Tutorial: How to make a Clown Fish Christmas Ornament using Cardboard.

Tutorial Time!!
I've been meaning to make some gifts for my Christmas celebrating friends, and this year, I thought it would be nice to make ornaments.  I decided to go with a theme that everyone can get behind, so I picked fish.  Who doesn't love a cute clown fish like Nemo?  This is an especially nice gift for friends with kids who want to make an assortment of under-sea creatures that are kid friendly and cheap to make.  The basic concepts for the construction is the same as the Cardboard Horns I posted about back in the summer.

You will need:
One empty corrugated cardboard box
One empty tissue box or non-corrugated cardboard box of equal weight
One bottle of Elmers white glue (or any school-kid, clear drying glue that's not a gel or stick)
Crappy paint brushes
Brown craft paper or grocery paper bags (there's a reason for this, I'll get to it later)
Hot glue and hot glue gun
Strong scissors
Plastic bowl (for water)
Rags
Acrylic Gesso (primer)
Acrylic paints
Nicer set of paint brushes
Acrylic varnish (glossy)
An exacto knife
A cutting mat or cutting surface

You'll need materials first:

Corrugated Cardboard

I raided my recycling bin and grabbed a clean corrugated cardboard box, then split open the box so that it lies flat in one big piece.  I also grabbed an empty tissue box and also cut it open to be one big piece.  This fish should fit in the palm of your hand so you're not going to need the entire box for this.

Tissue Box

Pick a subject:
  I chose a clown fish cause it's small and relatively easy to cut out it's shape from cardboard, plus it's just so cute.  I was going to make an Angler fish, but figured if I want to give this to someone, a Clown fish would be less nightmare inducing.  I google image searched for a clown fish and began by drawing the basic shape of the clown fish body.  In this basic drawing, include the top two fins, the tail fin and the back bottom fin.  Don't cut out the two little bottom fins at the front of the fish or the side fins on the body just yet.  We're gonna leave those for later.  Once you've drawn out the basic fish shape, cut it out from the cardboard.

Draw the basic shape

 Important Note~ Make sure the fish is perpendicular to the grooves of the cardboard.  This means the grooves should be straight up and down and the fish should be horizontal across the grooves.   

Start giving a 3-D shape to the fish:

It's only mostly dead.

 I wanted the fish to have a curve to it, to give it the appearance that it's swimming and not just hanging in space with a static/boring body position.   Here's where the orientation of the fish in relation to the cardboard grooves becomes relevant.  To make the exact shape that I made, start slicing with an exacto knife though the top layer of the cardboard on one side of the fish, going from the tail fin up to where the tail meets the body.  Curl it.  Once you find the arc you like, take your hot glue gun, and fill the open channels with hot glue.  Take another piece of cardboard and while the glue is still hot, carefully smooth it down so there's no lumpy hot glue clumps in the channels.  You should end up with a relatively smooth surface.  This will keep the arc from straightening out, making a permanent curl in which-ever direction you like. 
Study pictures of the species of fish you want to make.  Unlike the Horns, to make the structure of the body of the fish you can't use exact circles because that's not how a fish really looks.  Find frontal and body views of the fish and study the shape of the body.  For the clown fish, it's bigger and rounder at the bottom of it's body and it tapers off into the fins at the top.  I marked off vertical lines (following the grooves) where I wanted support pieces to go for the body of the fish and measured them.  I drew up tear-drop shapes that were the height of the fish's body for each one of the lines. 

Brings a tear to my eye...

Cut the tear-drops in half from tip to base.  Gradate the sizes (small in the front, big in the middle and small in the back) of teardrop shapes to match the body shape of the fish.  Remember (for the clown fish) the middle is where most of the internal organs are and the back has to taper out into a flat fin (this step can change depending on what species you are basing this on ie: a whale is a completely different shape than a clown fish). 
Using the hot glue gun, hot glue the half tear-drop shapes to the body following your lines.  make sure that you have lines on both sides of the body and that when you glue the pieces down, they line up right.  Make sure you have enough supports to get a nice smooth transition from one end of the fish to the other.

I did not have enough supports T-T

The tissue box:
  Cut a section of tissue box away from the rest and lay it flat on your cutting mat.  I used this cardboard to cover the structure supports from above and give it a more even surface for the future steps. 

Slice it good

 Also, due to the small size of the fish, using corrugated cardboard for this step would be too big and bulky.  From this larger piece, cut smaller rectangular pieces that can fit in your hand.  Here's where it gets fun.... lightly score the cardboard and start fitting and cutting sections to glue down, do this in small sections to account for size changes and irregular shapes. 

Should start to look like this when  you start...

 This is going to be a lot of guess and check work and you may throw away pieces that don't fit.  Work intuitively.  That's really the best advice I can give sorry guys.

... and when you finish.

Paper Mache:  
Sorry guys no photo of this step.  
Take you're brown paper bag (the grocery bag) or brown craft paper and start tearing it into pieces about 1 inch square.  Do Not Cut!!  You must tear the paper.  Tearing the paper allows for the paper fibers to be exposed and this will help blend your pieces together for a smoother finish.  When you cut with scissors, the harsh edges don't blend together and you'll end up with ridges in awkward places that are hard to get rid of later.  Once you have these pieces torn, take a few and tear them up further so that they fit on the pad of your pinky finger.  I did this because the scale of the fish is so small, that to get the paper to lie flat over the curves, the pieces need to be smaller.  It'll take a little longer to finish but the smoother texture to the fish will be well worth the patience.  After your pieces are prepped, get a crappy brush, a scrap piece of cardboard and the Elmers glue.  Pour some glue on the scrap card board, and with a crappy paint brush start painting patches of glue onto the fish.  After laying down the glue, pick up a piece of your torn craft paper and place it down on the patch of glue, use the paint brush to give a coating of glue making sure to get all the edges down.  Repeat this until the entire fish is covered in one layer of paper mache.  Let this dry completely before moving on. 

Fins:
Grab a piece of the tissue box and sketch out a pair of side fins and a pair of the bottom fins.  Using the above process give one layer of paper mache to both sides of the fins.  When they are dry, hot glue them into place according to how the fish looks.  If you want fins that have folds or bends, score the cardboard appropriately and give a little bit of hot glue to keep the curves in place.  Always reference back to your original images for placement!!  Your fish shouldn't look like a Picasso!  After you glue down the fins to the body of the fish, give them another coating of paper mache and the surrounding area where the fins are joined to the body.  Allow this to dry. 
 At this point you can smooth out any lumps and bumps using wads of paper mache, apoxie or paper clay (you can pick that stuff up in most craft/ art supply stores).  If you feel it's still not sturdy enough you can add more layers of paper mache, I only used 1 layer on the body and 2 layers on the fins and I found that to be fairly sturdy... just don't stand on it.
Allow this to dry completely.

Painting:
Use a clean crappy brush and apply gesso to the whole fish. 

gesso...

This acts as a primer and allows for really bright colors by giving you a white background to start with.  Skip this part if you want the brown of the paper to tone your colors, this will give you more earthy tones. 

After gesso, I gave an red-iron-oxide base

After this step, start mixing colors (use a nicer brush like a pointed round tip to paint and a palette knife for mixing) and paint your fish whatever colors you wish.  I chose to go with a more realistic approach but if electric blue with pink polka dots is your thing then have fun!
After you're done painting, give a few layers of glossy varnish to keep the colors safe from chipping and to give a wet-shiny look.
To make this an ornament add a ribbon and tie a bow at the top. 

Always remember to clean and dry your brushes after using them and clean your space after you're done working. 
... and you're done!  Your fish should look something like this: 

Like this!

And this!

So I hope you all found this helpful, and any questions leave a comment. 
Happy Holidays!!

See ya'll later!!
~Amy