An Origami Panda is just as cute as a real one!

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
“Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.
“I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “Look it up.”
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.

Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Everyone loves a Panda!

Every year at around this time, just about every TV channel, radio programme, and magazine looks back over the past year and picks their favourite moment.  The presenters of the BBC’s Breakfast programme decided their favourite clip of the year was the Giant Panda Da Mao playing with a snowman the Toronto Zoo Keepers had made for him.  After watching Da Mao having fun I thought I’d feature Yamaguchi Makoto’s Origami Panda for this post.

Note: This post contains affiliate links.  See Disclosure below for more information.

Of all the origami panda models out there, this one is perhaps my favourite. There’s something about the panda’s pose that gives the design a sense of fun.  Plus, you have to admit this origami panda bear is cute!

How to Make an Origami Panda

This is a pretty simple panda model to fold. In his book ‘The Beauty of Origami’, Yamaguchi Makoto gives this model a 2 out of 5 difficulty rating.  There aren’t any complex steps in this design.  The hardest part about folding this model is that the Origami Panda instructions in the book are in Japanese, so unless you can read the language, you have to fold the panda from the diagrams alone. Thankfully, the diagrams are clear and easy to understand.

Ordinary origami paper, or kami, is fine for this model.  It needs two sheets of paper – one for the origami panda head and one for the body. Two 15cm x 15cm (6in x 6in) sheets of kami will produce a model that stands 11cm (about 4.5in) tall and is 8cm (about 3in) wide. As it’s a panda, the paper should be black on one side and white on the other.

A word of caution though – the quality of origami paper can vary quite a lot.  With poor quality paper, the colour is painted on and can rub off when the paper is folded. This can lead to unsightly white lines along the folds which spoil the look of the final model. The darker the colour of the paper, the worse it looks. I use paper from Folded Square, which is slightly better quality and doesn’t have this problem. 

Origami Panda Instructions

Diagrams for Yamaguchi’s Panda are available in his book The Beauty of Origami which is available from The Origami Shop. This is a collection of models from several designers, including Satoshi Kamiya and David Brill. The book is in Japanese and English, although the instructions accompanying each diagram are only in Japanese, so unless you can read the language, you have to be able to fold from the diagrams alone.  Thankfully, the diagrams are extremely clear.

Get Involved

If you like this cute origami panda model or you’ve folded it before, feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below, or you find can me on Instagram or Twitter. Check out my Pinterest boards too!

Sign up for my origami newsletter here and get our free Origami eBook.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means we will receive a small commission for some purchases made using links in our blog with no additional cost to you. Please be assured we would not promote any product unless we believe that our readers will also benefit. The commission does not influence the editorial content of this site.

Origami Expressions is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.