As real as these insects might look, they are actually made from a single sheet of paper, expertly folded by origami master, Brian Chan.

I’ve been staring at Brian Chan’s creations for a while, and I still find it mind-boggling how someone can produce such realistic work by folding a simple piece of paper. But 31-year-old Chan manages to do just that, creating realistic-looking insects that almost fool the naked eye. A craft instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Brian works on his impressive paper artworks in his spare time. Talking about his beginnings in the world of origami, he says “I started by copying work of other authors about 20 years ago but after a while I was good enough to start coming up with my own pieces.” His parents encouraged him by buying him all kinds of origami books, which proved great sources for independent learning.

Brian Chan says the idea behind origami is pretty simple: you are allocating parts of your sheet of paper, which eventually become parts of the desired folded model. But there are several techniques one has to make use of to achieve that perfect piece of paper art. For example, Brian says he often employs a method called circle packing, which can be described as “appendages in the model formed when circular regions of paper fold umbrella-like into thin flaps.” There are also a lot of other techniques mastered in years of folding, which he uses to make his origami masterpieces uniquely his own.

Photos © Brian Chan

via The Sun