Capturing a fish body with enough personality to read as Dory rather than just any cartoon fish is the real challenge here, and this step-by-step guide works through exactly that as part of the Finding Nemo / Finding Dory tutorial collection on the site. Learning how to draw Dory comes down to getting the proportions of that wide oval body and the expressive eye working together before the fins even come into the picture.
What the 13 Steps Actually Cover
This is a full-body side-view build in line art, with no color at the finish since the final result is black and white. The 13 steps use dark fills on the dorsal area and body markings to suggest Dory’s color pattern through value alone, so the main skill being practiced here is controlled linework and knowing where to commit to solid black areas. The pose is a simple right-facing profile, which keeps the composition clean and lets the facial expression carry most of the character.
Dory’s Key Visual Features in Line Art
- Oval-shaped fish body in profile view
- Large circular eye with a highlight circle
- Wide open mouth, clearly smiling
- Dorsal fin with dark-filled markings
- Two pectoral fins and a tail fin
If you want to keep drawing after this one, Nemo is a natural next step since the two characters share the same franchise and similar construction logic. For a change of pace from fish bodies, Francine Frensky from Arthur and Dr. Drakken both push into human-figure territory worth exploring.
Reading the Color Coding in the Step Images
Each step image uses a three-color system to show progress clearly:
- Red Color: lines added in the current step.
- Black Color: lines completed earlier.
- Gray Color: base sketch for structure.
How to Draw Dory: Step-by-Step Tutorial
Finished Your Dory? Share It Below
Once the line art is done, drop your finished drawing in the comments. It is always useful to see how different people handle the dark-fill sections on the dorsal fin, and your version might help someone else figure out their approach. New tutorials go up on Facebook and Telegram as soon as they are published, a new YouTube walkthrough based on existing guides posts every single day, and Pinterest stays updated regularly too. If you enjoyed working through this how to draw Dory guide, you might also like Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls or the Embarrassment from Inside Out 2 tutorial for more Pixar-adjacent cartoon work. Supporting the project on Patreon gives you access to hand-drawn coloring pages that are not available anywhere else on the site.