I like to use gradient colors of clay rather than solid colors because it makes the canes appear more alive and three-dimensional. Here I've joined together two triangular shaped canes to form the head and the body. I inserted the eyeballs into the head by pushing a large knitting needle through the clay and wiggling in the eye.

To make the little stripes in the fish, I cut slits into the fish's body and insert thin wedges of a different color of clay.

Here are some assorted fish bodies awaiting their fins.

I reduce the cane by stretching and rolling it. I do this before attaching the fins to avoid distorting them.

I have reduced the short stubby fish body into several feet of tiny fish body.

I make the fins and reduce them separately. Then I lay them in place along the fish's body.

Here is my surgery technique for inserting a cane within another cane. This will become the fish's tail fin.

After reducing the tail cane, I attach it to the body of the fish. I use a needle tool to secure the contact wherever the strips meet.

The scrap heap!

Whenever I make canes, it's inevitable that I get a pile of scrap trimmings of the ends. There are lots of uses for the scrap clay.

After a long day of conditioning, rolling, wrapping, layering, shaping and reducing, I have many feet of fish canes ready to be sliced!