How to draw a caterpillar — easy step by step drawing ideas

Caterpillar drawing ideas are the ones I reach for when somebody very small says they cannot draw. I have never met a child who could not draw a caterpillar, because a caterpillar is simply a row of circles with a happy face on the front — and a row of circles is something every four-year-old can already do. It is the friendliest first animal on this whole site.

It is also one of the most rewarding. Learning how to draw a caterpillar teaches two real skills without anybody noticing: overlapping shapes, which is how artists make things look solid, and repetition with variation, which is how a row of identical circles turns into a creature with a wiggle. Those two ideas will show up again in dragons, in trains and in caterpillars' grown-up selves, butterflies.

In this tutorial we will build a cheerful cartoon caterpillar in six easy steps, following the practice sheet below. I will share the pro tips I use when I teach it, the mistakes that turn caterpillars into worms, and a few ways to keep going once the first one is finished. Grab a pencil and a green crayon, and let us draw.

The 6 steps to easy caterpillar drawing ideas

Step 1 — Draw the head

Turn your paper sideways so it is wider than it is tall, then draw one round circle over on the left-hand side. This is the head, and everything else will trail off to the right, so resist the urge to start in the middle of the page — that is the number one reason caterpillars run out of room and end up with two segments and a very surprised face.

Make the head slightly bigger than the body segments will be. Not much bigger; just enough that the eye knows which end is the front. Keep the pencil light for now, because we will be tucking other circles behind this one and it helps to be able to erase.

Step 2 — Add the face

Give the head two big round eyes, set low and fairly close together, each with a small white dot left blank inside for a shine. Then add a wide curved smile underneath, and two small circles on either side for blush cheeks. That is the entire face, and it takes about thirty seconds.

Keep the features in the lower half of the head. Every cute cartoon creature follows this rule: eyes low, big forehead above. It is a strange thing to do the first time, because real faces are not built that way, but it is the whole difference between a caterpillar that looks sweet and one that looks slightly alarming.

Step 3 — Add the antennae

Draw two thin lines curving up and slightly outward from the top of the head, and finish each one with a small round ball. Keep them about as long as the head is tall. Antennae are the detail that tells everyone this is a bug rather than a caterpillar-shaped sweet, so they are worth getting right.

Give them a gentle curve rather than a straight line, and let the two curve in slightly different ways — one a little taller, one leaning a little further out. Perfectly matched antennae look stiff; slightly mismatched ones look springy, as though the caterpillar has just noticed something interesting.

Step 4 — Add the body segments

Here is the part that makes it a caterpillar. Draw a circle behind the head, overlapping it slightly so the head sits in front. Then another behind that, and another behind that — three in all for now, each roughly the size of the head or a touch smaller, and each one sitting a tiny bit lower than the last so the body curves gently downward.

The overlapping is the important bit. Do not line the circles up edge to edge like beads on a string; let each one tuck behind its neighbour by about a quarter of its width. When you erase the hidden parts later, those overlaps are what will make the caterpillar look round and solid rather than flat.

Step 5 — Add the last segments and legs

Add two more circles at the tail end, each a little smaller than the one before, so the body tapers away neatly instead of stopping dead. Five circles behind the head is the sweet spot: enough to look like a proper caterpillar, few enough to fit comfortably on the page.

Then come the legs. Under each body segment draw two tiny stubby legs — little rounded bumps, no longer than a pencil-width each. They do not need feet, toes or joints. Ten small bumps along the bottom of the drawing are all it takes, and they are the single detail that separates a caterpillar from a worm.

Step 6 — Finish and color

Go over every line you want to keep with a firmer stroke or a fine black pen, then erase the sketchy guide lines and the parts of each circle hidden behind the segment in front. Watch what happens: the flat row of rings turns into one rounded, overlapping body. That single erase is the most valuable thing in this tutorial.

Now colour. Bright green is the classic, with a lighter yellow-green along the bottom of each segment for the tummy. Colour the antenna tips orange, the cheeks pink, and leave those two shine dots white in the eyes. If you want the body to look really round, add a slightly darker green along the bottom edge of each segment and leave the top of each one pale.

For a finishing touch, draw a simple leaf under the front legs with a single curved line down the middle. One leaf gives the caterpillar somewhere to be, and it takes fifteen seconds.

Common mistakes to avoid

The segments do not overlap

If each circle only touches the next one, the caterpillar ends up looking like a string of beads lying flat on the page. Overlap is what creates the illusion of depth: the part you cannot see is the part your brain reads as roundness.

The fix is easy even after the fact. Nudge the dividing lines so they curve into each body segment rather than sitting straight between two of them, and the whole body puffs up immediately.

Running out of paper

This one catches almost everybody the first time. The head goes in the middle of the page, the segments march off to the right, and by segment three there is nothing left but the edge of the paper. The caterpillar ends up stubby and the tail gets squashed.

Turn the paper landscape and start the head about a third of the way in from the left edge. If the worst happens, curve the body upward or downward so it loops back into the empty space instead of running off the page — a curled caterpillar is just as cute, and nobody will know it was an accident.

The face is too small

Tiny eyes on a big head make a caterpillar look distant and a bit grumpy. In cartoon drawing the eyes carry nearly all of the charm, so they need to be generous: each eye roughly a third as wide as the head, with a good black pupil and a clear white shine dot.

If the eyes are already drawn small, do not erase them — just draw a larger circle around each one and re-ink. Bigger eyes, lower on the face, fix nine caterpillars out of ten.

Troubleshooting

My caterpillar looks like a snake

The body is probably one smooth tube. Put the dividing lines back in as clear curves, make sure each segment bulges slightly outward at the top, and add the little legs underneath. Segments and legs are the two signals that say caterpillar.

The body looks lumpy and uneven

Uneven circles are not a problem — uneven spacing is. Check that the gaps between the centres of your circles are roughly equal; if one segment is crowded against its neighbour and the next has a gap, the rhythm breaks and the body looks broken rather than bumpy. Redraw one segment rather than the whole body.

The colours look flat

Try colouring each segment with the crayon strokes following the curve of the circle instead of straight back and forth. Curved strokes plus a darker green along the bottom of each segment will make the body look round without any real shading technique at all.

Key takeaways

FAQ

What age is this caterpillar drawing tutorial for? This is one of the easiest tutorials on the site. Children of about 4 or 5 can manage it with a little help, and most 6-year-olds can follow the sheet alone, because the whole animal is a row of circles.

How many segments should a caterpillar have? For a cute cartoon caterpillar, five or six circles including the head is perfect. Fewer than four looks like a worm, and more than eight starts to look like a centipede and takes up the whole page.

Why does my caterpillar look like a worm or a snake? Almost always because the segments blend into one long tube. Let each circle overlap its neighbour but keep the curved dividing line visible, and add the little legs underneath. Segments plus legs is what makes it read as a caterpillar.

Can I turn my caterpillar into a butterfly drawing? Yes, and it makes a lovely pair of pictures. Draw the caterpillar on the left of the page, a small cocoon shape in the middle, and a butterfly on the right, and you have the whole life cycle on one sheet.

That is your caterpillar! Whether it came out neat and stripy or gloriously wobbly, you just used the same overlapping trick that real illustrators use every day — and that belongs on the fridge. Draw a whole line of them munching along one leaf, then try the butterfly it turns into, and come back tomorrow for a new tutorial.

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