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How to fold an origami rooster

A golden body with a lifted neck and a reverse-folded beak, standing on its legs. Fan-fold a dark tail into long pointed feathers and pleat-cut a red comb.

You need: A 15 cm square, gold on one side; half a 9 cm dark green square, cut corner to corner; a red rectangle about 2 × 3 cm; scissors, ruler, glue. Hard, 20 steps, about 30 minutes.

Steps

  1. Fold in half. Gold square, white side up: fold the top edge down to the bottom edge. The fold at the top is the rooster's back.
  2. Crease the legs. Fold the left end over on an upright crease 4 cm from the left edge, and the right end behind on an upright crease 10.1 cm from the right edge.
  3. Open them. Unfold both ends again. The strip between the two creases will be the legs.
  4. Neck back. Outside-reverse-fold the right end back over the body on an upright crease 7 cm from the right edge. Each layer wraps round the outside.
  5. Cut the neck. Cut up the neck fold, leaving 2 cm. Trim the flap to a strip 2 cm deep there, 1.2 cm at the tip. Snip the tip to a point 2.2 cm long and 2.5 cm along its top fold.
  6. Cut the legs. Cut up both leg creases to 4.8 cm below the top fold, then across to the ends. Round off the chest and the two back corners.
  7. Lift the neck. Outside-reverse-fold the neck strip up on a crease from its bottom corner, so it stands up tall above the chest.
  8. Beak. Outside-reverse-fold the pointed tip forward, on a crease from the back of the neck 1.4 cm below the tip. The white inside makes the beak.
  9. Comb: new sheet. Set the body aside. Take the red rectangle, red side up, long sides upright.
  10. Comb: shape the wattle. Cut the bottom left corner off from 1.4 cm up the left edge, curving down to the bottom edge near the right. Snip the bottom right corner too.
  11. Comb: pleat in thirds. Fold the right third over the front and the left third behind, so the rectangle is a strip one third as wide.
  12. Comb: cut a point. Cut the top of the strip to a point, from 7 mm down each side to the middle of the top edge.
  13. Comb: open it. Unfold both thirds. The top is now a comb of three red points, and the bottom is the wattle.
  14. Tail: new sheet. Set the comb aside. Take the dark green triangle, coloured side up, its square corner at the bottom right.
  15. Tail: fold in half. Fold the bottom edge up onto the right edge, creasing from the square corner.
  16. Tail: and again. Fold the new slanted edge onto the right edge again, from the same corner. Crease all the layers hard.
  17. Tail: cut a feather. Cut through all the layers to a long point: from 3.6 cm up each edge, measured from the corner, to the top of the middle.
  18. Tail: open it. Unfold the last fold.
  19. Tail: open flat. Unfold the first fold: a fan of four long, pointed sickle feathers.
  20. Glue it together. Glue the body over the tail's square corner, so the feathers rise up and back. Glue the comb behind the head: points on top, wattle under the beak.

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Draw an eye on each side of the head, toes on the foot and a curved wing on each side of the body.

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