephane Gigandet’s book from Amazon here.
Good luck with the competition, and whether you are a winner or not, have a Happy Halloween!
Note: The giveaway winner was announced here.
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