I Could Bearly Wait to Show You these Oso Ursome Origami Bears

There are a ton of absolutely fantastic origami bears out there so in this post we're going to take a look at some of our favourites. I hope you're pre-beared!

First up is very life-like looking bear. The paper used here is really awesome and looks quite like fur.

Bear, Designed by Nicolas Terry and Folded by Mariano Zavala B.

Diagrams available in Passion Origami

Seth Friedman designed another excellent quite life-like looking bear. Here it is photographed at a convention back in 2014. The face in this design looks awesome and kind of dopey, like it just woke up from hibernation.

Grizzly Bear, Designed and Folded by Seth Friedman (Photo by Willie G. Crespo)

Diagrams available in the 19th Tanteidan Convention book

Here is a much less complex design that uses wet folding to make those excellent, organic looking curves.

Curved Bear, Designed by Joao Charrua and Folded by Juanfran Carrillo

Instructions not available

This is something very different from most of the other bears in this post. This model is on display at the Chimei Museum in Taiwan and I really like the individually folded claws on the hands and feet.

Bear, Designed and Folded by 簡單的度過-2

Instructions not available

Pandas are technically not bears but this one looks just so great that I needed to include it. It changes things up a bit too which is always good.

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

Diagrams available in Origami Pro

I like how this bear looks both ferocious and kind of goofy at the same time.

Bear, Designed and Folded by Choi Ju Young

Instructions not available

Here's something very different. It's quite impressive how the colour change is used here to make that arrow line.

Heart Line Bear, Designed and Folded by Bernie Peyton (Photo by Michelle Fung)

Instructions not available

Beth Johnson designed one of the most unique looking bears out there which uses a tessellation pattern like many of her models.

Bear, Designed and Folded by Beth Johnson (Photo by Michelle Fung)

Instructions not available

Changing things up a little bit again we have a teddy bear which technically fits into the category of bears. This model also uses some fantastic colour changes for the details.

Teddy Bear, Designed by Marc Kirschenbaum and Folded by Mariano Zavala B.

Video instructions available from Mariano Zavala B.'s YouTube channel

Here's another fantastic bear design and I like the heaviness you can sort of feel in this design.

Bear, Designed and Folded by József Zsebe

Diagrams available in Fold Line

This next model is very impressive because it's folded from an uncut square of copper metal! The metal must have been heated up to make it soft enough to fold.

Bear 1997, Designed and Folded by József Zsebe

Diagrams available in Paper and Form

I really like this next model. This is a Jucumari or Spectacled Bear. It's apparently the last species of short-faced bear in the world. I really like how that front paw is lifted up like it's walking but it's still folded from paper so it's completely thin and flat.

Jucumari, Designed by Nguyen Hung Cuong and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in VOG: 50 Hours of Origami+

Here's an adorable whole family of bears!

Bear Family, Designed and Folded by Gen Hagiwara

Instructions not available

Here's another very excellent little bear cub.

Bear Cub, Designed by Shuki Kato and Folded by Jan Groot

Diagrams available in Origami Nature Study

This is the first bear Tetsuya Gotani ever designed. It looks quite fantastic for a first attempt!

Bear, Designed and Folded by Tetsuya Gotani

Instructions not available

Here are more fantastic wet folded bears. I love how expressive these simple looking models are.

Curve Bears, Designed and Folded by João Charrua

Instructions not available

Quentin Trollip designed this ferocious looking bear and there are lots of different options for how you want to pose it.

Bear, Designed by Quentin Trollip and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in Origami Sequence

Koalas again technically aren't bears but this is the best origami koala I've ever seen so I had to include it here.

Koala, Designed by David Llanque and Folded by Eyal

Diagrams available in Mini Neo #10

Here's a newer version of József Zsebe's posed on top of a paper rock.

Bear on Rock, Designed and Folded by József Zsebe

Diagrams available in Paper and Form

This is another really unique and great idea for this design.

Erkner Bear, Designed and Folded by Sebastien Limet

Crease pattern available in the photo

Pandas again technically aren't bears but this is also one of the best origami pandas I've seen out there so I had to include it too.

Giant Panda, Designed by Fumiaki Kawahata and Folded by Eyal

Instructions not available

Here's Quentin Trollip's excellent bear again with some really fantastic claws.

Bear, Designed and Folded by Quentin Trollip

Diagrams available in Origami Sequence

Sebastien Limet has some of the best ideas for origami designs. This particular model is designed to send an anti-fur message.

Fur You, Designed and Folded by Sebastien Limet

Instructions not available

Here's a really great grizzly bear and cub in a series of great poses.

Grizzly Bear designed by Quentin Trollip and Cub Designed by Joshua Goutam, Both Folded by Eyal

Grizzly diagrams available in Origami Sequence - Cub diagrams available in Works of Joshua Goutam vol. 1

Daniel Chang works with children and teenagers and he designed this incredible model which makes a pretty powerful statement. This model is a fantastic example of how you can use this art form to create a powerful message.

Childhood, Designed and Folded by Daniel Chang

Instructions not available

This awesome bear uses two coloured paper and a colour change so you get a different colour for the fish that it's eating. This is a variation of Quentin Trollip's more famous bear and salmon design.

Lunch Time, Designed and Folded by Quentin Trollip

Instructions not available

Here's one more panda that I just had to include since it's so adorable.

Panda, Designed by Red Paper and Folded by lichangzhenba

Instructions not available

Our final model for this post is this adorable rolling bear cub and parent. The sense of movement here is fantastic. A lot of the images in this particular post show how origami can be used to create something a bit deeper or more artistic than just folding a representation of some kind of animal or something.

If that makes sense.

Tumbling Little Bear, Designed and Folded by Gen Hagiwara

Instructions not available

What did you think about these origami bears? Let us know in the comments!

by Peter

I’m Feline Good about Showing You these Fantastic Origami Cats

For the longest time I wasn't really able to find any really great origami cat designs. I could find the occasional lion or tiger that looked really awesome but there were only a few of those and I only really knew of one or two great house cat designs.

Over the last little year or so though I started to encounter more and more excellent origami cats so I figured it was time to take another look at them. In this post we'll be looking at cats of all kinds, pet cats, lions, tigers and more!

First up is this really awesome tiger. I'm always super impressed with tiger designs that use a colour change to make the stripes. I also really like how heavy the paws look, just like they do in real life.

Tiger, Designed and Folded by Quentin Trollip

Diagrams available in Works of Quentin Trollip

Terry Nicolas has one of the best lion designs out there. This one he folded for a wedding and that would definitely be an awesome present to receive.

Lion, Designed and Folded by Terry Nicolas

Diagrams available in Passion Origami

This cat design by Katsuta Kyohei is probably the most popular pet cat design I've seen. This one is especially well folded.

Cat, Designed by Katsuta Kyohei and Folded by J.W Park

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #124

This is a really awesome cat design that's very different from any other designs I've seen out there. It perfectly captures the essence of an actual cat.

Cat, Designed and Folded by Mathieu Gueros

Instructions not available

Here's another awesome tiger design that also makes use of two sided paper to make the stripes. If you're wondering where everyone gets orange and black paper I think most people just buy orange paper and paint one side black.

Tiger, Designed by Hideo Komatsu and Folded by DebugMode

Diagrams available in Works of Hideo Komatsu

This is another fantastic and quite majestic looking lion.

Lion, Designed and Folded by Maeng Heung Gue

Instructions not available

Here's another incredible house cat design. It's not super complex but it again perfectly captures the essence of a cat. I'm always amazed with how Roman Diaz's designs are able to do this.

Cat, Designed and Folded by Roman Diaz

Instructions not avaialble

Satoshi Kamiya also has one of the more famous lion designs. I quite like the pose this one is folded in. It almost looks like it's tensing up and about to pounce.

Lion, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Maxi Purewal

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 2, 2002 – 2009

This is a tiger design but it looks pretty cool folded with black paper, almost like a black panther. The way this particular one is folded looks quite playful which I like.

Tiger, Designed by Gen Hagiwara and Folded by Lê Huỳnh Đức

Diagrams available in Spirits of Origami

These two tigers are the exact same model as the previous one but you can totally see how different the same model can look when folded by a different artist.

Tiger, Designed by Gen Hagiwara and Folded by Willie G. Crespo

Diagrams available in Spirits of Origami

Seth Friedman designed another one of my favourite cat designs. This again perfectly captures what a cat looks like walking along. This model was photographed at a convention.

Cat, Designed and Folded by Seth Friedman (Photo by Willie G. Crespo)

Crease pattern available from Seth Friedman's website

Here we have an absolutely gorgeous resting lion folded by Gonzalo. I love how those back lags are kicked off to the side.

Lion, Designed by Hideo Komatsu and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in Works of Hideo Komatsu

A caracal isn't the first type of cat you'd normally think of but Hiroaki Kobayashi designed one and it's awesome. The colour changes on the ears, nose and eyes are really awesome. This one is folded by 7 sheets of paper.

Caracal, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

Here's another really excellent house cat model.

Cat, Designed by Tanaka Masashi and Folded by Kim Ju Hyun

Diagrams available in Tanteidan Magazine #95

This is a very cool lion design. I really like how expressive the face is and how the mane looks. I'm not sure who the folder here is though, the sign there is kind of blurred so if you know let me know and I'll update the post.

Lion King, Designed by Horiguchi Naoto (Photo by Maeng Heung Gue)

Instructions not available

Here's an adorable and slightly sad homeless kitty.

Homeless Kitty, Designed and Folded by 簡單的度過-2

Diagrams available here

A Smilodon is a type of prehistoric sabre tooth tiger. Satoshi Kamiya designed what's easily the most famous origami Smilodon but he's not the only one. Richard Galindo Flores also designed this quite excellent one. I love how eager this particular one looks.

Smilodon, Designed by Richard Galindo Flores and Folded by J.W Park

Diagrams available in Bogota Origami Convention 2014

Here's a slightly updated caracal design from Hiroaki Kobayashi. This time this one is folded from 8 squares of paper.

Caracal, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

This is a much simpler lion design than the previous ones here but they still managed to pack a ton of feeling into that face.

Lion, Designed by Shunichi Ashimura and Folded by Andrea Borsa

Diagrams available in Pajarita Magazine #138

Here's Gen Hagiwara's tiger again and this time I really like that little tongue.

Tiger, Designed by Gen Hagiwara and Folded by Guillermo R. Parrondo

Diagrams available in Spirits of Origami

This little sleeping cat is pretty adorable. The paper used here makes it look really furry and soft too.

Cat, Designed by Giang Dinh and Folded by Hare

Diagrams available in Licence to Fold

Here's another really awesome lion. This was originally Satoshi Kamiya's lion design but it's been modified by Soma Cruz. I really love the expression on the face and what's been done with the mane. The pose is really awesome and life-like. Apparently Soma studied lions for a long time before creating this masterpiece.

Lion, Originally Designed by Satoshi Kamiya, Modified and Folded by Soma Cruz

Instructions not available - Original diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 2, 2002 – 2009

This Siamese cat by Rokuya is another one of the absolute best origami cats I've ever seen. It looks just like it would in real life and has the exact same character as a real Siamese cat. The colour changes in the design are excellent too.

Siamese Cat, Designed and Folded by Rokuya

Instructions not available

Here's Katsuta Kyohei's design again this time looking pretty cute.

Cat, Designed by Katsuta Kyohei and Folded by Rokuya

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #124

Here are two excellent cats both with the same design and an excellent colour change. No matter which side of the paper you start with facing up the final model looks great.

Cats, Designed by Andrey Ermakov and Folded by Assaf Kessler

Diagrams available in Olympiad 2017 Round #1

This is another really excellent cat design and the paper used here is absolutely perfect. The stretching pose it's folded in is also fantastic.

Cat, Designed and Folded by Juanfran Carrillo

Instructions not available

Here's one last lion design with probably the most complicated mane I've ever seen.

Lion, Designed and Folded by Tkak Sakai

Instructions not available

Our final image for this post is these two fantastic cats by Gen Hagiwara. Both cats are folded from the same base but if you look carefully they're a bit different, it's not just the legs that are folded differently.

Cats, Designed and Folded by Gen Hagiwara

Instructions not available

What did you think about this selection of origami cats? If you thought they were purr-fect then let us know in the comments!

by Peter

Wren You See these Origami Birds You’ll Agree they’re Absolutely Im-peck-able

In this post we're going to take a look at an impeccable collection of origami birds of all kinds. Excited? Let's dive in!

We'll start things off with an adorable little owl sitting in a tree. This little owl has a ton of personality and expression and I really like the lighting in this photo too.

Owl, Designed by Roman Diaz and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in Drawing Origami Tome 1

Here's an excellent and unique flamingo design from Mathieu Gueros that really catches the essence of a real-life flamingo. The two of them together here are super cute too.

Flamingos, Designed and Folded by Mathieu Gueros

Instructions not available

Sebastien Limet designed this excellent flock of birds hanging out together on a branch. Each bird is folded from a single square of paper and the branch is folded from a regular old Kite Base.

Vieille Branche (Old Branch), Designed and Folded by Sebastien Limet

Instructions not available

Here are two absolutely gorgeous looking pelicans photographed at the 2015 OrigamiUSA Convention.

Pelicans, Designed and Folded by Hoang Tien Quyet (Photo by Michelle Fung)

Diagrams available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Next is a similar sort of bird designed by the animal origami master Roman Diaz.

White Heron, Designed and Folded by Roman Diaz

Instructions not available

Here we have an example of something pretty cool. This Atlantic Puffin is folded from two squares of paper that are superimposed on top of each other. You then fold them together as a single sheet of paper but since there are two layers of paper there you have more options for folds and you can get additional colours worked into the design.

The concept is a little hard to grasp but if you check out these diagrams for another model Nicolas Terry designed then you can get a feel for how this technique works.

As far as I know I've only ever seen this technique used by Nicolas Terry, no one else which is too bad because it's a genius idea.

Multilayer Atlantic Puffin, Designed and Folded by Terry Nicolas

Instructions not available

This is an incredible Indian Vulture with tons of detail packed in all folded from a single square of paper.

Indian Vulture, Designed and Folded by Seth Friedman (Photo by Michelle Fung)

Crease pattern available from Seth Friedman's website

Here's another really fantastic flamingo design this time with just a hint of colour change to make the beak.

Flamingo, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Crease pattern available from Hiroaki Kobayashi's Flickr

This peacock design makes fantastic use of a tessellation pattern to form a big beautiful open tail.

Peacock, Designed by Jun Maekawa and Folded by Kevin Hutson

Diagrams available in Genuine Origami

These two parrots are absolutely gorgeous. Both of these are really well folded with some beautiful curves.

Baby Parrots, Designed by Riccardo Foschi and Folded by Andrea Borsa

Instructions not available

Chickens are birds too even if they're not what you immediately think of. Here's an excellent one folded from a single square of paper with a fantastic colour change for the head.

Silky Fowl, Designed and Folded by Jaeil Jeong

Instructions not available

This next model is a lot less complex than the previous ones but it has tons of character and looks really great.

Long Tailed Tit, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Crease pattern available from Hiroaki Kobayashi's Flickr

Here's a really great little toucan.

Toucan, Designed by Hoang Tien Quyet and Folded by Willie G. Crespo

Diagrams available in the 18th Tanteidan Convention book

When people fold kingfishers there's two designs that I pretty much always see. That's why it was exciting to find this new design from Yoshimasa Tsuruta. Diagrams are freely available online so I'm kind of surprised that I haven't seen anyone else fold this model.

Kingfisher, Designed and Folded by Yoshimasa Tsuruta

Diagrams available from Origamity

This is a pretty popular and famous owl design and this is one of the best folds I've ever seen of it. The claws are looking especially awesome.

Blakiston's Fish Owl, Designed by Katsuta Kyohei and Folded by Mariano Zavala B.

Video instructions available from Mariano Zavala B.'s YouTube channel

Here's an absolutely gorgeous parent and child bird folded by Kei Watanabe.

Okinawa Rails, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

A while ago Satoshi Kamiya designed this Japanese White Eye and it became a super popular model and tons of people have folded it. This is one of the best folds I've seen.

Japanese White Eye, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Rokuya

Diagrams available in Tanteidan Magazine #153

This is another much less complex model but the shapes and colour changes are awesome and this little bird has a ton of character.

Cardinal, Designed and Folded by Beth Johnson

Diagrams available in the 23rd Tanteidan Convention book

Here's another fantastic model from Satoshi Kamiya. The whole thing is folded from a single square of paper and as Rui Roda pointed out it's one of the few designs from Satoshi Kamiya with less than 200 steps.

Splash! Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Rui Roda

Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003

This is another design that has a really great colour change in the design to make it look a lot more like the real life version.

Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo, Designed by Quentin Trollip and Folded by Andrés

Diagrams available in Works of Quentin Trollip

Hiroaki Kobayashi designed this excellent Shoebill and it almost reminds me of a Chocobo.

Shoebill, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

This model almost looks like a less complex Japanese White Eye. The colour changes here on the eye, underside and feet are awesome.

Flycatcher, Designed by Noboru Miyajima and Folded by Terry Nicolas

Diagrams available in the 23rd Tanteidan Convention book

Here's another absolutely incredible design by Kei Watanabe. I have no words to describe how awesome this model is.

Osprey, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

This baby duck is probably the cutest baby duck (made out of paper) that I've ever seen.

Baby Duck, Designed and Folded by Nakamura Kaede (Photo by Michelle Fung)

Instructions not available

Here's another beautiful parrot design that would definitely not be the same without the colour changes.

Macaw, Designed and Folded by Yuta Katsuzaki

Crease pattern available from Yuta Katsuzaki's Flickr

Our final model for this post is a rooster but it's certainly an impressive one. This is all folded from a single sheet of paper and when you use two coloured paper you get those awesome colour changes on the head and feet.

Rooster, Designed by Mineo Shotaro and Folded by Giang Nam

Crease pattern available in Tanteidan Magazine #161

What did you think of all these impeccable origami birds? Let us know in the comments!

by Peter

I Hope there are No Re-Pork-Ussions for Showing You these Origami Pigs

I recently saw a couple of adorable and fantastic origami pigs and boars from Hiroaki Kobayashi's Flickr and it gave me the idea to do a pig-themed post. In this post we'll be showcasing an excellent collection of pigs of both the domesticated and wild varieties.

You're seriously going to squeal with delight when you see some of these. And you will see those models that I mentioned earlier too.

First up is this simple yet very elegant pig that József Zsebe designed way back in 1997.

Pig, Designed and Folded by József Zsebe

Instructions not available

This little boar has a ton of personality as well as that trademarked curved style from Vietnamese origami. I really like that little curled tail too.

Wild Boar, Designed by Đỗ Trí Khải and Folded by Alexander Krupnikov

Instructions not available

Here's another amazing pig from a very famous Vietnamese designer who always has beautiful looking designs.

Pig, Designed and Folded by Hoàng Tiến Quyết (Photo by Giang Dinh)

Instructions not available

This is another really excellent wild boar design. I especially like how it looks like it's very interested in the camera in this photo.

Wild Boar, Designed and Folded by Fernando Castellanos

Instructions not available

This fantastic pig was photographed at the International Collegiate Origami Association Convention in 2017.

Pig, Designed and Folded by Hayato Sasanuma (Photo by Hiroaki Kobayashi)

Instructions not available

Here we have the model that give me the idea to do this post. This little boar piglet is absolutely adorable. It's folded from 8 squares of paper and the colour changes in the design here to make the stripes, nose, hooves and eyes are awesome!

Uribou, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

Here's another really excellent wild boar photographed out in the wild. There's some really great folding and photography on display here.

Wild Boar, Designed by Gen Hagiwara and Folded by Folded Wilderness

Diagrams available in Spirits of Origami

Here's something a little big more traditional. It's folded really well and of course you have to use pink paper like you see here.

Pig, Designed by Jeong Jaeil and Folded by Alexander Krupnikov

Diagrams available from Jaeil Jeong's Flickr

Satoshi Kamiya designed an incredible paper version of Inoshishigami, a divine boar from Japanese mythology. You may recognize it from the Studio Ghibli movie Princess Mononoke.

Divine Boar, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Phillip Curl

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003

Quentin Trollip designed another one of the more famous origami pigs. This one looks fantastic especially the snout.

Pig, Designed by Quentin Trollip and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in Origami Works of Quentin Trollip

Here's a more simple design that's quite cute and still has a lot of personality. This is Dô Trí Khai's design again but it looks quite different being folded by a different artist.

Wild Boar, Designed by Đỗ Trí Khải and Folded by Rui Roda

Instructions not available

This is Satoshi Kamiya's Divine Boar again and reaper did an amazing job folding here. The details on the face like the eye and tusks look absolutely incredible!

Divine Boar, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by . reaper

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003

Roman Diaz is a a master animal designer and he came up with his own fantastic wild boar design. This one looks pretty interested in that persimmon.

Wild Boar, Designed by Roman Diaz and Folded by Adriano Davanzo

Diagrams available in Origami Essence

Joseph Wu also designed an incredible looking pig. The shape, face and especially that little curled tail are all really awesome.

Ground Pork (Take 3), Designed and Folded by Joseph Wu

Instructions not available

I quite like how different and unique this next boar looks. It has a lot of sharp shapes but still looks really boar-like.

Wild Boar, Designed by Jang Yong Ik and Folded by J.W Park

Diagrams available in Origami Pro

This next model is a really awesome idea and the whole thing is folded from a single square of paper. The face looks quite happy and full of personality.

Happy as a Pig in S#!t, Designed and Folded by Edgar

Crease pattern available from Edgar's Flickr

Here's another excellent wild boar design from Fernando Castellanos. I really like the the colour change on the tusks.

Wild Boar, Designed and Folded by Fernando Castellanos

Instructions not available

This is Satoshi Kamiya's Divine Boar again but folded by another talented artist.

Divine Boar, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Sebastian Arellano (Photo by Finward)

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003

This is the other fantastic model from Hiroaki Kobayashi that inspired me to put together this post. This excellent little pig is folded from 7 squares of paper. Like the wild boar design from earlier it has some really excellent colour changes, especially on the little hooves.

Pig, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

Hiroaki Kobayashi later posted this image with two more of these adorable pigs after I finished this post but I had to go back and include it.

Pig, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

Here's something a bit different and quite awesome. Each of these flying pigs is folded from a single square of paper and they really look great.

Flying Pigs, Designed and Folded by Joseph Wu

Instructions not available

Keeping things a little more interesting here's a very cool model designed after the pigs in the book Animal Farm. This guy is folded from three squares of paper.

Napoleon, Designed and Folded by Mariano Zavala B.

Instructions not available

These little boar piglets are pretty adorable. They're folded from an uncut square of paper and the colour change for the stripes is really great.

Wild Boar Piglets, Designed and Folded by József Zsebe

Diagrams available in Paper and Form

Here are two pigs from Gen Hagiwara folded so each one looks a tiny bit different.

Pigs, Designed and Folded by Gen Hagiwara

Diagrams available in Spirits of Origami

This is another really excellent boar design.

Boar Designed by Nishikawa Seiji and Folded by Alexander Krupnikov

Diagrams available in the 18th Tanteidan Convention Book

Here's another absolutely beautiful fold of Satoshi Kamiya's Divine Boar.

Divine Boar, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by P. Colman

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003

Here's Roman Diaz's boar design again but folded by a different artist.

Boar, Designed by Roman Diaz and Folded by Agnieska (Agne) Mackonyte

Diagrams available in Origami Essence

Our final image for this post is this amazing little boar family by Kei Watanabe who's probably my favourite origami artist. I really like the striped paper used on the piglets.

Boars, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

What did you think about all these origami pigs? Hopefully they didn't bore you. Let us know what you thought in the comments!

by Peter

I’m a Really Big "Fin" of this Origami from Under the Sea

In this post we're going to take a look at another excellent round of papercrafts from under the sea. We're talking fish, crustaceans, cephalopods and more!

First up is an absolutely beautiful dolphinfish (mahi-mahi) folded from some of the most beautiful looking origami paper I've ever seen.

Dolphinfish (Mahi-Mahi), Designed by Winston Lee and Folded by P. Colman

Diagrams available in COS 2014

The Mantis Shrimp is a pretty crazy and amazing creature (pretty tasty too). This paper version is equally crazy and amazing. Just look at all those details along the bottom and believe it or not this is all folded from one sheet of paper!

Mantis Shrimp, Designed and Folded by Kota Imai

Crease pattern available in Tanteidan Magazine #156

Kei Watanabe somewhat recently designed a whole bunch of really awesome looking fish including this quite realistic looking Pacific Bluefin Tuna.

Pacific Bluefin Tuna, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

The coolest part of these manta rays I think is all those individually folded gills on the bottom.

Myliobatis Aquila, Designed by Manuel Sirgo Alvarez and Folded by ВЕРЕСТУН Игорь (Iver)

Instructions not avaialble

This is a very well-folded, nice and clean looking lobster. It's a really excellent design as well. This is folded from a single 30cm x 30cm square of paper!

Lobster, Designed by Artur Biernacki and Folded by Damian Malicki

Crease pattern available from Artur Biernacki's Flickr

Here's a fantastic little shore crab.

Shore Crab, Designed by Pham Hoang Tuan and Folded by Luc Marnat

Diagrams available in Olympiad 2016

This is an excellent little seahorse model. It's not too complicated but looks great and nice and clean. There's a video tutorial available for it too.

Seahorse, Designed by Ta Trung Dong and Folded by Rui Roda

Video instructions available from Ta Trung Dong's YouTube channel

There are a few really great sea turtle designs out there and I especially like Satoshi Kamiya's design. The sort of plates down the back of the shell always look really cool.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Maxi Purewal

Diagrams available in the 16th Tanteidan Convention book

This next image is definitely the cutest little orca I've ever seen. It's folded from two squares of paper.

Cube Orca, Designed by Yoshihisa Kimura and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Diagrams available in Origami no Hakodoubutsu

This next model is definitely something amazing. That whole Anemone as well as the Clown Fish is folded from a single square of paper. In this case Kevin Hutson used a 23 inch x 23 inch square on Unryu which is definitely a beautiful looking paper.

Sea Anemone and Clownfish, Designed by  J.C. Nolan and Folded by Kevin Hutson

Diagrams available in Creating Origami: An Exploration into the Process of Designing Paper Sculpture

Ynon Toledano designed these awesome butterfly fish. The one on the left is a newer design with a slightly different body and tail.

Butterfly Fish, Designed and Folded by Ynon Toledano

Instructions not available

Here's another phenomenal design by Kei Watanabe. From a distance you could definitely mistake this for the real life eel.

Giant Mottled Eel, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

This puffer fish is a really great design and uses almost a tessellation pattern for the part that puffs up.

Puffer Fish, Designed by Jang Yong Ik and Folded by P. Colman

Diagrams available in Raison d'etre 2014

Winston is a master at designing origami fish as you can see with this next model. I especially like the little folds and curves on all the fins. It was apparently difficult to design with the colour changes and 3D-ness.

Clownfish, Designed and Folded by Winston

Instructions not available

These Pennant Coralfishes are really beautiful. There's technically no colour changes in this model but the folder cheated a bit and painted the paper. Each fish is folded from a single sheet of paper.

Pennant Coralfish, Designed by Yoshimasa Tsuruta and Folded by P. Colman

Crease pattern available from Yoshimasa Tsuruta's Flickr

Here's another bunch of amazing and realistic looking fish by Kei Watanabe.

Giant Trevally, Designed and Folded by Key Watanabe

Instructions not available

Kota Imai also designed a regular shrimp that's just as detailed as that Mantis Shrimp. This model is also folded from a single square of paper.

Shrimp, Designed by Kota Imai and Folded by Kyoung Su Kim

Crease pattern available from Kota Imai's Flickr

This next model is definitely a really cool and unique idea, even if it technically isn't a real-life creature. This was folded for a French contest called "Under the Sea" so it definitely fits in with this post. This is folded from a single 50cm x 50cm square of paper starting with a Kite Base.

Dead Man's Chest, Designed and Folded by Sebastien Limet

Instructions not available

Satoshi Kamiya came up with this awesome octopus design.

Octopus, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Video instructions available from Mariano Zavala B.'s YouTube channel

Here are some more of Kei Watanabe's fantastic fish.

Largehead Hairtail, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

This is a great Swordfish with a very nice colour change on the underside.

Swordfish, Designed by Takuro Kashiwamura and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Diagrams available in Tanteidan Magazine #167

The details and individually folded scales on this Red Seabream are incredible.

Red Seabream, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

This hermit crab is folded from a single square of paper and you end up with different colours on the shell and the crab itself which is awesome.

Hermit Crab, Designed By Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Jaran Darra

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 2, 2002 – 2009

Here's a couple of beautiful Chinese-style goldfish.

Goldfish Ryukin, Designed by Ronald Koh and Folded by lichangzhenba

Instructions not available

This incredible shark was photographed at a display by the International Collegiate Origami Association.

Designed and Folded by Masato Kikuchi (Photo by Hiroaki Kobayashi)

Instructions not available (unless you can make out the crease pattern in the photo there)

P. Colman always folds such beautiful models and takes such beautiful photos.

Orca, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by P. Colman

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003

Our final model for this post is this absolutely phenomenal octopus by Brian Chan. I don't know for sure but I strongly suspect this is folded from one sheet of paper.

The colour changes here and all the individual suction cups on the tentacles are incredible!

Octopus, Designed and Folded by Brian Chan (Photo by Michelle Fung)

Instructions not available

That's it for this post. Let us know which one of these sea creatures was your favourite in the comments!

by Peter

I Don’t Egret Showing You these Amazing Origami Birds One Bit

I have some more time to work on the site again so I'm going to try to get some more regular posts going up again.

In this post we're going to take a look at a whole bunch of really great origami birds. All of these are really awesome but a few of these are definitely something exceptional.

First up is this beautiful cardinal designed by Roman Diaz. This is a pretty famous bird design and Roman Diaz is a master of origami animals.

This design looks especially great if you have paper that's red on one side and black on the other side.

Cardinal, Designed by Roman Diaz and Folded by Terry Nicolas

Diagrams available in Origami Essence

Here's another beautiful bird with a really nice colour change in the design. Yuta Katsuzaki spent a whole month designing this model.

Japanese Crested Ibis, Designed and Folded by Yuta Katsuzaki

Instructions not available

Beth Johnson has an adorable owl design and here's one of them out in the wild.

Hex Owl, Designed by Beth Johnson and Folded by Robin Scholz

Photo diagrams available from Robin Scholz's Flickr

Here's a great little paper cockatiel. I love how it can stand there balanced with the tail hanging down off the platform.

Cockatiel, Designed and Folded by Jaeil Jeong

Instructions not available

This fantastic looking toucan is folded from two sheets of paper so you can get the extra colour in there.

Toucan, Designed and Folded by Ynon Toledano

Instructions not available

Satoshi Kamiya designed this really cute little bird.

Little Bird, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Rokuya

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 2, 2002 – 2009

Here's an amazing looking mythological bird. I love the powerful looking pose this one is folded and photographed in.

Roc, Designed by Roman Diaz and Folded by Guillermo R. Parrondo

Diagrams available in Origami Essence

Here's an excellent little bluejay, another design with a fantastic colour change that looks perfect with blue and white paper.

Bluejay, Designed by Seth Friedman and Folded by Rui Roda

Video instructions available from Seth Friedman's YouTube channel

Kei Watanabe designed this beautiful Kingfisher and that wood in the background is quite nice as well. It goes really well with that paper used here.

Kingfisher, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

Here's another excellent design from Ynon Toledano that again uses two sheets of paper to get the extra colours in. One for the body and one for the beak.

Puffin, Designed and Folded by Ynon Toledano

Instructions not available

Here's an absolutely beautiful image of an origami pelican. The water is Photoshopped in and is a very nice touch.

Pelican, Designed Hoang Tien Quyet and Folded by Blanka P (blunek)

Diagrams available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Sebastien Limet designed these adorable little birds. The incredible thing about this model is that both birds and the branch are folded from one sheet of paper starting with a Windmill Base.

Cuddly Evening, Designed and Folded by Sebastien Limet

Instructions not available

This beautiful looking bird is called a Crested Oropendola. I really like the colour change here too.

Crested Oropendola, Designed by Quentin Trollip and Folded by Alexander Krupnikov

Diagrams available in Olympiad 2012

Brian Chan designed a really great crow. I especially like how sharp its claws look in this photo.

Crow, Designed by Brian Chan and Folded by Agnieska (Agne) Mackonyte

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #113

Here's a really awesome chicken designed by a Korean artist. Eyal changed the tail a little bit to give it a nice little bit of colour and stuffed the model with cotton to give it a bit more volume.

Rooster, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by Eyal

Diagrams available in the Bogota 2015 Convention book

This next chicken is absolutely mind blowing! I'm pretty sure that's all folded from a single sheet of paper and it must have taken forever to make.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

Here's quite a cute little sparrow. I love how the beak and feet are different colours.

Java Sparrow, Designed by Miyamoto Chuya and Folded by Matthew Groves

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #114

Here's another beautiful and really elegant looking design from Roman Diaz. I really like how it's folded here and looks like it's walking.

Secretary Bird, Designed by Roman Diaz and Folded by Luc Marnat

Diagrams available in Origami for Interpreters

Yoshimasa Tsuruta designed this cute little bird called a Japanese White Eye. If you use paper that's white on one side the model does indeed have a white eye.

Japanese White Eye, Designed by Yoshimasa Tsuruta and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Crease pattern available in ORCA Works

João Charrua has a really neat, unique and slightly creepy style with his designs that always looks really cool.

Dr. Crow, Designed and Folded by João Charrua

Instructions not available

This eagle is one of my favourite origami bird designs and this one looks absolutely incredible in this photo. This of course is folded from a single square of paper.

Eagle, Designed by Nguyen Hung Cuong and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in Licence to Fold

I thought this next model was really cute so I had to include it. The nest itself is folded from a tessellation pattern and the eggs are simply regular origami water bombs.

Beth Johnson has a rather unique ability to incorporate tessellation patterns into all kinds of different designs.

Bird's Nest, Designed and Folded by Beth Johnson

Instructions not available

Here's another really awesome bird of prey. My favourite parts here are the face and definitely the feet.

Cooper's Hawk, Designed by Seth Friedman and Folded by rhplus

Diagrams available in the 13th Tanteidan Convention book

Seth Friedman also designed one of the best origami ducks I've seen. It looks absolutely perfect when you use white and yellow paper like you see here.

Pekin Duck, Designed by Seth Friedman and Folded by Willie G. Crespo

Diagrams available in Pajarita Magazine #129

Here's another excellent chicken design, this time one that's native to Korea. This was designed for the New Year of the Chicken in 2017.

Korean Native Chicken, Designed and Folded by Jaeil Jeong

Instructions not available

The design of these next two birds isn't super complex but I really love how elegant they look and the photo of them together is awesome.

Harmony Birds, Designed by Stephan Weber and Folded by Andrea Borsa

Video instructions available from Stephan Weber's YouTube channel

Our final model for this post is this absolutely incredible Crested Serpent Eagle from Kei Watanabe. Words cannot describe how amazing this model is!

Crested Serpent Eagle, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

What did you think of these incredible origami birds? Let us know in the comments!

by Peter

Delightful Origami Penguins to Celebrate Penguin Awareness Day

January 20th is officially Penguin Awareness Day, a day designed to raise awareness of penguins and the fact that their populations are decreasing around the world.

There are a lot of different species of penguins in real life and there are lots of different origami versions of them as well. In this post we're going to take a look at some of the best origami penguins I've seen out there.

Baby penguins are absolutely adorable as are their origami versions. Yoo Tae Yong has one of the best baby penguin designs with an excellent colour change that you can see here.

Baby Penguin, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #161

Here's a few more adorable baby penguins. The background here is a very nice touch.

Baby Penguin, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by Blanka P (blunek)

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #161

And here's a few more out in the wild since this design is just so cute.

Baby Penguin, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by Никита Васильев

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #161

This is a really awesome Emperor Penguin design. It uses 4 square sheets of paper so you can get those extra colours just like the real thing.

Emperor Penguin, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

I especially like the sort of hair on this penguin and how the head and face look.

Penguin - Don't Freeze, Designed by Ogata Hiromi and Folded by Alexander Krupnikov

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #62

Here's another couple of really great baby penguins. These ones are Emperor Penguin chicks.

Emperor Penguin Chicks, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

These two penguins certainly have a lot of character. This design also has a really awesome colour change and looks great with black and white paper.

Penguins, Designed by Michael Lafosse and Folded by rhplus

Diagrams available in Origami Art

Here's another different and still very cute baby penguin design. The colour change on the eye is really great too.

Baby Penguin, Designed and Folded by Yoshimasa Tsuruta

Video tutorial available from Ezuno Kennosaya's YouTube channel

This whole scene with this family of penguins is fantastic. The penguins are all the same design just folded into different postures.

Emperor Penguins, Designed and Folded by Quentin Trollip

Diagrams available in The Beauty of Origami

This looks like a more minimal style of penguin but the shaping is not easy. You can tell the design is from a Vietnamese designer by the curved shapes.

Penguin, Designed by Dinh Truong Giang and Folded by Philipp-Marius Kost

Diagrams available from Giang Dinh's website

Here's another fantastic little penguin family standing on some ice made out of paper.

Penguins, Designed by Michael Lafosse and Folded by Adriano Davanzo

Diagrams available in Origami Art

Here's a whole bunch of excellent emperor penguins folded in a few various poses.

My Little Emperors, Designed and Folded by Magali

Instructions not available

Hoàng Tiến Quyết is definitely one of my favourite artists with a very unique style. He designed this amazing penguin mother and baby.

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Hoàng Tiến Quyết

Instructions not available

Eric Joisel also designed a really great penguin. Here's a bunch of them sitting in a box.

Penguin, Designed by Eric Joisel and Folded by Tine Blasek

Instructions not available

Beth Johnson is another really great artist. While "sketching" out some different designs she came up with these three great little penguins.

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Beth Johnson

Instructions not available

Here's another great little group of baby penguins. The look great no matter which side of the paper you start with.

Four Little Penguins, Designed and Folded by Blue Dandelion the Creator

Instructions not available

Next is this really great "cartoon-ey" looking penguin. Believe it or not there's actually diagrams showing how to fold that iceberg too.

Penguin, Designed by Sébastien Limet, Iceberg, Designed by Bernie Peyton and Both Folded by Rui Roda

Penguin diagrams available in the 2017 Origami USA Convention book

Iceberg diagrams available in Eco Origami

Sébastien Limet also folded a bunch more of these on top of a much taller iceberg.

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Sébastien Limet

Penguin diagrams available in the 2017 Origami USA Convention book

This cute little guy is apparently named Bingo the Penguin.

Bingo the Penguin, Designed by Federico Scalambra and Folded by Rui Roda

Diagrams available in the 2014 OUSA Convention book

There's also a great traditional penguin design that's really easy to fold. You can find diagrams for it in my book Everyone Can Learn Origami.

Traditional Penguin, Folded by Me

Diagrams available in Everyone Can Learn Origami

Terry Nicolas folded these giant penguins for a Christmas storefront. Apparently it took one hour to fold each penguin and he doesn't like penguins so much any more...

Too Many Penguins... Designed and Folded by Terry Nicolas

Instructions not available

These are the four penguins from the movie Madagascar, Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private. They're all the same design but each one is folded and shaped slightly differently. Can you tell which one is which?

Penguins of Madagascar, Designed by Fernando Gilgado and Folded by Eyal

Video instructions available from Tadashi Mori's YouTube channel

Here's another excellent penguin design. When I started working on this post I didn't realize that there were so many different origami penguins out there.

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Edgar Williams

Diagrams available from Edgar's DropBox

I really like origami designs that are folded from paper money. Every country has differently shaped bills that come in all kinds of different colours which leads to some pretty neat looking origami. Here's a great little penguin folded from an American dollar bill.

Dollar Penguin v5, Designed and Folded by craigfoldsfives

Instructions not available

Here's another unique design by Lionel Pan. This is the first time he's designed something and it's a really good job!

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Lionel Pan

Instructions not available

Here's another adorable family of Emperor Penguins. Baby Emperor Penguins are usually a grey or brown colour and don't look like adult ones.

Emperor Penguins, Designed and Folded by Magali

Instructions not available

Here are two more absolutely fantastic Emperor Penguin chicks.

Emperor Penguin Chicks, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

These penguins and this whole photo is beautiful.

Penguins, Designed by Michael Lafosse and Folded by lichangzhenba

Diagrams available in Origami Art

Our final image for this post is this collection of different penguin designs from Hiroaki Kobayashi put together into a lovely little Emperor Penguin family. I really like those claws on the adult penguin's feet.

Emperor Penguin Family, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

Have a great Penguin Awareness Day everyone and let me know which of these penguins is your favourite in the comments!

by Peter

Magnificent Origami Sharks to Celebrate Shark Awareness Day

Today, July 14th is Shark Awareness Day. Sharks can definitely be ferocious predators but they do get a bad reputation. Many people are scared of sharks but the truth is that they're way more threatened by people than we are of them.

Shark Awareness Day was started to bring awareness to the fact that sharks are persecuted and endangered. In fact millions of sharks are killed each year. Whether that's for shark fin soup, for their teeth or just so we can feel safe on the beach.

Sharks are a very important part of the ecosystem in the oceans so the least we can do is show them some respect.

In honour of Shark Awareness Day here's a fantastic collection of origami sharks. Many of which you can fold yourself.

Our first origami shark is this excellent design by Choi Ju-Young.

Shark, Designed and Folded by Choi Ju-Young

Instructions not available

Next we have a fantastic paper saw shark. Saw sharks get their name from their long snouts that are edged with teeth. They use these snouts to slash and disable their prey.

Japanese Saw Shark, Designed by Se-Ik Kim and Folded by Alex Mironenko

Diagrams available in COS 2012 or Raison d'être 2014

Nguyen Ngoc Vu has designed an amazing Great White Shark and it's probably the most famous origami shark out there. A lot of different people have folded this model as you'll see in this post.

Most people are the most afraid of the Great White Shark but in reality they barely ever attach humans. It's even more rare that an attack from a Great White Shark would be fatal.

Great White Shark, Designed by Nguyen Ngoc Vu and Folded by P. Colman

Diagrams available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Here's this model again but folded by a different artist. Great white sharks can be found along the coast of every continent in the world except for Antarctica where I guess it's just too cold for them.

Great White Shark, Designed by Nguyen Ngoc Vu and Folded by Philippe Landrein

Diagrams available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Hammerhead Sharks get their name from the flattened and extended shape of their heads that resembles a hammer. This shape is known as a cephalofoil.

Here's a really excellent Hammerhead Shark model that took about 4 hours to fold.

Hammerhead Shark, Designed by Nguyen Ngoc Vu and Folded by Michael Novio

Diagrams available in the 20th Tanteidan Convention Book

Winston is an expert at designing paper versions of all kinds of different fish and he designed this excellent Blue Shark. I really love the details on the gills.

Blue sharks prefer living in cooler water and can have litters of 25 to 100 baby sharks!

Blue Shark, Designed and Folded by Winston

Instructions not available

Here's Nguyen Ngoc Vu's fantastic Great White again but folded by another artist. Most of the world's Great White Shark population lives off the coast of Dyer Island in South Africa. There are so many sharks here that the area has been nicknamed "Shark Alley."

Great White Shark, Designed by Nguyen Ngoc Vu and Folded by Tomasz Krawczyk

Diagrams available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Here we have a more cartoonish looking shark. If you use two coloured paper like you see here you end up with an awesome colour change on the eyes and teeth.

Shark, Designed by Fernando Gilgado and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in Papirolandia 3 by Fernando Gilgado Gomez

Tomasz Krawczyk designed this excellent origami shark during a meeting in Crocow.

Shark, Designed and Folded by Tomasz Krawczyk

Instructions not available

Here's another one of those awesome Great White Sharks. There are 270 steps to fold this model and about half of them are just to fold the teeth! It took Shuki Kato 8 hours to fold this.

A Great White Shark can live up to 70 years!

Great White Shark, Designed by Nguyen Ngoc Vu and Folded by Shuki Kato

Diagrams available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Won Seon Seo designed this excellent shark and made this fun photo of it.

Shark, Designed and Folded by Won Seon Seo

Instructions not available

This is a really great Frilled Shark. Frilled Sharks are very old and exhibit several primitive features that have earned them the nickname of "Living Fossil." With their very long and flexible jaws they can swallow their prey whole. They get their name from the frilly appearance of their six pairs of gill slits.

Frilled Shark, Designed and Folded by Petr Stuchlý

Instructions not available

Here we have an absolutely beautiful Great White folded by CaptainMoon. This whole model, including all those teeth, 16 on the top and 8 on the bottom of the mouth is folded from a single square of paper!

A Great White Shark usually weighs between 1,500 and 2,400 pounds and at full maturity they can weigh up to an ton!

Great White Shark, Designed by Nguyen Ngoc Vu and Folded by CaptainMoon

Diagrams available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Next we have another awesome design from Winston. This time it's an Angel Shark. Angel Sharks look very similar to rays because of their flattened appearance. Angel Sharks are sometimes called Monk Fish and some species can grow up to 2 meters long!

Angel Shark, Designed and Folded by Winston

Instructions not available

Here's another more generic but nonetheless less great shark design from Oblisk. I especially like the symmetry of this design as you can see the fins on both sides of the model.

Shark, Designed and Folded by Obelisk

Instructions not available

Here's a different Blue Shark Design by John Montroll. Blue Sharks are pretty laid back and often swim along quite slowly. When they see food however they quickly turns into one of the fastest fish in the ocean.

Blue Shark, Designed by John Montroll and Folded by ВЕРЕСТУН Игорь (Iver)

Diagrams available in Origami Sea Life: Third Edition

Here's another Great White with an awesome close up of the details in the mouth. Great Whites can grow up to 21 feet long but most females are usually 15 to 16 feet long while most males are usually 11 to 13 feet long.

Great White Shark, Designed by Nguyen Ngoc Vu and Folded by sakuryu(╯3╰)

Diagrams available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Here's another excellent Hammerhead design by Joseph Wu. The position of a Hammerhead Shark's eyes on the sides of its head gives it full 360° vision in the vertical plan. This means they can see above and below them at all times.

Hammerhead Shark, Designed and Folded by Joseph Wu

Instructions not available

This is another Great White Shark designed by a different Vietnamese artist named Nguyễn Hùng Cường. The teeth and other details in this model are fantastic too.

Real Great White sharks have 5 rows of teeth in their mouths with 46 teeth in each row.

Great White Shark, Designed by Nguyễn Hùng Cường and Folded by Nguyen Nam Son

Diagrams available in Crease Magazine #12

Here's another fantastic Blue Shark design by Winston. Blue Sharks aren't usually a victim of commercial fishing but is the target of many sport fishing activities around the world. The official status of this species of shark is "Near Threatened."

Blue Shark, Designed and Folded by Winston

Instructions not available

This next model is a Bull Shark. The Bull Shark is also called the Zambezi Shark in Africa and the Lake Nicaragua  Shark in Nicaragua. These sharks can live in both salt and fresh water. They live along coasts and can travel very far up rivers. Once a Bull Shark travelled up the Mississippi River and made it as far as Illinois.

Bull Shark, Designed and Folded by Nguyen Ngoc Vu

Instructions not available

Here's John Montroll's excellent Blue Shark design again folded by another fantastic artist.

Blue Shark, Designed by John Montroll and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in Origami Sea Life: Third Edition

Here's Nguyễn Hùng Cường's Great White Shark again and this time it's folded with a stylish wave. In just one year a Great White Shark can eat an average of 11 tons of food!

Great White Shark, Designed by Nguyễn Hùng Cường and Folded by Phạm Hoàng Tuấn

Diagrams available in Crease Magazine #12

Next we have Ngueyn Ngoc Vu's excellent Hammerhead design folded by another fantastic artist. In these two photos you can really see all the details that go into this model.

Hammerhead sharks have been known to eat a wide array of prey including fish, squid, octopus, crustaceans and even other sharks. Their favourite food to eat though are stingrays.

Hammerhead Shark, Designed by Ngueyn Ngoc Vu and Folded by Alex Mironenko

Diagrams available in the 20th Tanteidan Convention Book

Here we have Nguyen Ngoc Vu's amazing Great White Shark folded by the designer himself and photographed at a convention. Great White Sharks are classified as an Apex Predator but they are quite often attacked and eaten by Killer Whales.

Great White Shark, Designed and Folded by Nguyen Ngoc Vu

Diagrams available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Our final model for this post is one of my all-time favourite models and photos. Even though I've featured this photo on the site before I absolutely had to include it in this post.

Great White Sharks can jump up to 10 feet above the water to catch prey. This behaviour is known as "breaching." The average "breaching" speed is 25 miles per hour. In some cases these sharks have been known to breach right onto the deck of a boat.

As you can see below, Nguyen Ngoc Vu has folded an incredible Great White Shark breaching the water to catch a seal.

Shark Bite Seal, Designed and Folded by Nguyen Ngoc Vu

Instructions not available

That's it for this post. Hopefully you've learned something and come away with a new-found respect for sharks. Which one of these origami sharks was your favourite? Let us know in the comments!

by Peter

Fantastic Origami Farm Animals to Fold When You’re Cooped Up

In this post we're going to take a look at a group of excellent paper farm animals. These are the standard sorts of animals you'd expect to see on a farm such as cows, pigs, sheep, etc.

We'll start off with these two adorable sheep from Gen Hagiwara. He folded these for Chinese New Year in the year of the sheep. I love how the perfect parts are black and white when you use two-sided paper.

Sheep, Designed and Folded by Gen Hagiwara

Instructions not available

There are lots of great origami horse designs out there but Hoang Tien Quyet's design is definitely the most elegant looking. If you use two-sided paper the mane and tail end up a different colour than the body.

Horse, Designed by Hoang Tien Quyet and Folded by Mariano

Diagrams available in VOG: 50 Hours of Origami+

If you have a farm you definitely need a cat to take care of the mice.  I really like the shape of this one.

Cat, Designed by Giang Dinh and Folded by Antoine S. (origoku)

Diagrams available in License to Fold

Every farm also needs a rooster and here's an excellent one designed by Jaeil Jeong. The colour changes with the white and red are perfect.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Jaeil Jeong

Instructions not available

Here's one of the coolest looking goats that I've seen.

Goat, Designed and Folded by Ta Trung Dong

Instructions not available

This is a really awesome bull. The photograph is great and you can really feel the strength of the bull even though it's just made out of paper.

Bull, Designed by Dong Viet Thien and Folded by Gonzalo

Video instructions available from Breath of Paper's YouTube channel

Here's an excellent cow to go along with this bull. I love all the details on the head.

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

Diagrams available in Origami Works of Yoo Tae Yong

Here's an adorable family of paper ducks.

Ducks, Designed by Hoàng Tiến Quyết and Folded by Andrea Borsa

Diagrams available in VOG: 50 Hours of Origami+

Jaeil Jeong designed this really excellent pig.

Pig, Designed and Folded by Jaeil Jeong

Diagrams available from Jaeil Jeong's Flickr

Quentin Trollip has what's easily one of the best origami horse designs out there. If you use brown and white paper like you see here there are some excellent colour changes in the legs and on the head.

Clydesdale Horse, Designed by Quentin Trollip and Folded by Willie G. Crespo

Diagrams available in Origami Sequence

This next model is Seth Friedman's Finnish Lapphund. Normally when people fold and photograph this model they always show it from the side. This is the first time I've seen it from this angle and there are a lot of really great details on the face.

Here Ju Hyeong Kim folded the model a little bit differently so it's sitting down instead of standing like it normally is.

Finnish Lapphund, Designed by Seth Friedman and Folded by Ju Hyeong Kim

Video instructions available from Seth Friedman's YouTube channel

Here are two more excellent paper chickens.

Chicken and Rooster, Designed and Folded by Choi Ju Young

Instructions not available

Satoshi Kamiya has one of the most realistic looking sheep designs I've seen out there. This one is folded from one 35cm x 35cm square of paper and it took 2 and a half hours to fold!

If you try folding this model be sure to use very thin paper otherwise the horns get very hard to fold.

Sheep, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Philipp-Marius Kost

Diagrams available in the Tanteidan 21st Convention Book

Hoàng Tiến Quyết is still one of my all time favourite origami artists. He has a very unique curved style in all his designs and uses wet folding a lot. Here's one of his fantastic pig designs. This is a more "Grown-up" version of his famous pig.

Pig (October 2015), Designed and Folded by Hoàng Tiến Quyết

Instructions not available

Kei Watanabe has designed some incredible and complex models. Here he's designed a kuchinoshima-ushi or a Japanese cattle.

Japanese Cattle, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

Lots of farms have rabbits and here are two adorable ones folded by Rainer Berg.

Rabbits, Designed by Ronald Koh and Folded by Rainer Berg

Diagrams available in the Bogota 2013 Origami Convention book

This isn't a super complex looking goat but it's still got a really fantastic design.

Goat, Designed by Nguyên Hùng Cu'ò'ng and Folded by Andrés

Diagrams available in the Tanteidan 21st Convention Book

Here's another really excellent horse design. I especially like that prancing leg.

Horse, Designed by Hideo Komatsu and Folded by Natalia Romanenko

Diagrams available in Works of Hideo Komatsu

Beth Johnson has a really cute sheep design that uses a tessellation pattern for the fur.

Sheep, Designed by Beth Johnson and Folded by Philippe Landrein

Diagrams available in Tanteidan Magazine #148

I really like the 3D square design of Fernando Castellanos's cow. It almost reminds me of a milk carton which is perfect since it's a cow.

Cow, Designed and Folded by Fernando Castellanos

Instructions not available

Here's one more excellent rooster for this post. It's folded from one 60cm x 60cm sheet of paper with some excellent colour changes on the head and legs.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by origami-M-H-G

Instructions not available

This is another really unique looking pig design.

Pig, Designed by Cyrille Masseys and Folded by Guillermo R. Parrondo

Diagrams available in the Bogota 2014 Origami Convention book

This might be the most realistic paper goat design I've ever seen. The details here are awesome and it's nice to see the model from multiple angles.

Goat, Designed by Taiga Yamamoto and Folded by Tkak Sakai

Instructions not available

Here's one last cow photographed from a really dynamic angle.

Cattle, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Kyoung Su Kim

Diagrams available in Tanteidan Magazine #141

Our final model in this post is this great origami bull. I really like the lines, shapes and angles in the design. The pose of the bull is excellent too, it looks quite strong.

Bull, Designed and Folded by Jaeil Jeong

Instructions not available

That's it for this post! If you end up folding any of these the next time you're cooped up share a photo in the comments so we can take a look!

by Peter