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How to fold an origami lyrebird

A fan folded three times and cut once opens into long filmy plumes. A doubled strip folds into a V, and two pleats on each arm curve it into the lyre. A plump body stands in front.

You need: A brown 10 cm square, white on the back; a grey-brown 15 cm square; a rust strip 28 × 1.8 cm; a dark strip 8 × 1.2 cm; scissors, glue, white pen. Hard, 25 steps, about 45 minutes.

Steps

  1. Fold in half. Brown square, white side up, turned like a diamond. Fold the top corner down to the bottom corner. The long fold on top is the back.
  2. Cut the body. Keep the right corner as the beak. Cut from it down round a plump chest and belly, and up to the left corner: the rump.
  3. Pleat: fold in. Fold the head over to the left on a slanted line from the back, 3 cm right of the middle, down through the throat.
  4. Pleat: fold out. Fold it back to the right from the same point on the back, on a line that slants more. The head now bows a little.
  5. Stand it up. Tip the body up on the right so the head looks straight ahead and the rump sits low. Set it aside.
  6. Plumes: new sheet. From the grey-brown square cut a tall wedge 11 cm long with its point at the bottom, curved across the top.
  7. Fold in half. Fold the wedge in half from its point, the left half over onto the right.
  8. In half again. Fold it in half again from the point, the edges over onto the first fold.
  9. And again. Fold it in half once more the same way, to a thin wedge. Crease hard.
  10. Cut the plumes. Cut from 3.7 cm up each side of the thin wedge to one point in the middle of the top.
  11. Open it out. Unfold the last fold.
  12. Open again. Unfold the next fold.
  13. Open flat. Unfold the last fold too: eight long, filmy plumes spraying up.
  14. Lyre: new sheet. Set the plumes aside. Take the rust strip, white side up, slanting up to the right. Its middle sits at the bottom.
  15. Fold the strip. Fold it in half lengthwise, the lower long edge up onto the upper one, so it is rust on both sides.
  16. Fold a V. Fold the bottom half up on a level crease through the middle, so it rises to the left: a V with two long arms.
  17. Curve: fold in. 5.2 cm up each arm, fold the rest back down along a crease straight across the arm, from its outer edge.
  18. Curve: fold out. Fold each back up from the same outer point, on a crease that slants a little more. Both arms now rise straight up.
  19. Tips: fold in. 3 cm from each tip, fold the tip back down on a crease straight across the arm, from its inner edge.
  20. Tips: fold out. Fold each tip back up from the same inner point, on a crease that slants a little more. The tips curl outward: a lyre.
  21. Legs: new sheet. Set the lyre aside. Take the dark strip, standing tall.
  22. Fold the strip. Fold it in half lengthwise, one long edge over onto the other, so it is dark on both sides.
  23. Two legs. Fold the top half down on a crease across the middle that rises a little to the right: one leg stepping forward.
  24. Feet. Fold the last 9 mm of each leg forward along the ground.
  25. Glue it together. Glue the plumes' point and then the lyre's point behind the rump, the lyre over the plumes. Glue the legs' middle fold behind the belly.

Show-off lyrebird

Draw a bright eye. With a white pen, draw pale bands across both lyre feathers and a few fine lines up the plumes.

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