January 20th is officially Penguin Awareness Day, a day designed to raise awareness of penguins and the fact that their populations are decreasing around the world.

There are a lot of different species of penguins in real life and there are lots of different origami versions of them as well. In this post we’re going to take a look at some of the best origami penguins I’ve seen out there.

Baby penguins are absolutely adorable as are their origami versions. Yoo Tae Yong has one of the best baby penguin designs with an excellent colour change that you can see here.

Baby Penguin, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #161

Here’s a few more adorable baby penguins. The background here is a very nice touch.

Baby Penguin, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by Blanka P (blunek)

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #161

And here’s a few more out in the wild since this design is just so cute.

Baby Penguin, Designed by Yoo Tae Yong and Folded by Никита Васильев

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #161

This is a really awesome Emperor Penguin design. It uses 4 square sheets of paper so you can get those extra colours just like the real thing.

Emperor Penguin, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

I especially like the sort of hair on this penguin and how the head and face look.

Penguin – Don’t Freeze, Designed by Ogata Hiromi and Folded by Alexander Krupnikov

Diagrams available in Origami Tanteidan Magazine #62

Here’s another couple of really great baby penguins. These ones are Emperor Penguin chicks.

Emperor Penguin Chicks, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

These two penguins certainly have a lot of character. This design also has a really awesome colour change and looks great with black and white paper.

Penguins, Designed by Michael Lafosse and Folded by rhplus

Diagrams available in Origami Art

Here’s another different and still very cute baby penguin design. The colour change on the eye is really great too.

Baby Penguin, Designed and Folded by Yoshimasa Tsuruta

Video tutorial available from Ezuno Kennosaya’s YouTube channel

This whole scene with this family of penguins is fantastic. The penguins are all the same design just folded into different postures.

Emperor Penguins, Designed and Folded by Quentin Trollip

Diagrams available in The Beauty of Origami

This looks like a more minimal style of penguin but the shaping is not easy. You can tell the design is from a Vietnamese designer by the curved shapes.

Penguin, Designed by Dinh Truong Giang and Folded by Philipp-Marius Kost

Diagrams available from Giang Dinh’s website

Here’s another fantastic little penguin family standing on some ice made out of paper.

Penguins, Designed by Michael Lafosse and Folded by Adriano Davanzo

Diagrams available in Origami Art

Here’s a whole bunch of excellent emperor penguins folded in a few various poses.

My Little Emperors, Designed and Folded by Magali

Instructions not available

Hoàng Tiến Quyết is definitely one of my favourite artists with a very unique style. He designed this amazing penguin mother and baby.

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Hoàng Tiến Quyết

Instructions not available

Eric Joisel also designed a really great penguin. Here’s a bunch of them sitting in a box.

Penguin, Designed by Eric Joisel and Folded by Tine Blasek

Instructions not available

Beth Johnson is another really great artist. While “sketching” out some different designs she came up with these three great little penguins.

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Beth Johnson

Instructions not available

Here’s another great little group of baby penguins. The look great no matter which side of the paper you start with.

Four Little Penguins, Designed and Folded by Blue Dandelion the Creator

Instructions not available

Next is this really great “cartoon-ey” looking penguin. Believe it or not there’s actually diagrams showing how to fold that iceberg too.

Penguin, Designed by Sébastien Limet, Iceberg, Designed by Bernie Peyton and Both Folded by Rui Roda

Penguin diagrams available in the 2017 Origami USA Convention book

Iceberg diagrams available in Eco Origami

Sébastien Limet also folded a bunch more of these on top of a much taller iceberg.

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Sébastien Limet

Penguin diagrams available in the 2017 Origami USA Convention book

This cute little guy is apparently named Bingo the Penguin.

Bingo the Penguin, Designed by Federico Scalambra and Folded by Rui Roda

Diagrams available in the 2014 OUSA Convention book

There’s also a great traditional penguin design that’s really easy to fold. You can find diagrams for it in my book Everyone Can Learn Origami.

Traditional Penguin, Folded by Me

Diagrams available in Everyone Can Learn Origami

Terry Nicolas folded these giant penguins for a Christmas storefront. Apparently it took one hour to fold each penguin and he doesn’t like penguins so much any more…

Too Many Penguins… Designed and Folded by Terry Nicolas

Instructions not available

These are the four penguins from the movie Madagascar, Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private. They’re all the same design but each one is folded and shaped slightly differently. Can you tell which one is which?

Penguins of Madagascar, Designed by Fernando Gilgado and Folded by Eyal

Video instructions available from Tadashi Mori’s YouTube channel

Here’s another excellent penguin design. When I started working on this post I didn’t realize that there were so many different origami penguins out there.

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Edgar Williams

Diagrams available from Edgar’s DropBox

I really like origami designs that are folded from paper money. Every country has differently shaped bills that come in all kinds of different colours which leads to some pretty neat looking origami. Here’s a great little penguin folded from an American dollar bill.

Dollar Penguin v5, Designed and Folded by craigfoldsfives

Instructions not available

Here’s another unique design by Lionel Pan. This is the first time he’s designed something and it’s a really good job!

Penguins, Designed and Folded by Lionel Pan

Instructions not available

Here’s another adorable family of Emperor Penguins. Baby Emperor Penguins are usually a grey or brown colour and don’t look like adult ones.

Emperor Penguins, Designed and Folded by Magali

Instructions not available

Here are two more absolutely fantastic Emperor Penguin chicks.

Emperor Penguin Chicks, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

These penguins and this whole photo is beautiful.

Penguins, Designed by Michael Lafosse and Folded by lichangzhenba

Diagrams available in Origami Art

Our final image for this post is this collection of different penguin designs from Hiroaki Kobayashi put together into a lovely little Emperor Penguin family. I really like those claws on the adult penguin’s feet.

Emperor Penguin Family, Designed and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi

Instructions not available

Have a great Penguin Awareness Day everyone and let me know which of these penguins is your favourite in the comments!