Celebrate Video Game Day with Amazing Origami from Tons of Great Games

September 12 is officially Video Game Day and since I love video games this is the perfect opportunity to take a look at some more video game themed origami.

Fortunately there are tons of really excellent models from all kinds of different games all throughout gaming history.

No matter what kind of games you like to play you’ll definitely find something awesome to fold in this post.

Because I’m such a fan of the Pokemon games we’ll start things off with this beautiful Charizard. This is folded from a single 60cm x 60cm square of paper and the final model is about 11cm tall with a wingspan of about 33cm.

Charizard, Designed by Tadashi Mori and Folded by Matthew Groves

Video instructions available from Tadashi Mori’s YouTube channel

Taking things over to the real-time strategy genre here’s a paper version of the Apocalypse Tank from Command and Conquer Red Alert 2. This was photographed at the 5th Korea Origami Convention. I can’t make out the last name of the creator so if you know please let me know and I can add it in.

Apocalypse Tank, Designed and Folded by Jonathan Hirschberg (Photo by Maeng Heung Gue)

Instructions not available

Next is one of my favourite video game themed models. This is a Zerg Hydralisk from series Starcraft. It took Ji Woo Han 12 hours to fold this from a single 90cm x 90cm square of paper!

Hydralisk, Designed by Chen Xiao and Folded by Ji Woo Han

Instructions not available

This Lugia is one of my all-time favourite Pokemon models.

Lugia, Designed and Folded by Haruka Hashimoto (Photo by Hiroaki Kobayashi)

Crease pattern available from Haruka Hashimoto’s Flickr

Here’s an excellent slime from the Dragon Quest series with an excellent colour change for the eyes and mouth.

Slime, Designed by U-39 and Folded by Zephyr Liu

Instructions not available

Maeng Heung Gue designed this incredible paper version of Tyrael, an angel from the Diablo series. This entire model is folded from a single uncut piece of paper!

Tyrael, Designed and Folded by Maeng Heung Gue

Instructions not available

Here’s this model again but now it’s been painted and it looks a lot more awesome.

Tyrael, Designed and Folded by Maeng Heung Gue

Instructions not available

Satoshi Kamiya designed this fantastic Bahamut model. Bahamut is a creature you can summon in the Final Fantasy series. It’s a pretty popular model so I had to include it in this post. The painting on this model is great too.

Bahamut, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Ji Woo Han

Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003

If you’ve ever played Street Fighter than you’ll recognize this origami version of the character Ryu. This whole thing is folded from a single 50cm x 50cm square of tracing paper and it took about a whole year to perfect the design!

Ryu, Designed and Folded by Neelesh K.

Crease pattern available from Neelesh K.’s Flickr

Saku Saku has designed a ton of excellent paper versions of the monsters from Monster Hunter. This is called a Legiana and it’s a species of flying wyvern with wings that resemble leaves folding back in on each other. It’s probably the perfect monster to fold with origami.

Legiana, Designed and Folded by Saku Saku

Instructions not available

I’ve always liked the Piranha Plants from the Super Mario games and when I saw this model it instantly became one of my favourites.

Piranha Plant, Designed and Folded by Alex Satsukawa

Instructions not available

Karol Kafarski designed this awesome looking Tallneck, one of the robot creatures from the game Horizon Zero Dawn. I love the details here and how it looks like you could climb it just like in the game.

Tallneck, Designed and folded by Karol Kafarski

Instructions not available

Here we have an amazing paper version of Frostmourne, the sword from the Lich King in World of Warcraft. It’s also photographed outside in the snow which is a very nice touch.

Frostmourne, Designed by zhu9002 and Folded by Никита Васильев

Instructions not available

Lee Boyeon has designed a lot of really excellent Pokemon. This one is called Lapras and I really like the 3D design and colour changes.

Lapras, Designed and Folded by Lee Boyeon

Crease pattern available from Lee Boyeon’s Flickr

Fernando Castellanos designed this incredible Mortal Kombat logo from a single square of paper.

Mortal Kombat Logo, Designed and Folded by Fernando Castellanos

Crease pattern available from Fernando Castellanos’s Flickr

We had the Lich King’s sword before, now here’s the entire Lich King himself!

Lich King, Designed by Nguyen Tuan Anh and Folded by Никита Васильев

Crease pattern available in VOG: 50 hours of Origami +

Here’s another excellent Starcraft model, this time it’s one of the Protoss units.

Protoss Immortal, Designed and Folded by CahoonasOrigami

Instructions not available

Here’s a fantastic paper version of the Pokemon Snivy. You can totally feel the smugness through this design.

Snivy, Designed by Kakami Hitoshi and Folded by Kyoung Su Kim

Crease pattern available from Calico’s Origami Aquarium

This is one of the champions from the game League of Legends. It’s known as Cho’Gath, the Terror of the Void.

Cho’Gath, Designed by Slifer Wu and Folded by Kyoung Su Kim

Instructions not available

Here are two of probably the best Pikachu models I’ve seen photographed out at a convention. I love the colours here and I’m not entirely sure how they made the red cheeks but they look great.

Pikachu, Designed and folded by Kosuke Nakamura (Photographed by Hiroaki Kobayashi)

Instructions not available

Here’s another fantastic Warcraft themed model of a Goblin Tinker. I really like the little folded wrench.

Tinker 2.0, Designed and Folded by 晓 陈

Instructions not available

This is another League of Legends champion called Eternum Nocturne. There are some really excellent colour changes in this design.

Eternum Nocturne, Designed and Folded by Alex Satsukawa

Crease pattern available from Alex Satsukawa’s Flickr

I couldn’t do a video game themed post without including a chocobo, one of the giant birds characters ride in the Final Fantasy series. This one looks quite soft and I really like the claws.

Chocobo, Designed by Andrey Ermakov and Folded by Luc Marnat

Diagrams available in Olympiad 2013

Here’s another really cool idea for a model. This is the moon that’s about to crash into the Earth in the Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. It’s all one sheet of paper and looks fantastic like white and black paper.

Majora’s Mask Moon, Designed and Folded by Kei Morisue (Photo by Jon Tucker)

Instructions not available

Here’s one more excellent Pokemon for this post. This one is called Geodude. The design isn’t super complex (it’s actually a water bomb in the middle there) but it’s nice and 3D and looks exactly like a Geodude in the games.

Geodude, Designed and Folded by Saku Saku

Video instructions available from Saku Saku’s YouTube channel

I just finished playing the absolutely fantastic new God of War game so when I saw this paper version of the Leviathan Axe I needed to include it in this post.

Leviathan Axe, Designed and Folded by Karol Kafarski

Crease pattern available from Karol Kafarski’s Flickr

Satoshi Kamiya has designed several fantastic origami dragons and this is most recent one. This is Alduin, the World Eater from the Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. This is of course, one uncut square of paper.

Alduin, the World Eater, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Timothy Chang

Crease pattern available from folders.jp

Our final model for this post is from Dark Souls, one of my all time favourite video games. This is the player’s character resting at one of the games bonfires. The whole scene is folded from the same piece of paper and it’s awesome how you get a different colour for the fire.

Pyromancer, Designed and Folded by Edgar

Crease pattern avaialble from Edgar’s Flickr

That’s it for this post. Let us know which one of these excellent models was your favourite and if there’s any video game that you’d like to see more origami from let us know in the comments!