Papercraft Fish Series

Mikio Kajiwara is a professional papercraft designer. He is also a fisherman. For fun, in his spare time, he designs paper models of the fishes he loves. The four papercraft fishes pictured here (plus two more) are available for free from Kajiwara's website located here. Kajiwara's goal with these models is to make them as accurate to the real fish as possible, yet remain simple to build. I think he succeeded!

Other Papercraft Fish:

Largemouth Bass
Koi Origami
Clownfish Calendar
Thresher Shark
Jonah and the Whale

Great White Shark Papercraft

This papercraft depicts a moment frozen in time, when a great white shark rises violently from the water to snag a seal to eat. Not the most pleasant of events, but it makes for a cool paper model nonetheless. This model was created by DeviantART member Dr. WheelieMobile who based the design on a 3D model from the video game, Zoo Tycoon.  The JPG template for the model may be downloaded here. Three different color variations for the shark are included in the download.

Other Papercraft Animals:

Rockhopper Penguins

Deep Sea Creatures

Wetland Species Collection

Forest Animals Diorama

WoW Lion

Official Disney Papercraft: Nemo

It took 13 years, but Pixar and Disney have finally produced a sequel to Finding Nemo. The new movie, titled Finding Dory, is set to be released June 17th. Looking to celebrate with some papercraft? ^^ This official paper model of Nemo is offered for free at the Disney Family website (here). Instructions on the website claim the model can be built in 15 minutes!

Other Pixar Papercraft:
Mike Wazowski
Sheriff Woody Marionette
Miniature Carl's House (Up!)

Jonah and the Whale Paper Toy

Markus at Digitprop designed a Jonah and the whale paper toy for kids to build in a church class. I like how there is a place for Jonah to fit inside the whale's mouth. :) Jonah is thought to have lived in the 8th century BC. His story is told in the biblical book that bears his name. The easy-to-build, single page template for the toy may be downloaded here.

Other Bible Papercraft:

Vintage Nativity Diorama
4th Century Synagogue
Easy Easter Diorama

Papercraft Koi Diorama

The Akafuku tea house in Ise, Japan was established in 1707 to serve those visiting the Ise Grand Shrine, an important Shinto religious site. The Akafuku tea company also happens to offer free papercraft on their website! My favorite of their offerings is this koi diorama. Despite appearing life size, each fish is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. The diorama and other paper models related to the tea house and the Ise shrine may be downloaded here.

WoW Thresher Shark Papercraft

The animals in the World of Warcraft video game make excellent paper models! Pictured is one such example: a thresher shark. The template for this papercraft shark was created by Dennis Griesheimer. Included in the template download (here) are four alternate textures for the model (in case you prefer a different color). Build photo by Eatcrow2.

Papercraft Tropical Fish Perpetual Calendar

Time to start thinking about a new calendar! Canon Creative Park has dozens of free papercraft calendars available for download. One of  the most creative in their offering is this 3D tropical fish calendar. I like the fact it's a perpetual calendar and can be used for more than one year. It would make a great decoration in a Disney Finding Nemo themed kid's room.  Happy New Year!

Papercraft Fruits, Vegtables and Animals

Japanese papercraft designer Kaoru Ogata has several free paper models available on his website. Most intriguing to me are his fruit, vegetable, and animal models. In the animal category there is a gold fish and a "smiling" snake. In the fruit category there is a pumpkin (It's a fruit, Google it!) and a pear. In the vegetable category there is a very geometric cauliflower.

UPDATE 7/5/25: These downloads are no longer available. :(

Koi Origami

These koi fish by origami artist Sipho Mabona have lots of decorative possibilities. In the photo, several different colors of the koi are suspended from wires to give them the appearance of swimming in a pond. Folding the koi is relatively easy. An excellent stop motion video here by Mabona shows how the origami fish are each folded from a single square of paper.

Papercraft Wetland Animals

As a way of educating the public about wetland habitats, Ducks Unlimited Canada offers ten free 3D paper models of wetland animals. Pictured above is a painted turtle, a leopard frog, a largemouth bass and a yellow spotted salamander. Also available are models of a mallard duck, a great blue heron, a great horned owl, a beaver, a red fox, and a dragonfly. Templates for each of the animals are available here.

Karatsu Kunchi Parade Float Paper Models

Karatsu Kunchi is a three day festival that takes place each November on the Japanese island of Kyushu. Each day of the festival there is a parade in which large floats are drawn through the streets by families who live on the island. Each of the floats was originally built in the 1800's. Pictured above are papercraft models of three of the floats. From left to right are a red lion, a green lion and a red bream fish. Templates and instructions for each of these paper models may be downloaded at the bottom of the page here.

Japanese Deep Sea Papercraft

From the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) comes a nice assortment of deep sea papercraft. In addition to eight sea creature papercraft there are papercraft of two submarines, a ship and an oceanographic buoy. My favorite is the manta ray. PDF templates for each of these may be found at the JAMSTEC Papercraft website. Just click on the photos once you are there.