Painted Origami Gator

Today we have a little gator joining us straight from the swamp!
I designed the pattern for the gator on my own, which was quite a challenge because I have very little origami knowledge. As such, I welcome any feedback! Hope you enjoy!

All that is required is a square piece of paper! If you like the painting I did, and you want your gator buddy to be painted too, I recommend using drawing paper (it warps less than copy paper, but isn't as thick as watercolor paper). Feel free to color using any medium! I included a photo scan of my template, in the same size as I used, so you can skip a few steps in my tutorial.

My first step was to figure out how to even design this gator. So, I cut up some old class notes and started folding. I must have gone through about 30 different gators designs (not all pictured). Finally, I made a breakthrough on how to design his head so he could chomp, and the rest followed! The last picture shows the prototype I ended up using.

As shown in the supplies section, you will need a square piece of paper. Fold the paper into thirds, both horizontally and vertically, so you have 9 sections of paper. Creating folds along both diagonals of the square may also be helpful.

Unfold the folds for now, as shown.

Fold the upper left corner of the paper down to the right, so the square formed by the upper left 4 sections is folded in half along the diagonal. Unfold this step as well.

Fold the top third of the paper down.
Then, fold the left third of the paper inward, but tuck in the sides, so an extra square sits on top. This is a standard origami square fold, done in the upper section of the paper.

Flip the paper over, and fold each side corner inward to the middle of the paper, symmetrically.

(I did the two parts of this step in the wrong order in the photos, so I had to do a little unfolding)

Along the bottom of the paper, fold the edges in to make a 0.5 cm lip around the edges. This will help shape your gator's tail later on.

Next, fold the right and left corners into the middle of the paper again, like you did in the previous step. This will shrink the width of the gator body.

Flip the paper over, and on the square that's sitting on top, fold the right and left corners to the middle of the square, making the folds along the top of the square, unfolding it, and then again along the bottom.

This step is a little tricky, so be careful!

Lift up the top flap of the square gently, and tuck in the right and left sides of the paper along the folds you made at the top of the square. When the sides are tucked in, make a good crease at these points.

Now, using the folds you made earlier on the bottom of the square, fold the right and left sides in to the middle again.

The section that used to be a square is now more of a diamond shape. We are going to lift up the bottom of the diamond, and fold it up to reach the top to complete the jaw.

Two sections of the diamond are sticking out, about where the neck of the gator is, so fold these down and pinch them inward to make little front feet.

Flip over the paper, and at the bottom of the design, toward the tail, fold the corners of the triangle out to make back feet.

Flip the gator back over, and along the part of the back where the back legs are sticking out, do a zig zag fold to separate the tail from the rest of the body. Then, push the two legs together, along the crease down the middle of the gator.

Your gator should be done now!
At this point, I was beginning to color in sections of the gator to make a template which I could paint. So, the white copy paper gator I made gets unfolded as a guideline for a new gator...

I colored along the folds as best as I could, to show which sections of the paper should be what color on a fresh, unfolded square.

After I was done marking where the eyes, mouth, and underside were, I was ready to unfold the template and sketch it on a fresh piece of paper, which I have uploaded a scan of for your convenience!

Now, its time to fill in the template! It should look as mine does above, where the tan/yellowish sections are underneath the gator, the green is on top, and the mouth is pink. If you're painting, I recommend watercolor or watered down acrylic. Because I used drawing paper, and I didn't want the paint to impede my ability to fold the gator, I couldn't work with the paint as much as I liked to, so I resolved to add a few details when he was done.

Working with colored pencils, crayons, markers, or other mediums would avoid the issues that come with painting, but I really liked the painted gator look.

Now, it's time for my painted template to become a real gator, and get his own photoshoot. I named my gator Mezzo Forte, because he looks like he wants to scream at a moderately high volume.

I gave him little teeth as a finishing detail, and repainted the folds, where the wrong color of paint sometimes bled into an adjacent section.

Time for Mezzo Forte to find a paper swamp!