Today I am going to do a tutorial on how to draw a Betta fish.

It is very easy to draw a betta fish with colored pencils.

Because you don’t have to worry about the exact colors when drawing something like this.

You can chose any color you want and experiment blending and mixing with several other colors.

But don’t ignore the value scale.

Because finally you should have a definite shape for the drawing.

I am not going to complicate this drawing by using several art supplies, I am just using

Derwent artist’s pencils But you can use any pencil you like but be sure to use similar

colors.

And I am using Strathmore Bristol vellum paper because it gives enough tooth for the harder

Artists pencils.

So if you are using a harder pencil like Derwent artist, then be sure to use a paper with adequate

tooth.

This is the outline of the drawing that I am going to do.

You can copy this one or you can choose some other betta fish reference and draw using

the similar techniques.

I am starting off by drawing its eyes using just the black pencil later we can darken

it further by adding some dark browns.

And then what I am doing is drawing a base layer of the lightest color on the body of

the fish.

I am using a light yellowish brown for that purpose.

I am also drawing the border of its mouth with the same pencil.

And you can also see that I am using several other colors like pinks and purples here and

there.

This will help to avoid that monotonous look of the base color.

But be sure to use a color with similar value.

You don’t want to use a dark pencil and make patterns over the underlying light color.

So I am only using some light pinks and purples.

I have extended the light colored base on the upper surface of the body because the

light is falling from above downwards.

Since the body of the fish is flat, only a small portion of the upper part will be under

the direct light.

We want to draw this area lighter compared to other parts.

And I am going to draw both the sides of the body much darker than the highlight.

Using such a value contrast will give you that shiny look.

So for the sides I am using dark reddish brown and several layers of other colors as well.

You can see that I am using several other colors to draw the scales randomly.

For the scales over the darker sides I am even using black.

So that finishes a small part of the body.

At the end of this part make sure you have the basic shape of the fish body and a good

value contrast so that fish looks shiny.

Add as much colors as you want and blend those colors well together.

Now I am going to draw the remaining part of the body of the fish.

This part is also under the shadow but there is a beautiful blue color over there.

So what I am going to do is make an initial layer with blues and purples.

I am even using a green color to make it much more beautiful.

You can use as many blues and purples you want but make sure to blend them so that you

get a smooth color variation.

Start with the lighter colors first.

For the initial layers you don’t want to use dark colors.

Later on we can add darker colors until we get the color we want.

I am also drawing some scales in between with a reddish brown color.

Then I am gradually darkening this side using dark blues, purples and dark brown.

You can even use black if necessary.

Building colors like this helps to get a dark color with a bluish glow to it.

This is essential to get that shiny look of the fish.

So that finishes the side.

Now we can move on to the side fins.

Drawing fin is the easiest part in this drawing, be it side fin or tail fin.

I am going to explain the process when drawing this side fin.

I am using two different color groups for the fins.

First group is composed of warm colors such as yellow orange and red.

For this group I am using a red towards the body of the fish and then orange and towards

the end a yellow or light orange.

At the end you should get a gradation of colors from red to yellow.

Red closer to the fish and yellow towards the end.

So you need to blend these three colors without any demarcations.

Just like a piece of cloth there are folds on the fin too.

For this folds we can use a darker color such as brown.

Just like this we can draw the fin with other color group too.

For this group I am using a blue purple and a pinkish red.

Blue towards the body of the fish and pinkish red away from the body.

For drawing the folds I am using a dark blue such as indigo blue.

You can see that I have made some other fin too with very light colors.

It’s the fin on the side of the fish head.

Since it’s very transparent I am using a very light blues and greens.

Finally I am finishing the remaining part of the body of fish using the same colors

used before.

So now what’s remaining is the tail fish.

I will show you it as a slow time lapse so that you can follow how I drew those fins.

Its just like I did in the side fins using two color groups.

You can even add another color group if you want.

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