Lokta Paper Review

Latin Cross Tessellation was the first model I folded from Nepalese Lokta paper, so here’s a short review. Summary: the paper is beautiful but really hard to work with, at least for this kind of model.

Expecting tough folding after reading Ilan Garibi’s review, I chose this relatively simple model for the test. Nonetheless, even just folding the grid was hard: the paper is soft and has little stiffness which makes precise folding difficult. The lack of stiffness also affected the collapse with even a simple Hydrangea-style collapse requiring time and patience.

The issues were exacerbated by me wishing to fold not a complete grid but just the necessary minimum for a clean fold. At first, I also wanted to preserve the beautiful fringed edges of the sheet, but I failed and had to cut straight edges in order to be able to fold the grid with any precision at all. The paper varies in thickness, and the thicker parts behaved much better than thin places, even though they were still quite soft.

Possibly, coating with MC or gluing Lokta over a sheet of another type of paper could help these issues, but I didn’t try it. Despite the paper’s misbehavior when folding, I really like its look, and the end result is quite pleasing despite visibly low precision of the folds.