3D Origami Lotus – Instructions

Tutorial for making a three dimensional origami lotus using triangular paper units is explained here. I’ve tried to make the steps as clear as possible. Hope you enjoy making this beautiful paper lotus.

How to make an Origami Lotus:

We will need a total of 734 units for making this origami lotus model. The split up of the units by color:

Green –  318 units

Light Pink – 240 units

Dark Pink – 126 units

Yellow – 50 units

The tutorial for making the triangular units is given here.

A disclaimer before we begin: The quality of the images are not great… something wrong with my lighting!

Step 1:

We will start by making the leaves of the lotus flower. Start with one green units and increment the number of units by 1 for every row.

Step 2:

Keep increasing the number by 1 and inserting rows till you have 7 units in a row.

Step 3:

Now start reducing the number of units by 1 for every row till you have one unit. You will get this kind of a rhombus shaped structure. We would have used up 49 units for one leaf.

Step 4:

Repeat steps 1 to 3 and make 5 more such leaf units.

Step 5:

Attach two units together as shown. We will use 4 connecting units for two leaves. At least 4 connecting units become necessary to hold the structure well.

Step 6:

Similarly attach the six leaf units together.

Step 7:

Now we will start making the lotus flower. The step to make the flower is going to be a little different than usual. Generally we start from the bottom of the structure and move upwards. Here we will take a top down approach.

We will be using light pink color units here.

Just like how you made the leaves, start for the flower – begin with 1 unit and keep increasing by 1 for the next row.

Keep adding the units till you have 5 units in a row and then start decreasing the number of units by 1.

Step 8:

Make 5 more such units. We will need a total of 6 such units for one flower.

Step 9:

Now connect two light pink units together using 1 Dark pink unit. Do you see the dark pink unit at the center?

Step 10:

Now fill in using Dark pink units as shown.

Step 11:

Similarly keep connecting the light pink pieces together.

Step 12:

Finally join the ends together in the same manner.

The round structure gets formed as you can see below.

Step 13:

Now add a row of light pink. 30 units will get used up here.

And … 2 more such rows.

The flower is completed.

Just shape the flower a bit at the bottom.

I set the flower at the center of the leaves to see how it looks…already pretty!

Step 14:

For the center of the flower, make a ring out of 10 yellow units in each row.

Here are the first 2 rows.

Step 15:

Add one more row.

Step 16:

Bring the last row downward.

Step 17:

Add 2 more rows of yellow. All the 50 yellow units are consumed.

 

Step 18:

Set the yellow modules piece at the center of the lotus flower.

Here is another look of the completed three dimensional modular lotus flower.

I was happy with the way the lotus came out. Just wish I had taken better pictures… next in my to-do list is learning ‘basic photography’!