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!