Shadow Theater

This instructable show you how to do CNC-cutted puppets and a theater box.

I made this theater as an example for a teacher working with 8-9 years old children. The project is that I will lend her my MiniCut2d CNC and that she will make 4 or 5 differents tales with her schoolboys. Artistic and digital education together !

Use a pencil and a black felt. Make the correction with Tipp-Ex. The drawings must be externally closed for vectorization.

Take pictures at different distances then use the free MiniCut2d Software (v2.6.3) to vectorise the characters, and save them as .dxf files.

Be carefull, the vectorization works good with pictures of under 1200 pixels side. If the picture is too big, it will not be good. 700-800 pixels side is enough for one caracter.

You can find here the files of this Little Red Riding Hood tale.

I cuted the characters with my MiniCut2d cnc hot wire cutter in Depron foam. But it's also possible to use a laser cutter with paper characters.

I used skewer sticks, with hot glue (glue gun).

You can also glue the stick behind the characters (perpendicular).

The black painting gives a better shadow, because it stops totally the light.

The theater is a cardbox with a window and a tracing-paper taped in it. You must think about the position of the storyteller and of the light. You have to do some tests.