Cute Animal Doodles: 12 Easy Animals From Simple Shapes

Here is the secret behind most cute animal doodles: nearly all of them are the same rounded blob. A bear, a pig and a frog can share one head shape. What tells them apart is a pair of ears, a tail and one marking.

That is good news if you want animals you can draw from memory. The twelve below are plain, original designs built from circles, ovals and triangles, small enough for a margin.

Start With a Rounded Blob

Draw a circle, then let it sag a little, so it ends up slightly wider than it is tall, like a bun. That is the head, or for many of these animals, the whole body.

Keep it small, about the size of a thumbnail. If thinking in shapes is new to you, the guide to basic doodle shapes explains how any object breaks down into a main shape plus details.

A Bear Face in Four Stages

The bear is the plainest animal of the set, which makes it the best place to learn the order of strokes.

1. Draw the round head, a little wider than tall.
2. Add two ears: small half circles sitting on the top left and top right of the head. Put a smaller curve inside each one.
3. Draw an oval muzzle in the lower half of the face, lying on its side. Add a small rounded triangle for the nose at the top of the oval, then a short line down from it that splits into two tiny curves for the mouth.
4. Place two dot eyes level with the top of the muzzle, one on each side, and a short oval blush mark under each eye.

Where the Face Goes

Two placement habits do most of the work of making an animal look friendly.

• Low on the head: keep the eyes, nose and mouth in the bottom half of the blob, leaving a big, empty forehead.
• Eyes wide apart: set the dot eyes farther apart than feels natural, closer to the edges of the face than to the nose.

Use solid dots for eyes and keep the mouth tiny. There is more on faces, blush marks and proportions in the article on how to make doodles cute.

Six Animals With Ears, Snouts and Spines

You have the bear already. Each of these starts with the same blob for a head or body.

• Bunny: draw two long, narrow loops standing up from the top of the head, close together, with one flopping over at the tip if you like. Add a tiny Y for the nose and mouth, two dot eyes and a small round tail if you draw the body.
• Fox: pinch the bottom of the blob into a soft point for the chin. Add two large triangle ears. From the top of the head, draw two curved lines sweeping down to the chin, marking off pale cheeks. Put a dot nose at the point.
• Pig: add two small triangle ears with the tips folded forward. Draw a wide oval snout in the middle of the face with two short upright dashes inside it. Finish with a curly tail, a single loop like a pen flourish.
• Owl: stand the blob upright like an egg. Draw two large circles side by side for the eyes, touching, with a dot in each. Put a tiny V beak between them, two pointed tufts on top and three rows of small U shapes on the belly.
• Hedgehog: draw a dome with a flat base, then pull one end out into a short, pointed snout with a dot nose. Run a zigzag line over the back from head to tail and add short dashes behind it for spines. Two tiny feet go underneath.
• Penguin: draw a tall egg. Inside it, draw the white front: start at the top with two bumps like the top of a heart, then run both sides down to the base. Add a small triangle beak, two dot eyes, a flipper on each side and two flat oval feet.

Five Animals From the Pond, Sea and Garden

These use the blob as a full body, so there are no separate heads to worry about.

• Frog: draw a wide, flat oval. Add two bumps on top for the eyes with a dot in each. Draw a long smile across most of the face and two tiny nostril dots above it.
• Whale: draw a fat teardrop lying on its side, round at the front and narrowing toward the back. Finish the narrow end with a tail shaped like a small heart. Add a dot eye low on the front, a curved belly line and two curls of spray rising from the top.
• Fish: draw an almond shape lying flat. Attach a triangle tail to one point. Add a dot eye, a curved gill line just behind it, a small fin on top and two or three bubbles drifting upward.
• Turtle: draw a dome for the shell with a flat line along the bottom. Add a rounded head poking out from one end, two stubby legs underneath and a tiny pointed tail. Mark the shell with three or four curved lines.
• Snail: draw the shell as a spiral, starting in the middle and circling out about two and a half times. Under it, draw a flat body that stretches forward and lifts into a rounded head. Add two thin stalks with a dot on each tip.

What Makes Each One Recognizable

If an animal is not reading clearly, check its one key detail. That single feature matters more than everything else combined.

Make that feature slightly too big. Longer ears on the bunny or a wider smile on the frog help more than any extra detail would.

Keep Them Your Own

Every animal here is a generic design from basic shapes, so there is no need to copy anyone else’s creature. Change the ear size, swap dot eyes for small closed curves, add a spot or a stripe, and the animal becomes yours.

Where to Go Next

Fill a page by drawing all twelve in a loose grid, with dots and tiny stars as filler between them. A touch of pink highlighter on the blush marks is the only color the set needs.

For pets in several poses, such as sitting, curled up and seen from behind, move on to cat and dog doodles. For small creatures that fly, the bird, bee and butterfly doodles use the same blob-first approach.