This special design is named for the Origamido Studio. “The Origamido Butterfly” has segmented wings, clean lines, and a color-change body. The distinctive shape made this design a clear choice for our Origamido Studio logo, because it was elegant, confident, finished, and free—so different from traditional attempts at origami butterflies, which often seemed unfinished or even tortured.
Origamido!
paper folding is the craft
“do,” a life’s journey!
This design introduces the “Origamido Butterfly Base,” and a different style of finishing the butterfly’s head.
The Morpho didius (Giant Blue Morpho) butterfly was the real world inspiration for this model.
Photo by Didier Descouens. (Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Morpho_didius_Male_Dos_MHNT.jpg)
1. Begin with the major color facing up. Valley-fold the paper in half, edge to edge. Unfold.
2. Valley-fold two opposite edges to meet at the crease.
3. Valley-fold the paper in half, bottom edge to top.
4. Valley-fold the paper in half, right to left.
5. Open the top half and squash-fold.
6. Your paper should look like this. Turn it over, left to right.
7. Squash-fold the right half.
8. Valley-fold the bottom corner up. Make the fold below the top edge of the triangle area at approximately one-fifth the height of the triangle. Unfold.
9. One at a time, squash-fold the upper left and right halves to form the wings.
10. This is the “Origamido Butterfly Base.” Countless design variations are possible from here! Open the two bottom flaps and squash-fold the bottom left and right corners.
11. Carefully turn the triangle pockets of the hindwings inside out, moving them to the backside. Move the leading edges of the forewings down and crimp the middle of the wings, forming the overlap.
12. Valley-fold the folded edges up and then down.
13. Inside-reverse fold the indicated corners. Turn the model over, left to right.
14. Mountain-fold the corner flaps of the hindwings. Valley-fold the top edge of each forewing to its nearby, folded edge. Valley-fold the middle corners over and tuck behind the folded layer.
15. Valley-fold the top edges down and tuck behind the top edge of the triangle layer.
16. Valley-fold the model in half, wing to wing.
17. Valley-fold each wing over the body. Notice the angle of the fold line.
18. Open the wings out to each side of the body.
19. Detail follows: Forming the Origamido Butterfly Head.
20. (A) Squash-fold the paper for the head. (B) Inside-reverse-fold the indicated corners. (C) Turn the model over, left to right.
21. (A) Valley-fold the top edges down. (B) Turn the model over, left to right.
22. Valley-fold the wings together.
23. (A) Mountain-fold the abdomen edges in. (B) Open the wings.
The Origamido Butterfly.
Origamido Butterfly variation: Omit turning the triangle pockets inside out at step 11.
