Origami artist Juho Könkkölä recently shared this incredible Samurai, folded from a single square sheet of 95cm x 95cm (37.4 x 37.4 in) Wenzhou rice paper without any cutting.

The finished size of the work is 28cm x 16cm x 19cm. Only dry and wet folding techniques were used to fold the model and it took 2 months to design and 1 month to fold. The 23-year-old Finnish artist adds:

 

“It took some effort and experimentation to fold the texture for the armour, while trying to simplify it to be somewhat manageable to fold. I folded 4 rough test attempts in total, and all of them took 3 days to fold each. There are several hundreds of steps to fold it from the square and there are probably thousands of individual folds. The asymmetry in the design allowed me to include sword on only one arm, while being able to make the character look symmetric.” [source]

 

In comments on reddit, Könkkölä says the thigh armour was the most challenging aspect of the project. Below I have included a previous iteration of the samurai that Könkkölä says is much simpler than the one seen above.

However, it does give you a general sense of the process. “I often build on my previous creations and continue altering and upgrading them into new things. That way I can keep on pumping up the complexity of the characters,” Könkkölä explains.

I have embedded an overview video of the previous iteration below, along with a couple screen grabs to give you a sense of the complexity. To see more from the talented artist, check out the links below!