How to Make Your Original Cartoon Fish Drawing

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We are going to draw together this fish. It may look a bit complicated at first.

But you should know me well enough by now that every - even seemingly complicated drawing - turns out to be very simple and easy - as always.

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The original tropical fish body contours were like this. Prolonged head and mouth is maybe the most distinct feature.

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Outline the fins and correct the tail a little, because it was a bit unbalanced on previous sketch. The eye is originally this small.

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Real cartoon fish drawing transformation from a tropical fish body contour into a cartoon-like look starts maybe here. Notice that almost every cartoon character has big eyes.

Especially females and it applies also for animal cartoon characters.

So draw larger eye(s). Since this fish is a female fish, one of the best ways to express the gender is through the eye(s).

Draw the mouth. The mouth should be a little opened and smiling because that is a very friendly look.

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Tropical fishes have such fantastic body colors and designs. I love these because you can play with it as you wish and you virtually cannot make a mistake.

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Mark out the fins so they look like real fins. You can make the edges a little jagged if you want.

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By sharper pencil lines outline the final body contours including all fins.

These jagged fins look too rough? Or maybe even a bit aggressive for this little fish girl?

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Well, in my opinion these rounded edges of the fins look much softer and peaceful. More feminine-like. What do you think?

So choose which type of fins you like and let’s continue your cartoon fish drawing.

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Erase all excess pencil lines. Now, with a simple pencil line draw the final outline contour of the fish.

Prepare your color pencils and we are going to draw the rest of this picture in color.

Begin with the black pencil and draw the borders of the pattern on the fish’s body. Leave a narrow border-space on the outer part of the fins.

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Draw the eye. Remember to leave a small shiny dot on the eye white. That is a reflection of light and it will make your eye drawing look more realistic.

If you encounter some difficulty with drawing of the fish’s eye, maybe you need a small memory refresher on how to draw manga eyes.

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We are going to make this cartoon fish drawing in two colors. Red and White.

Begin to draw the red part first. I draw it by orange-toned-red pencil as the basic color. This red color tone includes some yellow too.

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When you are ready, it should look something like this. As you see, this red is not so suitable and not so nice as the final top cover color.

Erase - clean the white parts on the body in order to get rid of the rest of graphite dust.

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With more deep and darker red pencil, fill the red part over the previous layer.

Paint the eyelid stronger and mark out the lips. This is a girl-fish. Another distinctive feature for cartoon girls is eyelashes. So draw a couple of longer curled eyelashes.

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Fish like this swims in a sea, in a clean blue seawater. It means that the white part on the fish’s body will be slightly blue. That is a reflection of seawater.

Take a light blue pencil and very gently color the white part blue. By darker blue pencil, draw markings of scales. The scales are better visible on the white part.

With blue pencil, fill out the space around the fish so it will look like a water.

Use your fantasy. If you are not sure, make some test drawings and coloring on a separate paper so that you won’t destroy your original cartoon fish drawing.