How to draw a foreshortened fish (sea bass)

Drawing a foreshortened object is not easy. Your brain must overcome it’s ability to understand that the shape of an object does not really change as you observe it from different angles. This object permanence allows you to understand that a frisbee flying toward you does not really change shape as the observed angle changes. When we draw a foreshortened object you must undo this essential observation with your mind and draw the object as you really see it, not as you know it is shaped. Take the long body of a fish. As the fish rotates toward you, it goes from a long profile to a shortened three quarter view, to the compressed front view. Features on the body such as fin locations or the edge of the gill plate get closer together as the body shortens.

Click on the first image to start a step-by-step annotated slide show.

Start with a circle. The long ovular body is compressed to this shortened shape.

A little hit of the tail is all you will see of the caudal portion of the body.

Draw a line down the midline of the face and up over the central dorsal line.

Draw parallel guides to align the eyes and the upper and lower edges of the lips.

One of the hardest parts of drawing this fish is to capture the change on the planes of the surface as features wrap around the front of the face. Block in the plane of the face.

A box frames the portion of the mouth where the lips face the front.

Block in the locations of the major fins (pectoral, dorsal, and caudal).

Observe how the details of the face wrap around and are aligned with the guides. Pay particular attention to the way the mouth wraps across the box framing the lips.