How to Make a 3D Origami Minion

Last Updated: May 28, 2021

Do you love Despicable Me and the Minions? In this project you'll see how to make a 3D Origami Minion with approximately 689 origami pieces. It's no easy feat, but with a little care and practice, you make this impressive decoration yourself.

Steps

1
Familiarize yourself with the design. Take a look at how the Minion will look in order to envision what you're making.
2
Make your origami pieces. In order to do this, you can read up on How to make 3D origami pieces, or you can follow this explanation:
- Take one of the squares and hold with the longer side on the bottom.
- Fold in half from the bottom to the top.
- Fold again from right to left but don't press the fold very hard.
- Unfold the last fold and rotate the paper.
- Fold the right side of the paper to the bottom line in the middle then do the same to the left side. This should now look like an house.
- Turn over. Fold down outside corners.
- Fold the top 2 flaps down. You'll end up with a triangle.
- Fold in half and you are done.
- Make sure you have enough pieces for the model. You'll need:
  - around 27 white pieces (made from rectangles of paper with dimensions of 2.5 cm x 5 cm)
  - around 344 yellow pieces (made from rectangles of paper with dimensions of 6 cm x 9 cm)
  - around 72 black pieces (made from rectangles of paper with dimensions of 6 cm x 9 cm )
  - around 246 blue pieces (made from rectangles of paper with dimensions of 6 cm x 9 cm).
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3
Make an origami base. After you finished to make the pieces, start assembling the base. For this you will need 48 pieces. You will notice that each piece will have two legs and two pockets.
- To assemble them you will put the leg of one into the pocket of another, but you must make sure to keep them alternating like bricks so that each new piece you put on is resting on two different pieces. So to put it another way, grab one piece and take the right leg and insert it into the left pocket of another piece. With the left leg of the first piece, place it inside the right pocket of a third piece.
- Continue adding pieces on top then on bottom until you have used all 48 pieces in: 24 on the top row and 24 on the bottom row. Now that you have this line you must connect the two ends together so that you now have a ring.
4
Build up the body. Now this step is where things start getting really fun. Add 3 more layers on top of the first 2 layers that formed the base. Every row will need to have 24 pieces.
5
Use special color patterns on the 6th row and 7th row, through the 12th row.
- On the 6th row you need to put the pieces in this order: 5 yellow pieces, 7 blue pieces, 5 yellow pieces, 7 blue pieces.
- On the 7th row you need to put the pieces in this order: 6 yellow pieces, 6 blue pieces, 6 yellow pieces, 6 blue pieces.
- Continue like this until you have 7 rows that are made with yellow and blue pieces.
6
Put 24 blue pieces on the 13th row.
7
Add 7 yellow layers.
8
Add 2 black layers.
9
Add 3 yellow layers.
10
Glue the eye, the mouth and the logo on. You can make them or print them; then cut them out and glue them on top of your origami pieces.
11
Make the hands and legs.
- For one hand you will need 5 black pieces and 12 yellow pieces. Use the same interlocking 3D method that you did above.
- For one leg you will need 7 black pieces and 5 blue pieces.
12
Stick the legs and the hands onto the main torso.

Community Q&A

Question

I don't have colored paper, so how can I make it with white paper?

Community Answer

You can color in paper with colored pencils, crayons or felt-tip markers, or print out colors onto some plain paper and cut them to size.
Question

I don't have origami paper. Is there another way to make a minion out of line paper?

Community Answer

It's best to use construction paper if you don't have origami paper. Just fold the top corner to the side, and cut off any excess paper.
Question

I don't have origami or construction paper. How can I make a minion out of a line paper?

Community Answer

Just follow the same techniques. If the lines bother you, use printer/copier paper instead.