30 Sea Creature Drawing Ideas (From Cute Sea Otters to Weird Deep-Sea Monsters)

This post is all about easy, cool, and super weird sea creature drawing ideas. 

Looking for sea creatures to draw? In this post, you'll find 30 easy, cool, weird, and scary sea creature drawing ideas to inspire you.

I had a lot of fun drawing all these animals and researching them. I came across the weirdest sea animals, like the leafy sea dragon and the Portuguese man o' war, and some of the cutest, like the sea otter and the dumbo octopus.

I just wanted to let you know that this post contains affiliate links and any purchases made through these links will result in a small commission to me and don't cost you anything extra.

All of these drawing ideas are pretty easy, and you only need a regular pencil to draw them. But if you want to go one step further and turn your doodles into clean-looking drawings, you can outline them using some black fineliners like these ones. And if you want to color your drawings in (some of these animals have beautiful colored patterns), you can use alcohol markers like these Ohuhu ones (my personal choice).

In This Post

• Easy Sea Animal Drawing Ideas
• Cool Ocean Animal Drawing Ideas
• Weird Deep Sea Creature Drawing Ideas

Easy Sea Animal Drawing Ideas

1. Dolphin

When thinking of sea animals, the first one that came to mind was a dolphin. They always look happy, like to swim with boats, and jump out of the water.

A dolphin is one of the easiest sea animals to draw due to their sleek shape, aka a great first sea animal drawing idea.

If you'd like to know how to sketch and color a breaching dolphin, make sure to check out this step-by-step guide I made.

2. Crab

Next, I drew a very basic crab. When I go to the beach, I don't often see crabs. Well, not alive ones. 

I kept this crab drawing super simple. It's just a potato shape with two eyes on a stick, two big scissor hands, and 6 pointy legs on the side. Because the legs are attached on the side, they walk sideways and not just forward.

Drawing a crab is a great little exercise to practice symmetry.

3. Seal

Just like dolphins, seals have super streamlined bodies. They are often found sunbathing on sandbanks or on rocky coasts.

I drew my seal diving downwards. Talking about diving, did you know that some seals can dive more than 500 meters (over a quarter of a mile) deep?

4. Starfish

Starfish are some other commonly associated animals with the sea. You can sometimes find them on the beach, and if they get hurt and lose a limb, they just grow it back!

Starfish can have lots of different colors and textures, which makes them fun to customize. For example, I gave mine small circles and zigzaggy lines.

5. Seahorse

Seahorses are quite weird sea animals. They have a curled tail, a horse-like head, and these tiny fins to swim with. Oh, and the males get pregnant and give birth. 

Their unique shape makes them fun to draw.

6. Clownfish

Clownfish are famous for their bright orange and white stripes. But since I wanted to keep these drawing Ideas super accessible, I sketched mine with just a pencil and didn't add those recognizable colors. It still looks nice, but if you have a black fineliner and an orange highlighter, I highly recommend you color this one in. It's super simple and it makes it look a lot better.

7. Jellyfish

Jellyfish are always super cool. I always get lost looking at drawings of jellyfish on Pinterest. I wanted to draw one for so long, but never did until today. Essentially, jellyfish are just parashutes with lots of stingy tentacles floating in the water, which makes them easy to draw and cool-looking.

8. Sea Turtle

Sea turtles can get super old, like over a decade old, and they have this beautiful hexagon pattern on their shield and flipper. This makes them a little hard to get right, but as you can see from my drawing, if you scribble a bit on the flippers, it'll look good too.

9. Sea Otter

Sea otters are, for a fact, the cutest sea animals on earth. You can't convince me otherwise. They hold hands so they don't float away from each other, and they play with rocks and share them with their loved ones.

I drew my sea otter just relaxing on its back, floating in the water. If you're up for a little challenge, you can draw two sea otters holding hands or exchanging some stones or seashells.

10. Lobster

Lobsters always remind me of the muscular lobster from SpongeBob. Most other people know lobster as luxurious food. Never tried it.

Just like crabs, lobsters have two big scissor hands, but they have a more elongated body, a tail, and some large antennas.

11. Stingray

I love rays. They look so cute with their flat faces swimming up against the glass and they have this rough sandpaper texture.

My stingray drawing is just a super simple outline and two dots for the eyes.

12. Octopus

Octopuses are super smart animals, and since they do not have a skeleton, they can manoeuvre their bodies through the tiniest holes. Their curly tentacles and round heads make them satisfying to draw. 

Cool Ocean Animal Drawing Ideas

13. Giant Clam

Giant clams are, in fact, giant. They can weigh more than 200 kg (400 lbs). They are beautifully textured with tons of wavy lines and details, making them a fun drawing exercise.

14. Horseshoe crab

Horseshoe crabs are as old as dinosaurs, which isn't weird since they all wear an armored shell to protect them from meteors. They have a very unusual shape, and they do look like they are 450 million years old.

15. Manta Ray

Earlier, I drew a stingray, which is already a cool animal. However, the manta ray might be even cooler. Manta rays are ginormous. They can reach a wingspan of over 7 meters (23 feet), and they look like impressive birds flying in the ocean.

They also have a few more characteristic elements you can draw, like the extended jaws and the gills on the back.

16. Great White Shark

The great white shark is one of the ocean's most infamous predators. They have a classic shark shape and super sharp teeth. And since it's a predator, it has to look angry all the time. Can you make your white shark look angrier than mine?

17. Hammerhead Shark

Okay, okay, not all predators look angry all the time. This hammerhead shark looks kinda like a dingus with its wide hammer-shaped head. However, it's still a super cool ocean animal to draw.

18. Whale Shark

We've already had the great white shark and the hammerhead shark, but the whale shark might be my favorite. It's super big (up to 12 meters / 40 feet long), and it has a beautiful pattern of dots all over the top half of its body. And they look super majestic swimming about.

I recently saw a video of BM Sculptures carving a beautiful whale shark out of wood. You should definitely give that a watch.

19. Moray Eel

Moray eels look a lot like sea snakes. They have long bodies and super sharp teeth you don't want to get anywhere close to.

If you want to add more to your moray eel drawing, you could turn it into an underwater scene with tons of rocks and crevices for the eels to hide in.

20. Lionfish

Lionfish have beautiful patterns and long spines, which are actually venomous. They also have sharp points on their fins and tons of details. If you're up for a little drawing challenge, this is worth a try.

21. Nautilus

Looking at nautiluses makes me uncomfortable. I don't like their tentacle-like thingies. However, their shell looks super cool. When you look on the inside, it has these beautiful geometrically shaped chambers. I actually drew a cross-section of a nautilus shell for my seashell drawing ideas post, if you want to see what that looks like.

22. Sea Slug

In the ocean, slugs are actually beautiful, unlike the land ones we get after it rains. Sea slugs like this nudibranch have beautiful shapes and colors (definitely worth looking up). They almost look alien, and they behave like aliens too. Some sea slugs can absorb stinging cells from their prey and use them for defense. These are great if you want to add some colorful patterns to your drawing.

Weird Deep Sea Creature Drawing Ideas

23. Leafy Sea Dragon

When skimming past the images, you might think that this is just a bit of seaweed floating in the water. However, this leafy sea dragon is actually one of the weirdest animals of the ocean. They're super well camouflaged to look just like seaweed, and they are actually closely related to seahorses.

This leafy sea dragon was quite a challenge to draw, but it turned out so cool!

24. Portuguese Man O' War

The Portuguese man o' war is literally a warship. It's actually not one animal, it's a colony of organisms working together. And as the name suggests, this beauty is not small. The tentacles of a Portuguese man o' war can get over 30 meters (100 feet) long! I wouldn't get close to one if I were you.

25. Angler Fish

Anglerfish might be one of the most well know deep sea creatures. When I was young, my mom read me a book about sea animals, and in it, there was this image of an anglerfish with a glowing light to lure prey.

It does look a bit goofy with its super big mouth, but it makes for a cool little drawing.

26. Dumbo Octopus

I already said that sea otters are the cutest sea animals. The dumbo octopus is the second cutest. Just look at it!

27. Fangtooth Fish

Despite looking so intimidating, fantooth fish only get about 6 to 8 inches long. Their menacing look and all the details make the fangtooth fish a great sea creature to draw.

28. Giant Squid

Giant squid are one of the most legendary creatures of the ocean. They can grow over 12 meters (or 40 feet) long!

29. Blobfish

Blobfish are famous for their appearance. They look sad and done with life. However, I just learned that blobfish don't look like this when they're in the water... They only look this weird when they're out of the water. In the water, they look a lot more normal.

30. Dragonfish

Last on this sea animal drawing ideas list is the dragonfish. They look super scary with their needle-sharp teeth. And in the dark, some dragonfish can actually produce a bioluminescent light. If you're looking for a dramatic sea creature to draw, this is the one for you.