Origami for the blind

Rat

The rat can also be a mouse. It is a small and cute version of the animal. The rat has a tail, a body, two ears, and a nose. The legs must be imagined.

Design
Simon Andersen.
Type
Animal.
Difficulty
Easy.
Paper
Square, 50 or 75 millimeters recommended.

Folding

See also vocabulary and general help.

  1. The paper is in diamond position, with corners at the top and bottom.
  2. Diagonal Fold the bottom corner to the top.
  3. You have a right angled triangle with two-layer open edges coming down from the top.
  4. Fold the left open edge of the front layer down in the front to the folded edge, bisecting the corner of the bottom left corner.
  5. Fold the left open edge of the back layer down on the back to the folded edge, again bisecting the corner.
  6. Unfold the long, folded edge at the bottom.
  7. You now have a kite shape lying horizontally, with the narrow end to the left and a right angle to the right. Make sure the two folded flaps face you. The long, narrow end becomes the tail, the right end becomes the nose, and the top and bottom corners later become the ears. The two folded flaps will end up on the inside.
  8. Fold the nose to the left, forming a crease line between the ears. The shape is now triangular, and the nose is on top of a larger triangle.
  9. Fold the nose to the right again, forming a crease line about one quarter from the newly folded edge. The large triangle thus gets a smaller triangle extending to the right, the nose.
  10. The nose extends from the right to a folded edge a small distance within the big triangle, on top of the inside flaps.
  11. Grab the inside flaps and fish them out to put them in front of the nose flap.
  12. Turn the paper over so that the smooth side of the large triangle faces you.
  13. Narrow the tail by folding the two folded edges extending from the tail, to meet along the centre line. This might be easier if you momentarily fold the paper backwards in half along the centre line, then fold to edges to the folded centre line edge, and finally unfold that again.
  14. The ears are now at the centre line, close to the nose.
  15. Turn the paper over again, keeping the tail to the left.
  16. Fold the tail to the right at about three fifths of the distance between the tail tip and the nose. The tail will extend a good length to the right of the nose, and to the left you have a folded edge which will demarcate the end of the body.
  17. Fold the tail to the left again forming a crease line a small distance from the folded edge.
  18. You now have three distinct parts of the rat: a long tail to the left, the body in the centre, and a nose to the right.
  19. Fold the top edge of the tail, body, and nose down to the bottom edge of those. The folded edge in the body part is the spine of the rat.
  20. Near the nose, along the folded top edge, you find two flap corners, one in front and one on the back. These are the ears.
  21. Fold the ears to the left, one in the front and the other on the back. The crease lines should go through the bottom corner and be perpendicular to the spine. The ears will extend a bit above the spine.
  22. Finally, curl the tail back and forth.
  23. The mouse is ready to eat your cheese.

Usage

Decorative, or animals to play with. Make two from one size, and a number of baby mice from paper a quarter the size.