A folding fish surprise is a fun art trick where you draw a normal little fish on the outside of a folded paper, then open the fold to reveal a giant mouth full of teeth. In this tutorial Parikshet shows you how to set up the fold and draw both the calm and the surprise versions.

🎨 What You Need

  • A4 paper
  • Pencil and rubber
  • Black marker
  • Bright colour pencils or crayons
  • Optional: red crayon for the inside mouth

How to Draw a Folding Fish Surprise Step by Step

  1. Step 1 — Fold the top edge of your paper down by about one third, so you have a long flap that opens upward.
  2. Step 2 — With the flap closed, draw a normal happy fish in the middle: a leaf-shaped body, a triangular tail on the right, one round eye and a tiny smile.
  3. Step 3 — Add a small curved fin on the top of the fish and another on the bottom.
  4. Step 4 — Colour the fish in bright blue, green or rainbow stripes.
  5. Step 5 — Now lift the flap upward. The bottom half of your fish (mouth area) is on the page below.
  6. Step 6 — Extend the mouth outward into a huge wide-open mouth that stretches across both the page and the underside of the flap.
  7. Step 7 — Inside the giant mouth, draw rows of sharp triangle teeth on the top and bottom, and a wiggly red tongue.
  8. Step 8 — Colour the inside of the mouth red or pink, leaving the teeth white. Close the flap and open it again to surprise your friends!
💡 Parikshet's Tip: Make sure the fish body lines on the flap line up exactly with the lines on the page underneath — that way the surprise mouth opens smoothly.

🌟 Did You Know?

Some real fish, like the gulper eel, really can open their mouths bigger than their own body to swallow large prey in one gulp. Your folding fish drawing copies this amazing trick.

Easy Variations to Try

  • Make a folding shark with extra sharp teeth
  • Turn it into a folding crocodile
  • Draw a folding snake with a long pink tongue
  • Make a folding hippo with huge square teeth

🎯 Try This: Surprise Card

  1. Use an A5 card and fold it the same way
  2. Draw the cute fish on the front
  3. Hide the huge open mouth inside
  4. Write "Surprise!" on the inside and give it as a card