The Talking Fish
This model is one of my all time favourites, it's a pity that I didn't create it.
I first saw it at a distance in a bar at a British Origami Convention over 15 years ago and, at the time, I couldn't get to the person who was making it talk to find out how to fold it. A week or so after that convention I was on the phone to the late Rick Beech and I mentioned it. He thought it might be similar to something he was familiar with and over the next half hour of instructions, reverse engineering, misunderstandings and repeats I had folded a talking fish. At this point I was still unaware who the creator was.
I decided to draw the diagrams as a present for prosperity. The sequence I used was the one that Rick Beech and I had worked out by reverse engineering. It wasn’t pretty but it did the job.
Occasionally over the following years I tried to find the creator by asking on the internet and at various conventions, all to no avail.
Over the last few years I have repeatedly seen short videos of how to fold the fish and every single one gets the process wrong. In my step 14 after the collapse, one can see that both tail fins are pointing straight upwards and there are “repeat behind” arrows on the following steps. This gives the fish a bilateral symmetry not seen in any of the videos I have seen.
Since my first diagram I have discovered a better and more efficient sequence of steps to create the fish. These are the diagrams I present here.
It has only been in the last couple of years that I have finally discovered the creator - Junior Fritz Jacquet a talented French creator.
Fun story and thanks for the diagrams. Junior Fritz Jacquet's kissing fish is a slight variation of Jun Maekawa's piranha. The only difference is the treatment of the mouth. Maekawa's piranha is also quite charming. It is folded with the symmetry illustrated here. One can find the original diagrams in Toshikazu Kawasaki's Doctors Origami Dream Book (2006).