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How to fold an origami cockatoo

A strip cut free along the belly turns on an outside reverse fold into the white head, its tip folded into a hooked beak. A yellow fan folded three times and cut once opens into the spiky crest.

You need: A pale grey 15 cm square, white on the back; a pale grey 9 × 3.5 cm piece; a yellow 10 cm square; a brown strip; scissors, glue, black pen. Hard, 19 steps, about 35 minutes.

Steps

  1. Fold in half. Pale square, white side up, turned like a diamond. Fold the bottom corner up to the top corner. The long fold at the bottom is the belly.
  2. Crease a strip. Fold the bottom edge up 3.4 cm along its whole length, through all the layers, and crease it hard.
  3. Open it. Unfold the strip again. You will cut along its crease to free the head.
  4. Free the head. Cut along the crease from the right edge to 5.2 cm right of the middle. Taper the strip's last 2.6 cm to a point. Cut a plump round back and a broad tail.
  5. Head down. Outside-reverse-fold the strip down, away from the body, on a crease from the end of the cut. Its white inside wraps round: the face.
  6. Hook the beak. Fold the last 1.8 cm of the head over to the left, through both layers, on a crease from the folded edge: the hooked beak.
  7. Stand it up. Turn the bird a quarter turn so the head is at the top, looking right, and the tail points down.
  8. Crest: new sheet. Set the body aside. Cut a fan from the yellow square: a slice of a circle 6.5 cm long, about a quarter circle wide.
  9. Fold in half. Fold the fan in half from its point, the left edge over onto the right edge.
  10. In half again. Fold it in half again from the point, the right edges over onto the left fold.
  11. And again. Fold it in half once more the same way, to a thin wedge. Crease hard.
  12. Cut the crest. Cut from 3.4 cm up each side of the wedge to one point in the middle of the curved end.
  13. Open it out. Unfold the last fold.
  14. Open again. Unfold the next fold.
  15. Open flat. Unfold the last fold too: eight yellow spikes fan out from the point, the cockatoo's crest.
  16. Wing: new sheet. Set the crest aside. Take the pale 9 × 3.5 cm piece, pale side up.
  17. Cut the wing. Round off both top corners. Cut the bottom end to a point near the right side, from 3 cm up the left edge.
  18. Branch: new sheet. Set the wing aside. Take a brown strip 17 × 1.2 cm for the branch.
  19. Glue it together. Glue the crest's point behind the top of the head, so the spikes fan up and back. Glue the body on the branch and the wing on its side.

Hello, cockatoo!

Colour the hooked beak black. Draw an eye on the white face and two dark feet gripping the branch.

What to fold next