How to Draw a Unicorn Easy: A Personal Journey from Stick Figures to Magical Creatures

I still remember the first unicorn I ever tried to draw. I was seven, armed with a purple crayon and the unshakeable confidence that only comes with childhood. What emerged on that construction paper looked more like a deformed horse with a traffic cone glued to its head. My mom hung it on the fridge anyway, bless her heart.

Twenty-something years later, I've taught hundreds of people to draw unicorns, and I've discovered something profound: everyone thinks they can't draw until they actually try. The secret isn't talent—it's understanding that drawing is just breaking complex shapes into simple ones. A unicorn, despite all its mythical glory, is essentially a horse with a horn. And a horse? That's just circles and lines arranged in a particular way.

Starting with the Foundation: Why Circles Matter More Than You Think

When I teach drawing workshops, I always start with this exercise: close your eyes and picture a unicorn. What do you see first? Most people say the horn, but that's actually the last thing you should worry about. The body comes first, always.

Begin with two circles. Not perfect circles—nobody draws perfect circles freehand, and if they claim they do, they're lying. The first circle, about the size of a quarter if you're drawing on standard paper, becomes the chest. The second, slightly smaller and positioned to the right and slightly below, forms the hindquarters. These two imperfect circles are your unicorn's core.

Connect these circles with two gentle curves—one along the top for the back, one below for the belly. Suddenly, you've got a body. It's that simple, yet I've watched grown adults have genuine "aha" moments when they realize this basic truth.

The Head: Where Magic Begins to Take Shape

Here's where people usually mess up, and I'll tell you why. They try to draw a horse head from memory, which usually means they're drawing what they think a horse head looks like rather than its actual structure. Forget everything you think you know about horse heads for a moment.

Start with another circle, smaller than your body circles, positioned up and to the left of the chest circle. This is your basic head shape. Now—and this is crucial—add a smaller circle overlapping the bottom of your head circle. This becomes the muzzle. Connect them with soft lines, and you've got the foundation of a head that actually looks proportional.

The neck is just two lines connecting the head to the chest circle. Make the top line curve gracefully, like a swan's neck. The bottom line should be straighter but not rigid. Think of it as the difference between a ballet dancer's posture and a soldier's—both upright, but one has flow.

Legs: The Part Where Everyone Panics

I get it. Legs are weird. They bend in ways that seem to defy logic when you're trying to recreate them on paper. But here's my approach, developed after years of watching people struggle with this exact problem.

Unicorn legs are essentially two straight lines that get slightly wider at certain points. Start from the body—front legs attach to the chest circle, back legs to the hindquarter circle. Draw straight lines down, about one and a half times the height of your body. These are your guidelines.

Now, here's the trick nobody tells you: unicorn legs (like horse legs) have the same joints we do, just in different proportions. The front legs have a knee that bends backward (it's actually their wrist, anatomically speaking, but let's not complicate things). The back legs have that distinctive backward bend that's actually their ankle.

Add small circles at these joint points, then connect everything with slightly curved lines. The hooves? Just small rectangles at the bottom. Don't overthink it.

The Horn: Your Moment of Truth

After all this buildup, the horn is almost anticlimactic in its simplicity. It's a triangle. That's it. A slightly elongated triangle emerging from the forehead, right between where the eyes will go.

But here's what makes it magical: the spiral. Start at the base of the horn and draw a curved line that wraps around, getting closer together as you near the tip. Three or four spirals are plenty—any more and it starts looking like a narwhal tusk, which is a different tutorial entirely.

Bringing Life to Your Creation

The basic structure is done, but a unicorn without details is just a horse with a party hat. The mane and tail are where you can really let personality shine through. I've seen people draw everything from flowing, ethereal wisps to punk rock mohawks. There's no wrong answer here.

For a classic look, think of the mane as a series of flowing S-curves cascading from the top of the head down the neck. Don't draw individual hairs—that way madness lies. Instead, think of it as one flowing mass with a few internal lines to suggest movement.

The tail follows the same principle. Start with a basic teardrop shape extending from the rear, then add flowing lines within it. Some people like to make the tail touch the ground; others prefer it flowing in an imaginary breeze. Your unicorn, your rules.

Eyes: Windows to the Magical Soul

I've noticed something interesting over the years: the way people draw unicorn eyes often reflects their own emotional state. Happy people draw bright, alert eyes. Stressed folks tend toward droopy, tired-looking eyes. It's like an unintentional Rorschach test.

For a basic eye, draw an almond shape on the side of the head, roughly in line with where the muzzle circle meets the head circle. Add a smaller circle inside for the iris, and an even smaller one for the pupil. Leave a tiny white spot in the pupil—this "light reflection" brings the eye to life.

Some people stop here, and that's fine. But if you want that extra touch of magic, add eyelashes. Three or four curved lines extending from the top of the eye can transform your unicorn from cartoon character to mystical being.

The Final Touches: Where Personal Style Emerges

This is where I usually step back in my workshops and let people run wild. Some add stars around their unicorn. Others draw flowers in the mane. I once had a student who insisted on giving their unicorn sneakers, and honestly? It worked.

The beauty of drawing unicorns is that they're already impossible creatures. There's no "wrong" way to embellish them. Want to add wings? Go for it—congratulations, you've just invented an alicorn. Prefer a more traditional approach? A simple ground line and maybe some grass will do.

Common Mistakes and How to Embrace Them

Let me share something that took me years to learn: mistakes in unicorn drawings often make them more charming, not less. That wonky leg? It gives character. The horn that's slightly off-center? That's personality.

The biggest mistake I see isn't in technique—it's in attitude. People give up after one attempt because it doesn't look like the unicorns in professional illustrations. Of course it doesn't. Those artists have drawn thousands of unicorns. You've drawn one.

I keep all my old sketchbooks, and sometimes I flip through them when I need a humility check. My unicorns from five years ago look amateur compared to today's. The ones from ten years ago? Let's just say they've got personality.

Beyond the Basics: Your Unicorn Journey

Once you've mastered the basic unicorn, the possibilities explode. You can experiment with different poses—rearing up, lying down, mid-gallop. You can play with proportions—make the legs longer for elegance, the body rounder for cuteness.

Some of my students have gone on to create entire unicorn universes. One woman started with my basic tutorial and now sells unicorn artwork at craft fairs. A teenager I taught used the foundation to develop her own comic series. A grandfather learned just so he could draw unicorns for his granddaughter's birthday cards.

That's the real magic of learning to draw unicorns. It's not about creating perfect representations of mythical creatures. It's about proving to yourself that you can take something that exists only in imagination and make it real on paper. It's about the joy on a child's face when you sketch them a quick unicorn on a napkin at a restaurant. It's about having a skill that seems magical to others but is really just circles, lines, and a bit of practiced confidence.

The Truth About "Easy"

When people ask me how to draw a unicorn "easy," I think they're really asking, "How can I draw something I'll be proud of without years of art school?" The answer is simpler than you'd think: lower your expectations for your first attempt, then exceed them with your second.

Every artist started with terrible drawings. The difference between those who kept going and those who gave up isn't talent—it's the willingness to draw another unicorn after the first one looks like a mutant donkey.

So grab a pencil, find some paper, and start with those two circles. Your first unicorn might not be portfolio-worthy, but it will be yours. And that, in its own way, is pretty magical.

Remember: unicorns aren't real, so nobody can tell you you're drawing them wrong. How's that for artistic freedom?

Authoritative Sources:

Edwards, Betty. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. 4th ed., TarcherPerigee, 2012.

Foster, Walter. How to Draw Horses. Walter Foster Publishing, 1989.

Hamm, Jack. Drawing the Head and Figure. Perigee Books, 1963.

Hart, Christopher. Kids Draw Animals. Watson-Guptill Publications, 2003.

Hodges, Elaine R. S., ed. The Guild Handbook of Scientific Illustration. 2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons, 2003.