Dodecahedron Origami

It's occurred to me that while geometric origami was the first inspiration for my beaded beads (and it's still a source of inspiration), and while this is reflected in my business name, I've never actually posted any pictures of my origami creations. Well that ends today!

This origami dodecahedron is constructed from thirty pieces of identically-folded sheets of paper, or "modules", in five different colors. The module is the "Double-Sided Concave Hexagonal Ring Solid" from Unit Polyhedron Origami (2006), by my favorite origami master, Tomoko Fuse. I'm not sure why she called named it after a hexagonal ring, since it can be clearly used to construct a structure composed of pentagonal rings, but she uses the same module to construct more complicated polyhedra in her book.

My own twist on this design is that each pentagon face has five colors, and each corner of the dodecahedron has three different colors. I used this same coloration in a couple of simple dodecahedron beaded beads. One in pastel colors:

And another in jewel tones:

The beaded beads are quite small compared to the origami construction!

Many beaded bead designs are based on a dodecahedron structure, whether it's my own Teardrop Bubbles design, Gwen Fisher's Infinity Dodecahedron, Laura Shea's Plato Bead along with its many variations, Laura McCabe's crystal rivoli docecahedron, or Diane Fitzgerald's peyote dodecahedron. I've been thinking about trying out this color pattern on more complicated beaded bead structures such as these ones, but I'm wondering if the result would look too complicated... What do you think?

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