Jellyfish Outlines and Silhouettes: 20 Moon Jellies, Lion’s Manes and Drifting Groups

Bells, ribbon tentacles and bubbles are all solid shapes in these 20 jellyfish designs, supplied once as a filled black silhouette and once as an open outline. They’re meant for cutting, stenciling and one-color printing, so every bell, tentacle and bubble is a clean shape rather than a painted texture.

What the twenty look like

Most designs show one jellyfish hanging bell-up with its tentacles falling below, and the bells are where they differ most:

• Bell shapes. A rounded, ribbed dome (01), a narrow deep dome (05), a bell with a pointed crown along its top (06), a wide flared rim (08) and a tall, ribbed lantern (12).
• Two familiar jellies. Design 03 is a lion’s mane, all heavy ruffled arms under a small bell. Design 04 is a moon jelly with the four-ring pattern on its wide, flat bell and a fringe of short tentacles around the edge. Design 11 is another broad bell, with a row of curls across the top.
• Jellies on the move. Flowing Ribbons (02) streams off at a slant, 07 swims almost sideways with its tentacles trailing behind, 10 curls its arms into spirals and 13 rises beside a column of bubbles.
• Small scenes. A jellyfish over two clumps of seaweed (14), one inside two curling waves that nearly close into a ring (19), a large and small pair (15), a trio at three sizes (16) and three jellies with bubbles (20).
• The simple ones. Design 09 is a glossy dome over four thick curling tentacles and two wavy arms, the plainest shape in the set. Designs 17 and 18 are cartoon jellies with smiles, the second with a striped, scalloped bell and crescent eyes.

Silhouette, outline and ribbon tentacles

The solid files keep the bell’s ribs and rim cut into the black as white lines, so a filled jellyfish still shows its structure. On the two smiling jellies the solid version is all black apart from the eyes and smile. The outline files trace the same drawing as narrow black bands with open space inside, for a lighter, airier look.

In both versions the tentacles are drawn as filled ribbons, not single hairlines. START-HERE.txt puts the outline band at about 0.085 inch wide when a design is at its file size, and the tapered tentacle tips are thinner still. Shrink a jellyfish and those widths shrink with it, so for a small cut, thicken the tentacles in your software or use the solid file.

Size and printing

In the SVG, DXF and PNG files every jellyfish stands 5.9 inches tall on a 10 x 7 inch canvas. The US Letter PDF prints one design per page at 7 to 8.5 inches along its longer side, under a small heading with the design name and a page number that aren’t part of the artwork. Print at actual size (100%), because fit-to-page changes the measurements. The notes say the files weren’t put through physical cutting or printing tests, so try a small piece of your material before a big project.

Questions

Can I print any jellyfish four or six to a page?

The PDFs only repeat four designs. Pages 21–22 and 45–46 hold four copies of Round Bell (01) and Flowing Ribbons (02), and pages 23–24 and 47–48 hold six copies of Short Tentacles (09) and Spiral Drift (10), in solid and in outline. For any other design, place the SVG or PNG on a page yourself at the size you want.

Why do the bubbles and the smiling faces come apart when I move them?

They are separate shapes. Bubbles, the jellies in a group, the wave frame in design 19 and the eyes and mouth of the two outline smiling jellies aren't joined to the main body. Group each design before you resize it, and lift cut pieces with transfer tape so they keep their places.