20 Awesome Origami Arctic Animals

This is another origami animal themed post and this time the theme is arctic animals or animals that live in the cold and snow in general.

Starting out we have this beautiful polar bear. It’s a fairly simple design but it certainly has a lot of character.

Polar Bear, Designed by Giang Dinh and Folded by Ilan Garibi

Diagrams available from Giang Dinh’s website

Next we have probably the cutest baby origami penguins I’ve ever seen.

Baby Penguin, Designed and Folded by Yoo Tae Yong

Instructions not available

Here’s another one of the cutest origami designs I’ve ever seen.

Harp Seal Pup, Designed and Folded by Quentin Trollip

Diagrams available in Origami Works of Quentin Trollip

This is Giang Dinh’s polar bear again but folded by a different artist with a very different look.

Polar Bear, Designed by Giang Dinh and Folded by Alexander Krupnikov

Diagrams available from Giang Dinh’s website

Here we have an arctic fox photographed outside during the summer. In the summer their fur changes to a grey colour and changes back to white in the winter. This is a somewhat modified version of Richard Odeja Soto’s coyote.

Coyote, Designed by Richard Odeja Soto and Folded by Folded Wilderness

Diagrams available in Drawing Origami Tome 1

Rabbits live in the arctic too so here’s a cute little white rabbit.

Rabbit, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in the Origami Tanteidan 21st Convention Book

Japanese Macaque’s live in northern Japan in the snow for a good part of the year so I’m including some in this post.

Japanese Macaque, Designed by Kawahata Fumiaki and Folded by Alexander Krupnikov

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #154

Here’s a group of some excellent looking origami rabbits.

Rabbits, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Crease pattern available from Hiroaki Kobayashi’s Flickr

Here’s another absolutely adorably baby penguin.

Penguin Chick, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Crease pattern available from folders.jp

This is another very beautiful origami polar bear that was displayed at an origami exhibition in the National Museum of History in Taipei and Chi Mei Museum in Tainan, Taiwan.

Polar Bear, Designed and Folded by József Zsebe

Diagrams available in Paper and Form – Origami for Experienced Folders

Here’s a family of emperor penguins. I love how the baby one looks like it’s asking the mother penguin something.

Emperor Penguins, Designed and Folded by Quentin Trollip

Diagrams available in 端正な折り紙 

And here’s another excellent group of origami penguins with a different design.

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Edgar

Instructions not available

This next image is still one of my all time favourite origami photos with a group of Japanese macaques at the spa.

Japanese Macaques at the Spa, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

Here are some more adorable baby penguins.

Baby Penguins, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by J.W Park

Instructions not available

You can really see the details in this close up photo of Quentin Trollips harp seal pup. I quite like the design of the whiskers with the colour change on the flaps.

Harp Seal Pup, Designed by Quentin Trollip and Folded by Sérgio Queiroz

Diagrams available in Origami Works of Quentin Trollip

There are a lot of different animal families in this post and here’s another great family of origami penguins.

Emperor Penguin Family, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

Here’s another photo of some origami animals out in the wild in their natural habitat even though technically these animals live on opposite sides of the planet…

Polar Bear Designed by Quentin Trollip and Penguins Designed by Eric Joisel, Jun Maekawa and Robert J. Lang. All Folded by Folded Wilderness

Polar bear diagrams available in Origami Works of Quentin Trollip

Eric Joisel’s penguin instructions not available

Jun Maekawa’s penguin diagrams available in Genuine Origami

Robert J. Lang’s penguin instructions not available

Here’s one more photo of that adorable harp seal pup.

Harp Seal Pup, Designed by Quentin Trollip and Folded by Nguyen TuanTai

Diagrams available in Origami Works of Quentin Trollip

And here’s one more happy family of paper penguins.

Penguins, Designed by Michael G. LaFosse and Folded by Adriano Davanzo

Diagrams available in Origami Art: 15 Exquisite Folded Paper Designs from the Origamido Studio

Our final image for this post is this absolutely fantastic family of arctic wolves. This is the photo that made me want to do an arctic themed post.

Wolf, Designed by Shuki Kato and Folded by Terry Nicolas

Diagram’s available from Shuki Kato’s Etsy shop

That’s it for this post. If you’re interested in folding some origami animals of your own there are several excellent books you should check out:

• Animal Origami for the Enthusiast by John Montroll
• Origami Zoo: An Amazing Collection of Folded Paper Animals by Robert J. Lang and Stephen Weiss
• Origami Omnibus by Kunihiko Kasahara
• Origami from Angelfish to Zen by Peter Engel

Each of these books has diagrams for an excellent collection of different animals to fold and we recommend all of them.

Let us know what you thought about these arctic animals and if you fold any of them yourself be sure to share a photo in the comments!