Bison Silhouettes: 20 American Buffalo Designs with Calves, Herds and Mountain Scenes

American bison are the only animal here: a lone bull on open ground, a cow with her calf, a small herd and three head portraits, 20 designs in all. Each one comes as a solid black bison silhouette and as a bison outline traced from the same drawing.

Poses, pairs and herds

The first ten designs are single animals. Three stand still: side-on (01), alert at a three-quarter angle (02), and seen from behind with the head turned back over its shoulder (03). Three run. Design 04 is a long stride, 05 catches the bison in mid-leap with every hoof off the ground, and 06 comes straight at you with the head lowered. Two graze with their noses to the ground (07 and 08), and two face you head-on, one planted square (09) and one taking a step (10).

Designs 11 and 12 pair a cow with her calf: walking side by side, and touching noses. Then come two herds of three. In 13 they walk in a line, each one a little smaller than the one ahead. In 14 the middle bison faces forward with one on either side.

Mountains and portraits

Three designs set a bison in a landscape. In 15 it walks along a strip of ground with sharp peaks behind its back. Design 16 adds two pine trees and a single peak, and 17 floats a low ridge with a rising sun above the animal, as separate pieces. The last three are heads only: a profile with a heavy mane (18), a front view with both horns curving up (19), and a three-quarter turn (20).

The fur is part of the shape

These are not flat blobs. In the solid files the shaggy coat on the hump, neck and beard is cut through with white streaks, so the bison still reads as furry when it’s filled black. The outline files trace those same streaks as closed bands, which makes them busy, almost like a line drawing. Design 04 is the exception. Its solid version keeps only the horn, eye and nostril open, and its outline is a single clean edge, so pick it when you want the plainest shape.

All that interior detail needs room. Each SVG and DXF sits on a 10 x 10 inch canvas, with the artwork about 8.4 inches across its longer side. START-HERE.txt asks you to keep the intended holes, choose your size, and test your cutting software and material before a full project. The files have not been cut on every material.

Printing the PDFs

Pick a paper size, a version and a layout: one bison filling the page, or four or six copies of the same bison. A full-page standing bison prints about 6.1 inches wide on US Letter. Each page names the design in a small header, and the pages should be printed at Actual Size (100%) with Fit to Page turned off.

Questions

Is this a bison or a buffalo?

The animal drawn throughout is the American bison, with the big shoulder hump and short curved horns. In the US it is often called a buffalo, which is why both words appear here.

Do the herds and scenes cut as one piece?

Not always. START-HERE.txt notes that the mother-and-calf designs, the herds and the mountain scenes may contain separate pieces. In design 17, for example, the strip of peaks and the sun float above the bison. Size the design up and test your material before a full project, since the files have not been cut on every material.