Harry Potter Papercraft: Hedwig

I have been reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book has me thinking about Harry Potter's owl, Hedwig. "Transplaner," a DIY Harry Potter blog offers this Hedwig paper model which was designed by Jeanne, the blog's author. The template for the model and instruction photographs may be found here. Hedwig is a female snowy owl, a species that is native to the artic regions of North America.

Other Harry Potter Papercraft:

Lucius Malfoy Wand
Mini Marauder's Map
Hogwart's Well

Fantastic Beasts Niffler
Printable HP Bookmarks

Glue-less Turkey Papercraft

The Toymaker website is a true delight. The site has dozens of lovely hand-drawn printables for all occasions. A few years ago I made this glue-less papercraft turkey as a table decoration for our Thanksgiving dinner. I would call it a 3D papercraft, but because the head, legs and tail feathers are flat, it is probably more accurate to call it a "2.5D" papercraft. The PDF template for this turkey may be downloaded from The Toymaker's Thanksgiving section. It should be noted, unlike the photo where the turkey's tail is blank, in the template the turkey has the words "WE GIVE THANKS" across his tail.

Other Thanksgiving Papercraft:

Origami Turkey
Easy Mayflower Ship
Cooked Turkey Origami

Wren Paper Model

Johan Scherft creates paper models of birds; very realistic paper models. Even more amazing than the lifelike quality of his papercraft is the fact that the textures on his models are hand drawn! Scherft offers free samples of his work, one of which is this wren.  It may be downloaded here. Some of the other paper models available include a firecrest, a kingfisher and a bird-of-paradise.

Previous papercraft birds:

Humming Bird
Flying Magpie
Dodo
Java Sparrow
Moa

Origami Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving! To celebrate the holiday here is an awesome origami turkey by Jo Nakashima. To create the design, Jo modified a previously designed pigeon origami. Video instructions for how to fold the turkey may be found here. May you find an abundance of reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving!

Other Holiday Papercraft:

Cooked Turkey Origami

Simple Mayflower Model
Printable Advent Christmas Tree
Origami Advent Calendar

Angel Tree Topper Origami

Guild Wars Moa Papercraft

In the Guild Wars online role-playing game, one of the tamable animals available to players is a moa. Real life moas were large flightless birds that once lived in New Zealand, but were hunted to extinction after Polynesian groups migrated to their habitat in the thirteenth century. Some moa species grew close to 12 feet (3.7 meters) tall! In 2011, Guild Wars released a collection of holiday papercraft. One of the models in the collection was a moa as it appears in the game. Still available as of today, the PDF template for the bird may be downloaded here. Build photo by Dino Toy Museum.

Other Paper Models of Extinct Animals:

Trilobite
Woolly Mammoth
Velociraptor
Saber-toothed Tiger

Final Fantasy XI Chocobo Papercraft

I have been playing the Final Fantasy Tactics app lately and it has made me nostalgic for the Final Fantasy papercraft people used to create 8 or 9 years ago. One of the nicest FF paper models from that time period was this chocobo from Final Fantasy XI by Kaizo Papercraft. The Pepakura PDO file is still available here. Kaizo never "officially" released this papercraft so the template is really rough and could use some editing, but as you can see, if you put some effort into it, the end result is awesome. By the way, the cat on the chocobo's back is an unrelated FFVII papercraft.

Other FF Papercraft:

Moogle
Puppetmaster
Chibi Sephiroth
Dissidia Paladin
Cid Highwind Goggles

UPDATE 9/25/19: A more refined (i.e. cleaned up) template for this papercraft may be downloaded here.

Origami Owl

This excellent origami owl was folded by Flickr member "Origamidoc" from a 19.7" x 19.7" (50 cm x 50 cm) square of paper. The specific type of owl it is intended to represent is the Blakiston's fish owl, which is the largest species of the bird. An excellent video tutorial on how to fold the owl may be found here. The original origami design is by Katsuta Kyohei.

Some Previous Origami Animals:

Penguin
Unicorn
Swallow
Dinosaurs

Java Sparrow Papercraft

The Java sparrow (sometimes called a Java finch) has been a common cage bird in Asian countries for several centuries. These paper models of Java sparrows were created by Marubun. PDF templates for the birds may be found at the bottom of the page here. There 27 color variations of the model available, including an uncolored version which may be colored as you wish.

Other Papercraft Birds:
Origami Swallows
Lifelike Hummingbirds
Final Fantasy Chocobo
Flying Magpie

Papercraft Dodo Bird

Here we have a Japanese paper model of the famous dodo bird. Dodo's are believed to have gone extinct sometime in the late 1600's. The flightless bird became an indelible part of our collective pop culture memory after Lewis Carroll included an anthropomorphic dodo as a character in his 1865 novel, Alice in Wonderland. The papercraft template and instructions for the dodo are available here.

Other Papercraft of Extinct Animals:
Woolly Mammoth
2.5D Velociraptor
Paper Trilobite

Flying Bird Paper Model

This flying bird papercraft comes as an all white model that can be colored with any color combination you like. Gedelgo, the creator of the bird, chose to color it with the markings of a magpie. The template for the model may be downloaded here. Magpies' natural habitat is western North America. They are a relative of the crow.

Other Papercraft Birds:

Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Origami Swallows
Cute Chocobo

Thanksgiving Turkey Origami

When I first came across this origami, the first thought that came to my mind was: Thanksgiving turkey. However, as I discovered later, it is not an origami turkey. It's a roasted chicken! Be that as it may, it still works well as a Thanksgiving decoration. The crease pattern for the turkey, er I mean chicken, was created by Joseph Wu and may be downloaded here. Build photo by Shuki Kato.

Cute Final Fantasy Chocobo Papercraft

There are several different free papercraft chocobos available on the Internet, but this one is undoubtedly one of the cutest. :) This papercraft was based on a 3D model from the Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon video game by Square Enix. The papercaft template for the model was created by DeviantART member Pastel-Leaf and may be downloaded here. Since Final Fantasy II, chocobos have appeared in nearly every Final Fantasy video game.

Papercraft Animal Diorama

This cute papercraft diorama from the Kirin company features six animals: a squirrel, a chimp, an owl, two rabbits, and a fox. I think the fox is my favorite of the bunch.  These "Forest Friends" are offered by Kirin as part of their collection of promotional paper toys for kids. Printable PDF templates for each of the creatures may be found here. A template for the "display tree" in the photo is also available.

Origami Swallow

Sipho Mabona has a knack for creating origami that is both simple and elegant. Much like his popular origami koi installation, Mabona also created an art piece composed of a group of pastel colored origami swallows like the one pictured above. Mabona entitled the piece "Pursuit of Happiness". Instructional videos on how to fold your own swallow may be viewed here. As with most origami, each swallow is folded from a single square of paper.

Papercraft Hummingbird

Johan Scherft is a master at creating realistic papercraft birds. His newest creation is this ruby-throated hummingbird model. The free PDF template for the hummingbird comes in two sizes: a large size for practice building and a smaller, life-size version (downloads available here).  Hummingbirds are among the smallest of birds in the world. Their native habitat is restricted to the Americas.

Poseable Robot Parrot Papercraft

James at Netroid Universe has added another to his growing collection of glue-less robotic papercraft: the robot parrot Mach-Kaw! Mach-Kaw's introduction says, "Man the aerial battle stations!!! The first zygodactyl Netroid has blasted through the radar!!!" 

UPDATE 7/25/25 - Mach-Kaw apparently is no longer available. :(

Origami Swallows

This art installation called "Pursuit of Happiness" was created by Sipho Mabona. Dozens of pastel origami swallows were suspended to give the effect of a flock of birds in flight.Want to fold your own swallows? The crease pattern is located here and a three part instructional video is located here.

Other origami by Sipho Mabona:
Trilobite Origami
Koi Origami

Jason Vorhees Twitter Paper Toy

The Twitter mascot gets crossed with Jason Vorhees in this paper toy by Rosaura Ochoa. Can Halloween be far away? ;) Jason as you probably know is the main antagonist in the Friday the 13th series of movies. The template for this bloody birdy is available here.

Cute Paper Dice Birds

These cute papercraft birds may not look like dice at first glance, but in the lower right corner of each face there is a small number. The bird dice come complete with a nifty carrying case with a hinged lid. The templates for these are available here at a Japanese website called "Mongo Village". If I knew Japanese I could tell you more, but it appears these birds are characters that live on an imaginary island.