I haven’t really felt motivated to do origami since March.  But then I played Paper Mario: Origami King.  The game itself is whatever, but the art is great.  I love the premise of having origami be the villain of the story.  In a world where all the characters are made of paper, origami plays the role of zombie menace.

There’s a pretty wide range of origami, from traditional forms to stuff that’s only possible in fiction.  On the fantastical end are the Vellumentals (video contains spoilers).  On the realistic end is the origami castle, made of Sonobe units.  And then there are these two main characters:

Concept art from Origami King. The purple character is the villain, Olly. The yellow character is the sidekick, Olivia.

These characters look nearly like real origami, but they’re not quite.  Or at least, it’s not possible to make them as simply as it is portrayed in the game.  I enjoy reverse-engineering origami, so I thought I’d give this one a shot.

Olivia, designed by me.  Colored pencils were used to color it, and the hat is a separate sheet of paper that has been glued on.

Origami King includes colored pencils and tape among its villains, so I figure if the game isn’t an origami purist, I don’t need to be an origami purist either.  Also you can plainly see in the concept art that the hat is a separate sheet, so I felt justified.

I hear you asking, how can you make Olivia?  Probably the easiest way is to make Jeremy Schafer’s version.  Schafer a great designer, and makes good youtube videos.  As for my version…  Well, if you’ve never tried to design origami, it’s like this: a) easy to design, b) easy to fold, c) purist origami with one square, or d) final form looks how you wanted: choose one.  Except for me it’s choose zero.  Yes, you’re probably better off doing Schafer’s version.

For dedicated origamists, who would like to try it anyway, I don’t have folding diagrams, but I have an approximate crease pattern.  The hat isn’t included.  I improvised the hat.