Mallard Duck Silhouettes: 20 Drakes and Hens in Flight, Landing and on the Water

Mallard duck silhouettes usually mean a flat dark shape you could recognize at a distance. These are more detailed. Each bird is a dark field with its feathers cut in as white negative space, so the wing bars, the curled tail feathers and the drake’s white neck ring all show up, and the hen’s speckled body reads as a mass of small scallops.

Five in flight

The first five designs are flight studies. Design 01 catches the wings at the top of their stroke, and 02 has them swept down below the body. Design 03 is the duck seen from directly underneath, wings spread flat and head pointing up the page. In 04 the bird banks with one wing high and one low, and 05 is a long, flat glide with both wings straight out. The level glide is the widest and thinnest shape in the set, almost three times as wide as it is tall.

On the water and coming in

Designs 10 to 12 follow the moment between air and water. In 10 the duck pushes off with a splash at its feet, 11 faces you as it comes in to land with its wings raised and feet thrust forward, and 12 settles onto the water line with its wings still spread. Design 17 sits a drake on a set of rings spreading across a pond.

Drakes, a hen and three pairs

A drake stands side-on in design 06, walks mid-stride in 07 and floats low in 08. Design 09 is the only hen on her own, resting with her bill forward and her whole body patterned. The pairs set a drake beside a hen: swimming close in 13, standing back to back in 14, and in 15 floating together over rippled water.

Reeds, marsh and two portraits

Design 16 stands a drake on a grassy bank next to cattails, and 18 sends one flying low over water toward a clump of reeds. The last two are head studies: a drake portrait in profile with the broad bill and white collar (19), and a three-quarter view looking toward you (20).

Detail in both versions

The outline here isn’t a simple edge. It traces every white feather mark from the solid as a closed band, so it prints as a busy line drawing rather than a plain contour. START-HERE.txt describes both as closed shapes, notes that the solid artwork has bridges where needed, and says the pairs, some scenery and the outline bands contain separate pieces on purpose.

That detail matters if you plan to cut. Even at the full 8.4-inch size, many feather openings are only a millimeter or two across, and the standing pair, the courtship pair, the wetland scene and the three-quarter head carry the most. The soaring-overhead design (03) has the fewest small openings. START-HERE recommends choosing a suitable size and testing a sample, and says cutting hasn’t been tested on every material.

Sizes and printing

The SVG and DXF files use a 10-inch square canvas with each design about 8.4 inches on its longest side, and the PNGs cover the same 10 inches at 3000 pixels. On US Letter the one-per-page PDFs print the birds about 6 inches across. The four-per-page sheets bring each copy to about 2.9 inches, and the six-per-page sheets to about 2.4. Print at Actual Size (100%) with Fit to Page turned off.

Questions

Can I tell the drakes from the hens?

Yes. Drakes carry the white ring around the neck and a smooth, dark head, while the hen in designs 09, 13, 14 and 15 is covered in small scalloped feather marks with a striped face. The pairs put one of each side by side.

Do the four- and six-per-page sheets mix designs?

No. Each page repeats one design four or six times, and every PDF runs through all 20 designs after its cover page.