Positively Phenomenal Paper Phoenixes

The phoenix is a mythological creature that you see appear in Egyptian, Greek and Chinese mythology. Rather than including some origami phoenixes in posts about those topics I decided to create a new post completely dedicated to the origami phoenix since there’s surprisingly a lot of really awesome designs.

When it comes to origami phoenixes Satoshi Kamiya probably has the most famous design.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Thamar van Dijk

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

 

Here’s a much closer view of the model.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Yuki.N.

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

 

Here’s a great photo that really shows off the size of this amazing model. The entire phoenix is folded from one sheet of paper.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Yery J. Astroña (yeryco)

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

 

Here’s a different origami phoenix design by Vincent Achard that really has a lot of character.

Phoenix, Designed and Folded by Vincent Achard

Instructions not available

 

At the 22th Origami Tanteidan convention recently Fukuroi Kazuki showed off this spectacular phoenix.

Phoenix, Designed and Folded by Fukuroi Kazuki (Photo by Hiroaki Kobayashi)

Instructions not available

 

Here’s Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix design again.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Malleon

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

 

This is a completely different and incredibly complex looking origami phoenix designed by Nham Van Son. It looks very similar to a Ho-Oh from Pokemon which I guess makes sense since that Pokemon is designed after a phoenix.

Phoenix, Designed by Nham Van Son and Folded by Xu Daniel

Instructions not available

 

Here’s another great origami phoenix that looks like it’s bursting out of a fire.

Phoenix, Designed and Folded by Antoine S. (origoku)

Instructions not available

 

This is Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix again but it’s folded into a bit of a different position then normal.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Thamar van Dijk

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

 

This is a very simple design but it’s still super cute.

Little Phoenix, Designed and Folded by Gen Hagiwara

Crease pattern available from Gen Hagiwara’s Flickr

 

I’m not quite sure how P. Colman got this amazing looking phoenix to stand up like that but it certainly makes for an awesome photo.

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

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

 

This design started from a waterbomb base and ended in this awesome multiple tailed phoenix.

Phoenix V.1, Designed and Folded by Neelesh K

Instructions not available

 

Here’s another amazing rendition of Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by nyanko sensei

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

 

This is a different more Asian style phoenix design and like everything Xu Daniel folds it’s very tiny.

Phoenix, Designed by Hongyi Wan and Folded by Xu Daniel

Video instructions are available from Tadashi Mori’s YouTube channel

 

Here’s Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix again. The diagrams have 225 steps and it took Shuki Kato about 5 hours to fold this.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Shuki Kato

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

 

Here’s a completely different style of origami phoenix by Chad Killeen that’s walking along the ground instead of being in mid-flight.

Phoenix, Designed and Folded by Chad Killeen

Crease pattern available from blue paper’s Flickr

 

Even if it’s folded using non-traditional phoenix colours this Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix still ends up looking great.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

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

 

Now we’re back to another different and also quite Asian looking origami phoenix that’s designed by Andrei Ermakov.

Origami Firebird, Designed by Andrei Ermakov and Folded by Gonzalo

Instructions not available

 

I’m trying to break these up a bit but like I mentioned at the start of the post, Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix design is easily the most popular and it’s been folded by a ton of talented folders.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Daniel Brown

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

 

This design is also by Satoshi Kamiya but it’s very different from his more popular one.

Phoenix 3.0, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Yery J. Astroña (yeryco)

Instructions not available

 

Here’s a new phoenix design with a particularly excellent looking tail.

Phoenix, Designed and Folded by paper in dream

Instructions not available

 

And we’re back to another beautiful rendition of Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Philippe Landrein

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

 

Here’s Antoine S. (origoku)’s design again but this time it’s folded slightly different on the bottom so it really does look like it’s bursting out of the fire which is pretty cool.

Phoenix, Designed and Folded by Antoine S. (origoku)

Instructions not available

 

Here’s Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix again. It usually needs to sit on top of a stick like this since the tail is so long if you fold the default version of it.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Alex Satsukawa

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

 

This excellent phoenix was designed by Philipp-Marius Kost and is folded from a 40cm x 40cm sheet of paper which took 6 hours.

Phoenix, Designed and Folded by Philipp-Marius Kost

Instructions not available

 

This is Satoshi Kamiya’s phoenix design again however you can tell it looks very different because Gonzalo improvised a lot while folding it. In the end it has a very unique and fantastic look.

Phoenix, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Gonzalo

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

 

Here’s something quite different, a shield with a phoenix pattern on it photographed by Hiroaki Kobayashi at the 22nd Origami Tanteidan Convention.

Firebird, Designed and Folded by Masato Kikuchi

Instructions not available

 

Our final origami phoenix is this incredible modified version of Satoshi Kamiya’s design where Nguyen Nam Son somehow managed to turn the one tail into three amazing looking ones.

Phoenix (Modified), Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Nguyen Nam Son

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

 

That covers pretty much all of the excellent origami phoenixes I’ve found. If you know of any other great looking ones post a link in the comments.

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