How to Make Origami Fish: Easy Step-By-Step Instructions

Practice your origami skills by making this cute origami fish. This traditional origami model is easy to make and only takes a couple of minutes to complete. To begin making this pretty fish, you'll create an origami windmill base (shown below). Then, you'll finish the fish according to the instructions and customize it to your liking. 

Follow the steps below to create your fish, and remember that it's helpful to review the steps ahead when following origami diagrams. Don't worry if you don't succeed at making a perfect fish the first time. Origami takes practice. 

Once you've perfected folding the origami fish, you can decorate it and even create a whole school of fish in various colors. Another creative idea when making this fish is to put together an origami Shikishi, which is a themed display. For your Shikishi, you can make an aquatic display using blue paper for the water and then add your fish, a turtle, maybe a sailboat on top, and perhaps an origami swan.

So let's start! To begin, you'll need one sheet of square origami paper. It's best to use a regular 15x15 cm origami paper.

The Starting Folds

1. Fold the paper in half both ways and unfold.

2. Fold the left and right edges to the middle.

3. Fold the top and bottom edges to the center.

4. Unfold the top and bottom flaps.

5. Pull the left and right flaps from the middle up and out to the sides.

6. Squash the bottom edge to the center.

7. Now repeat steps 5 and 6 on the top section.

8. Fold the top left and bottom left points as shown.

Creating the Fish Shape

9. Fold the corner with the green dot up to the red dot.

10. Fold the flap down from the center as shown.

11. Fold the corner with the green dot down to the red dot.

12. Fold the flap down from the center as shown.

13. Fold the top and corners to the right as shown.

14. This is what it should look like.

15. Flip the model over to the other side.

Finishing Touches

16. Now you can push the mouth area in a bit and draw an eye. For a playful fish, feel free to add on eyelashes. If you want, you can draw a mouth as well. You can make a smiling mouth, puckered lips, or anything else to give your fish a personality.

Remember that origami can take practice. Make another one and it will be better than the first! For more tutorials and also video instructions, look at Paper Kawaii on YouTube. If you're stuck on a particular step, watching a video of the fold in action can be quite helpful.