I really love the asthetics of koi ponds and I wanted to draw my own little fish friend. I did my drawing on iPad with the app Procreate and then imported to illustrator to make the seperate layers vector based to use als score and cut lines.

RED = Cutting Lines

VIOLET = Score

GREEN = Engrave

If you don't want to have the score lines as helpful guide lines turn off the layer in the menu. Then you can align all pieces as you want. Make sure to create new substraced pieces to get perfect fits.

Make sure to check to get all tiny bits (especially the ones for the koi eyes).

If you have all pieces I like to put the tiny ones some tape that hast the sticky side facing up.

This helps to paint them and don't get you fingers colored.

For me this was such a fun project to relax and just think about how I want to color it and don't have any daily business inside my head. So if you can take your time enjoy it and make it the way you like.

Also make sure when painting the backgorund to use more liquid paint (add some water to you acrylics) to get into the score lines. Don't forget the small places where the background is going to be visible to paint as well - maybe I forgot or haven't seen it right before glueing. :D

Please let yout paints dry well.

I use Mod Podge to glue stick the pieces together but if you have wood glue this might stick better and longer. 

Use the score lines as reference to place the right pieces. It's kinda like painting by numbers but with glue.

Finally I frames my little fish and thats all you need to do to create such a wonderful craft.

I think this could be really funny to do as a little friends night as everyone is possibly painting it all different.

I hope you like this Idea and have fun making your own! 

~ Anzy