If you cannot find a complete tutorial that works for you, try these stepping stones:
Folding the Ryujin 3.5 is a journey. It is an endurance test that teaches you more about paper mechanics than perhaps any other model. When you finally hold that scale-covered dragon in your hands, realizing that it came from a single, uncut square of paper, the exhaustion fades away. You haven't just folded paper; you have tamed a dragon.
There are six legs (fore, mid, hind). Each leg requires:
Crease the grid
Collapse the base from the crease pattern
Form the head (horns, snout, mandibles, teeth) – extremely intricate
Shape the body scales (alternating rows of reverse folds) origami ryujin 3.5 tutorial
Form the 3 pairs of legs with claws
Shape the tail (tapered, can be curled)
Final shaping – wet-shaping recommended for realism If you cannot find a complete tutorial that
The head requires isolating a small rectangle from the base. You will shape:
If you attempt this with bare hands and a wet grocery bag, you will fail. For a successful Ryujin 3.5 tutorial session, you need:
Marc has a lecture on "Folding the Impossible" where he spends 20 minutes breaking down the Ryujin CP. Folding the Ryujin 3
You have collapsed the paper. It looks like a crumpled pile of white plastic. Now comes the shaping.
This is where a tutorial fails you. You need to wet-shape the paper. Spritz the paper with water, mold the spine into an S-curve, spread the legs, and curl the tail. Let it dry for 24 hours. If you touch it before it dries, the scales will flatten.