A generous anonymous donor brought a huge box full of fake dollar bills to the German origami convention in 2013. We had lots of fun folding all different kinds of dollar bill models. The distinctive color reminded me of pigs in children’s books, so I set out to design a pig. I got quite a few pointers from fellow conference attendees on what wasn’t very piggish yet. The model caught my eye again in 2018 on a shelf, I still liked it a lot and started diagramming it. In that process I also updated it quite a bit.
The $Pig is pretty typical of my designs: intermediate animals, where I strive for a clean look. To achieve this effect, the inside of the model sometimes becomes more complex than you’d initially expect. In this model, for instance, the same visual appearance of some steps could be achieved in a simpler fashion, but I chose a different way to have fewer layers peeking and to make it hold together better. As for most dollar models, I’d recommend using a slightly larger paper for the first try.