Zombie Origami

My super-awesome husband surprised me with a really cool book a while back- Zombigami: Paper Folding for the Living Dead by Duy Nguyen.


Duy Nguyen's book of zombie-inspired origami patterns, Zombigami, includes basic origami instructions and thirteen patterns for creating macabre undead art.

We acquired a pack of really pretty origami paper (the book comes with a packet of paper in the back, but we decided we wanted extra paper to practice with first), and we sat down to create some rather colorful zombies.


The first pattern in the book is entitled "Skull Crusher," and turns out to be a zombie head moaning in protest with its eyes bugging out as you cleave its skull with an axe. The skull and the axe are separate pieces that you're supposed to glue together; the head was easier to fold than I expected, and the axe was comparatively a little tricky. Ours both turned out a bit different from each other and from the picture in the book, but apparently they work just fine.

Other patterns include a severed hand still trying to grasp for a living victim; a staggering zombie with folded-paper intestines spilling out; and a host of other zombie characters.

The finished products are a bit stylized and abstract, as expected from folded paper, but chillingly evocative, and the book includes tips for customizing each zombie with as much detail as desired using markers and/or additional origami modifications.

Zombigami offers a good introduction to origami for beginners and a novel twist for more experienced paper-folders. It does vary slightly from strictly traditional forms, since it involves small amounts of cutting and gluing, where traditional origami uses only folding. Of course, avulsed entrails, skull-cleaving axes, and reanimated corpses are not exactly traditional pieces, which is part of the unique fun of Zombigami.

The book includes a packet of fifty sheets of origami paper specially printed to accompany the zombie projects, in a convenient pocket in the inside back cover. Purchasing more origami paper (which is available at Hobby Lobby, Michael's, or any similar craft store) or cutting out six-inch squares of notebook paper or plain typing paper to practice on first is probably a good idea, and since the patterns themselves are reusable, you can also buy extra paper to make as large a zombie horde as you want.