How to Draw Cartoon Sushi with delicious textures

Drawing a cartoon sushi that looks delicious and juicy can be a fun challenge to deal with. This excellent Japanese dish is made of rice cooked in vinegar topped with fish and seafood. It's the perfect mix!

The basic shapes behind a piece of sushi are quite simple to figure out! You just need to draw a circle and a larger oval shape and you are done! Creating nice gradient effects and cool reflections might be more difficult if you don't have a vector software. Let's see how we can draw a nice sushi in just a few basic steps using this lesson below. :)

Let's start this tutorial by working on the main shape

First, we need to draw the membrane (made from seaweed) used to hold all ingredients together. Just start by sketching a circle in the middle of the work space to create a template. Around this shape, add a large curved line to form the main shape of the sushi. As you can see below, the circle is mostly located on the left side of the illustration.

polishing the subject by adding ... irregular lines!

Since we are working with food (which is organic and not made from perfect shapes), it can be a good idea to use irregular lines to form both shapes. Work on the previous shapes to create a more natural look to the meal.

adding our first ingredients

Inside the middle of the cartoon sushi, you can sketch two additional irregular shapes made from curved lines. These are the vegetables or sea food that can be seen inside the sushi. You can make one side slightly larger than the other to increase this sensation of imperfection.

drawing rice using several tiny oval shapes

We can now add the rice using several small oval shapes inside the main circle. Notice how the rice in placed in a circular motion around the middle of the sushi. Make sure that most grains of rice are drawn using a consistent size.

it's time to bring this cartoon sushi to life using colors

Let's add plain colors inside the subject to make this one visually more appealing. Notice how all outlines are now filled with colors. Even the rice is now drawn using gray strokes. Now that colors are added, it can be a good idea to add some simple effects inside the meal.

adding gradients to create a little bit of depth

Plain colors are nice, but working with gradients can significantly improve the drawing quickly and easily. Notice how both shapes in the middle (in red and green) are now darker near the bottom and brighter on top. The black area is also slightly brighter on top of the sushi.

sketching simple textures on the membrane

Inside the black area of the subject, draw simple textures using several short gray lines. Don't hesitate to use a mix of dots, short lines and longer ones. Lines on top can be slightly brighter than the ones near the bottom.

one more reflection and we are done!

One last thing we can do to improve this fun illustration is add a simple reflection on the main shape of the sushi. This subtle highlight is located on the right side of the image. Make sure that this new element is blending smoothly with the rest of the subject.

Now that this lesson on how to draw a cartoon sushi is completed, you are invited to try more delicious food from this site below. Have fun and remember to practice often. :)