There are tons of great Halloween themed origami models out there and we’re going to be highlighting some of them this month.
This post is all about the Grim Reaper which is the personification of death and is often seen in a black hooded cloak carrying a large scythe. The way these origami designers have captured this character with paper is nothing short of amazing.
Probably the most famous origami Grim Reaper model is the one that’s designed by Miyamoto Chuya. The diagrams to fold this model are available in the 22th Year Annual Special Issue for JOAS (the Japanese Origami Academic Society) Members and unfortunately I’m not sure where you can buy this now, especially if you’re not a member of JOAS.
If you do have a copy of the diagrams for this model and you’re having trouble be aware that there’s a mistake for steps 82, 83 and 84. Miyamoto Chuya has posted a correction for these 3 steps on his Flickr page.
This model is folded from one square sheet of paper. If you use paper that has different colours on each side you can get a really cool effect as the cloak and the face, hands and scythe blade will be different colours. This looks especially awesome if you use black and white paper.
If you are going to attempt to fold this, make sure you use really large paper. People usually use paper that’s at least 50cm x 50cm big and it could take you around 10 hours to finish folding it.
Let’s take a look at some of these folded by different origami artists. Firstly, here’s the Grim Reaper folded by Flicker user Tong Liu. This was folded from a 180 cm x 180 cm sheet of paper and the final model is 80 cm high.
Here’s the model again from a different angle.
Here’s a close up of the head of the model showing off the detail of the skull.
Here’s the model folded by Mariano Zavala B. This one uses paper with different colours on each side and you can definitely see it makes a pretty cool effect. You can see more photos of this model on his blog here. This Grim Reaper was folded from a 114 cm x 114 cm square of paper.
Artur Biernacki also did a fantastic job folding this model with double coloured paper. It’s also very interesting to see how the skull face has a slightly different personality depending on who’s folding it. This is a smaller one folded from a square of paper that was 60 cm x 60 cm.
Here’s a close up on the face of Artur Biernacki’s Grim Reaper.
When Dzmitry Lysiuk folded this Grim Reaper he put it in more of an action pose. This one was folded from a square of paper that’s 70 cm x 70 cm.
Lucas Honor also used two coloured paper and his version has a great looking face full of personality. This was the fourth time he folded this model and it’s folded from a 60cm x 60cm square of paper.
Here’s Lucas Honor’s model again but from a bit of a different angle where you can really see details on the bottom back of the cloak.
A couple of other people have designed their own Grim Reaper models too. Here’s one designed and folded by Hubert Villeneuve.
This model uses two sheets of paper, one for the Grim Reaper itself and one for the scythe. In this photo the Grim Reaper is folded from a sheet of paper that’s 48cm x 48cm and the scythe is folded from a sheet of paper that’s 24cm x 24cm.
As of right now there are not instructions available for folding this model.
Our final origami Grim Reaper is designed by Neelesh Kumar and is absolutely incredible. This model is folded from one single square sheet of paper. That includes all the details including the scythe, wings and the crow! I can’t even begin to understand how someone designs something like this and folds it from one sheet of paper.
If these models blew your mind like they did mine be sure to check out these artists and take a look and some of the other incredible things they’ve folded!
