2016 was the year of the monkey and last year I kind of struggled to find origami monkeys for a Chinese New Year themed post. This year however is a completely different story.

I’d been amassing quite a collection of origami roosters for a while now. I save photos I see and sort them into categories for future posts. The birds category had a huge number of roosters.

I try to mix things up when I make posts to get a variety of different birds for example in a post about birds. However there were too many roosters and after I planned out several bird-themed posts there were tons left over.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this year is the year of the rooster so it looks like everything will work out wonderfully. So to celebrate Chinese New Year 2017 here’s our “Rooster Extravaganza” featuring over 50 origami roosters!

We’ll start things off with this incredible game cock designed by Kei Watanabe. Check out all those individually folded feathers!

Game Cock, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

Next we have this cute little rooster designed by Tetsuya Gotani. You’ll see that a lot of these designs have an excellent colour change and use white and red paper. The baby chick here is a nice touch.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Tetsuya Gotani

Crease pattern available from Tetsuya Gotani’s Flickr

This excellent rooster design is by 212moving and the diagrams are available in a free eBook from Origami-Shop.com!

Rooster, Designed by 212moving and Folded by Rui Roda

Diagrams available in Chinese New Year Origami 2017

Rooster, Designed by 212moving and Folded by 潘杭

Diagrams available in Chinese New Year Origami 2017

Rooster, Designed by 212moving and Folded by Adriano Davanzo

Diagrams available in Chinese New Year Origami 2017

This simple little rooster design is by József Zsebe and looks great with the white and red paper.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by József Zsebe

Instructions not available

This next one is a very unique design and I especially like how great the claws on the feet look here.

Fighting Cock, Designed by Nguyen Nguyen Thong and Folded by Agnieska (Agne) Mackonyte

Diagrams available in VOG: 50 Hours of Origami+

Here’s a great pair of little roosters, one sitting and one standing.

Roosters, Designed and Folded by Nguyen Ngoc Vu

Instructions not available

Satoshi Kamiya has designed a very popular origami rooster. Here’s his designed folded by several different artists.

Rooster, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by DebugMode

Diagrams available in the 19th Tanteidan Convention book

Rooster, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Ivan Svatko

Diagrams available in the 19th Tanteidan Convention book

Rooster, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by P. Colman

Diagrams available in the 19th Tanteidan Convention book

Rooster, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Gonzalo

Diagrams available in the 19th Tanteidan Convention book

Rooster, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Maxi Purewal

Diagrams available in the 19th Tanteidan Convention book

Rooster, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Alexander Krupnikov

Diagrams available in the 19th Tanteidan Convention book

Rooster, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Diagrams available in the 19th Tanteidan Convention book

Ta Trung Dong designed this fantastic paper rooster. The whole thing is folded from a single sheet of paper!

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Ta Trung Dong

Instructions not available

Here’s another incredibly complex rooster design that’s also folded from a single sheet of paper. Even all those individual feathers! There’s a fantastic colour change in the design here as well. You can see a few more pictures from different angles on Shotaro Mineo’s Flickr as well.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Shotaro Mineo

Instructions not available

Here’s the model again this time photographed at the 22nd Origami Tanteidan Convention.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Shotaro Mineo (Photo by Hiroaki Kobayashi)

Instructions not available

Gen Hagiwara designed a great little rooster that’s not too complex but still looks very great. This design also has a great colour change and looks great with the white and red paper.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Gen Hagiwara

Instructions not available

He also folded this great gold Chinese New Year version.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Gen Hagiwara

Instructions not available

Here’s another absolutely mind blowing rooster. Kei Watanabe is an amazing designer. I would not be surprised to find out that it’s all one sheet of paper but I don’t know that for sure.

Shamo Game Cock, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

Eric Joisel was an absolutely fantastic designer and one of the models he designed was this great rooster.

Rooster, Designed by Eric Joisel and Folded by Luc MARNAT

Diagrams available in Pajarita Magazine #112

Rooster, Designed by Eric Joisel and Folded by Rui Roda

Diagrams available in Pajarita Magazine #112

Rooster, Designed by Eric Joisel and Folded by Herman Mariano

Diagrams available in Pajarita Magazine #112

Rooster, Designed by Eric Joisel and Folded by Eric Vigier

Diagrams available in Pajarita Magazine #112

Here’s another kind of mind blowing paper rooster. This one is folded from a single rectangle of paper. It’s also got a really great colour change in the design and still looks great with white and blue paper.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Yoshimasa Tsuruta

Instructions not available

This next one is one of my favourites. It’s not super complex but the design is perfect. It’s folded from multiple sheets of paper with different colours and the colours are absolutely fantastic.

Rooster, Designed by Kyohei Katsuta and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

This is another absolutely fantastic and super complex design. The whole thing is folded from a 50cm x 50cm square of paper. Nguyen Nam Son even made the paper used here himself. If you’re interested this model is for sale so if you’re interested get it before it’s sold.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Nguyen Nam Son

Instructions not available

Kyohei Katsuta has designed another really popular model again with a great colour change in the design. Here it is folded by a few different artists.

Rooster, Designed by Kyohei Katsuta and Folded by Ivan Svatko

Instructions not available

Rooster, Designed by Kyohei Katsuta and Folded by Nguyen Nam Son

Instructions not available

Rooster, Designed by Kyohei Katsuta and Folded by Artur Biernacki

Instructions not available

Here’s another great design by Phạm Hoàng Tuấn.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Phạm Hoàng Tuấn

Instructions not available

Next we have a very unique sort of design. Here Daniel Chang took the logo design from a YouTube show called “Good Mythical Morning” and turned it into some Chinese New Year themed rooster origami. The whole thing is folded from a single sheet of tissue paper sized 93cm x 15cm.

Good Mythical Year, Designed and Folded by Daniel Chang

Instructions not available

Here’s a really simple rooster design that looks great.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Mindaugas Cesnavicius

Instructions not available

Here’s another incredible design by Yoshimasa Tsuruta. I love the black and red paper used here. It looks very realistic.

Rooster 1.1, Designed and Folded by Yoshimasa Tsuruta

Crease pattern available in Orca Works

Here’s a white and red version of this amazing rooster.

Rooster 1.1, Designed and Folded by Yoshimasa Tsuruta

Crease pattern available in Orca Works

Hoàng Tiến Quyết has one of the most unique folding styles I’ve ever seen with a lot of curves in his models. Here’s his amazing rooster design. It’s folded from a simple fish base!

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Hoàng Tiến Quyết

Instructions not available

Here’s something kind of different, a running rooster running as fast as it can into 2017.

Run Rooster, Run! Designed and Folded by Neelesh K

Instructions not available

This excellent rooster is folded out of a simple frog base.

Cockerel, Designed and Folded by Edgar

Instructions not available

I saw this image a long time ago and it’s still one of my all-time favourite origami photos.

Designed and Folded by Sebastien Limet

Instructions not available

Lee Bo-Yeon designed this excellent little rooster. it’s folded from a Bird Base.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Lee Bo-Yeon

Crease pattern available from Lee Bo-Yeon’s Flickr

This beautiful looking rooster is designed by Nathan Zimet. It’s folded by Adriano Davanzo who always has some of the best photography.

Rooster, Designed by Nathan Zimet and Folded by Adriano Davanzo

Diagrams available in Olympiad 2015

Here’s a pair of fighting roosters by Won Seon Seo. I love how they’re posed for this photo.

Fighting Cocks, Designed and Folded by Won Seon Seo

Instructions not available

Here’s another fantastic design this time by Nicolás Gajardo Henríquez.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Nicolás Gajardo Henríquez

Instructions not available

This is another very simple design but it’s also really cute!

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Gen Hagiwara

Diagrams available in the 19th Tanteidan Convention book

Nguyen Ngoc Vu also has a very unique style which you can see reflected here in this rooster design.

Rooster and Hen, Designed and Folded by Nguyen Ngoc Vu

Instructions not available

Making this post I was actually quite surprised to see that there were so many different rooster designs. This design is by Yoo Tae Yong and it also makes excellent use of a colour change, especially for the head part.

Rooster, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by Eyal

Diagrams available in the 5th Korean Origami Convention book

Roman Diaz is an animal origami master so he of course designed his own rooster for Chinese New Year.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Roman Diaz

Instructions not available

This is probably the funniest image for this post. In Vietnam boiled chicken is a traditional meal that’s eaten for the lunar new year. Keeping with this tradition Hoàng Tiến Quyết designed this awesome origami version of a boiled rooster.

“Boiled” Rooster, Designed and Folded by Hoàng Tiến Quyết

Instructions not available

Here are two simple but quite elegant looking black roosters. There’s another excellent colour change in this design too.

Roosters, Designed and Folded by Ta Trung Dong

Instructions not available

Here’s another really great design photographed at a convention.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Winnie Leung

Instructions not available

Our final rooster for this post is this absolutely incredible design by Kei Watanabe. I can’t even begin to imagine how much work went into folding this thing!

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

Here it is again from a different angle.

Rooster, Designed and Folded by Kei Watanabe

Instructions not available

Hopefully these incredible origami roosters have inspired you to fold your own. If you’re looking for a place to start here are 4 excellent video tutorials for 4 different origami roosters at various skill levels.

You should also definitely check out the free 2017 Chinese New Year eBook put out by Origami-Shop.com. There’s a great intermediate-level rooster in there as well as several other fantastic models to fold.

If you fold any roosters this year please post a link to a photo in the comments. We’d love to see what you make!