At my work’s Christmas party for kids, I volunteer to do some origami with kids and adult who want to give it a try. For the seasonally appropriate piece this year, I have chosen a Tie Fighter. More people are celebrating Star Wars than Christmas, after all! Seriously, tru-dat!

The origami Tie Fighter piece I chose to learn was by Philip Schulz. However, I found the techniques in the video below to be much more effective at getting a decent looking product. Doing it the way it’s shown in the link starts going bad half way through in that what you have doesn’t look like what’s in the diagram. Doing it in the way of the video gets you something much better.

However, it was still missing one final touch.

Tie fighter wing panel

The side panel wings on the finished product of the video looks roughly like that of the actual tie fighter at right, but it’s a lot more taller in proportion. If you want to get it right, you’ll have to add a fold inward on the horizontal edges of each wing panel when placed as in the picture. The proportion of height (full top to bottom) to width is 1.14.

So measure the width of the wing panel your finished piece (left most tip to right most tip in picture).

Then multiply that by 0.57 because you divide that full height proportion in two for each half of the wing panel.

Then divide by 2 and measure that distance upward from the horizontal fold in the middle of your wing panel and mark with a barely visible mark.

Repeat measuring downward from the horizontal fold.

Repeat both markings on other wing panel.

Then fold toward inside of ship at each mark.

Proportionally accurate origami Tie Fighter

When you’re done, you should get a product with a wing panel like seen at right in my finished product. Compare that to the product in the video link and you’ll see what I mean about taking off some of the top and bottom. In my finished product, I folded half an inch off of 2 and 1/8 inch, down to 1 and 5/8 inch, for each the top and bottom. That’s a full inch reduction of 4 and 1/4 inch so no small change!

If you’re gonna be geeky enough to learn to fold a Tie Fighter, you should do it right, ya know? Otherwise, the Forcigami isn’t very strong in you. 😉