Incredible Origami Dragons that Will Set Your Heart on Fire

Dragons are still my favourite type of creature to fold out of paper. There are some absolutely amazing origami dragon designs out there ranging from quite simple to unbelievably complex.

First up might be the most famous and one of the most folded origami dragons, Satoshi Kamiya’s Ancient Dragon.

Ancient Dragon, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by J.W Park

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003

Here’s a really cool looking dragon design that I’d never seen before. This is all folded from one sheet of paper!

Dragon 201, Designed and Folded by Takuro Kashiwamura

Instructions not available

This next dragon is pretty mind blowing and it’s all folded from a single 1m x 1m square of paper! It was for sale too but it’s probably long sold by now.

Gwyneth Dragon, Designed and Folded by Nguyen Nam Son

Instructions not available

Here’s something a bit different and kind of cute, a winged-crocodile or a “Dragodile”. This one lives in the clouds and needs steam water.

Dragodile, Designed and Folded by Mathieu Gueros

Instructions not available

This dragon design uses a pretty cool colour change so if you have two sided paper you get different colours for the flames it’s spitting.

Flaming Dragon, Designed by Oriol Esteve and Folded by Mathieu Gueros

Instructions not available

Jo Nakashima designed a great “Devil Dragon” and here Vít Masopust folded version 1 and 2 of the design. The paper here is beautiful too.

Devil Dragon v1 and v2, Designed by Jo Nakashima and Folded by Vít Masopust

Video Instructions for Devil Dragon v1 available from Jo Nakashima’s YouTube channel

Video Instructions for Devil Dragon v2 available from Jo Nakashima’s YouTube channel

Here’s another really cool dragon design that I had never seen before. I really like the spikes and details on it.

Archen Dragon, Designed and Folded by huynhducle1403

Instructions not available

Satoshi Kamiya’s Ryujin is another one of the most famous origami dragons. This thing takes forever to fold with all those scales and details. It’s all one sheet of paper too believe it or not.

Ryujin 3.5, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by ? (Photo by Phạm Hoàng Tuấn)

Crease pattern available in World of Super Complex Origami

Here’s another really unique looking dragon design. This one is also folded from a single square sheet of paper.

Fairy Dragon, Designed and Folded by Paper in Dream

Instructions not available

This is another really unique sort of Eastern style almost lizard-like dragon. I really like this design.

Little Long Dragon, Designed and Folded by Rudolf Deeg

Instructions not available

I really like it when people use paper money from different countries to make origami. These two amazing Asian-style dragons are folded using Vietnamese money.

Song Long, Designed and Folded by Bil Ori

Instructions not available

Here’s something quite different, a dragon with 3 heads. Even with all those heads it’s still folded from one sheet of paper

Three-Headed Dragon, Designed by Nham Van Son and Folded by Kevin Hutson

Crease pattern available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

This is another one of the coolest origami designs I’ve ever seen by an artist who goes by the name Obelisk. This is all folded from a single 120cm x 120cm square of paper. Although Ji Woo Han did add a few tiny pieces of red paper to make the eyes. Since it looks so cool I’m completely ok with that.

Dragon Knight, Designed by Obelisk and Folded by Ji Woo Han

Crease pattern available here, photo diagrams available here

Now we’ll take things a bit simpler but even though this next dragon is less complex than some of these it still looks quite good. This one is a cross between two different dragon designs. The body is from Edwin Corrie’s dragon and the head, tail and wings are from Tom Stamm’s dragon.

Cross Between Edwin Corrie’s and Tom Stamm’s Dragons, Folded by Andrea Borsa

Diagrams for Edwin Corrie’s dragon available in Origami Animals

Diagrams for Tom Stamm’s Dragon available in Origami Dragons

Here’s another unique dragon design by Choi Ju Young.

Dragon, Designed and Folded by Choi Ju Young

Instructions not available

This is Gregor Müller’s first dragon design and it looks like it’s singing which is kind of cute. Definitely an excellent design.

Singing Dragon, Designed and Folded by Gregor Müller

Instructions not available

Here’s another absolutely incredible dragon. This one is based off of the dragon Fafnir from German mythology.

Fafnir, Designed and Folded by Marcos Origami

Instructions not available

This might be the cutest version of Kade Chan’s Fiery Dragon that I’ve seen.

Fiery Dragon, Designed by Kade Chan and Folded by Charles Smith

Video instructions available from Jo Nakashima’s YouTube channel

Here’s a quite epic looking wyvern. Wyvern are dragons with just 2 legs.

Wyvern, Designed by Nham Van Son and Folded by huynhducle1403

Crease pattern available in VOG 2: Origami.vn

Here’s another of the more simpler looking dragons. I really like how the head looks on this one.

Western Dragon, Designed by John Montroll and Folded by Rainer Berg

Diagrams available in Mythological Creatures and the Chinese Zodiac Origami

I really like the unique almost cartoon-like design of this next dragon.

Flame Wing, Designed by Kang Han Wool and Folded by J.W Park

Instructions not available

Satoshi Kamiya’s Ancient Dragon is still probably the most famous origami dragon but he has a new design that’s rapidly gaining in popularity.

This dragon is Alduin, the World Eater based off of the same dragon in the video game Skyrim and yes, that’s all folded from a single sheet of paper!

Alduin the World Eater, Designed and Folded by Satoshi Kamiya (Photo by Hiroaki Kobayashi)

Crease pattern available from Satoshi Kamiya’s website

Here’s a very beautiful looking “Lustre” dragon. I really like how thin the wings are so you can sort of see light through them.

Lustre Dragon, Designed by Lee In Seop and Folded by J.W. Park

Instructions not available

This Eastern-style dragon looks very animalistic and realistic I think. It has something to do with that pose it’s in.

Eastern Dragon, Designed and Folded by Finward

Instructions not available

Here’s a really cool dragon skeleton model. The photos here are really great and you can really see all the details here.

Spine Dragon, Designed by Daniel Brown and Folded by Никита Васильев

Diagrams available from Origami USA

Here’s another very different and great looking dragon design created during a convention in Krakow, Poland since the symbol of Krakow is a dragon.

Kragon, Designed and Folded by Sebastien Limet

Instructions not available

Our final model for this post is something absolutely amazing. Kei Watanabe is an origami master and I have no idea how someone like him could design and fold an incredible dragon like this.

Coffee Dragon, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

What did you think about all these origami dragons? Let me know in the comments!