The ice single crystal possesses a strong viscoplastic anisotropy, it deforms mainly by dislocation glide in the basal plane. A constitutive model for the single crystal behaviour, based on existing models for metals, is proposed to reproduce the experimental results cited in the literature. In polycrystalline ice, this strong viscoplastic anisotropy leads to incompatibilities of deformation between the grains, which induce strain heterogeneities inside the grains. To study the mechanisms leading to the localization of the deformation, creep experiments were carried out in cold room on laboratory-made ice specimens, constituted of a multicrystal included in a macroscopically isotropic ice matrix. The deformation was followed by photographs ...