Origami Fish

This origami fish is relatively easy to make. It builds into an ocean-dwelling angel fish.

Start with a single piece of brightly colored origami paper. First make a bird base, shown below.

Origami Fish

origami bird base

Fold the top points of the bird base down, to make a kite shape, as shown in the next two photos.

bird base with one top point folded down bird base converted into kite shape

Now fold one of the lower points of the kite upwards, to meet the top point.

Fold that point across to the left corner of the kite.

bottom point of kite folded up point from previous step folded to left of kite

Now fold that corner across to the right, as shown in the sequence of the next three pictures.

This creates one half of the fish tail.

refolding the point across to the right more refolding the point

finished refolding across to the right

Fold the fish tail down.

The flip the origami piece over, and repeat the last six photo-steps to make another fish tail half.

one half of the fish tail folded down piece flipped over

other half of the fish tail folded down

Now fold the Left and Right corners of the kite onto the centerline as shown.

Repeat on the other side.

left and right corners folded onto the centerline piece flipped over and previous step repeated

We're almost there.

Hold each bottom point of the kite, one in each hand, and pull gently to unfold the fish.

pulling bottom corners of kite apart, to form fins of angel fish angel fish opened up

You can apply a small amount of glue or tape to hold the tail together.

Also optional is decoration with pens, pencils, markers or crayons.

Below we see our origami fish living "under the sea".

angel fish decorated with markers