T. Rex Silhouettes: 14 Tyrannosaurus Designs and 6 Prehistoric Companions

Most of these T. rex drawings look like the plates in a natural history book: heavy jaws, ridged skin and muscle picked out in thin pale lines across a black body. Fourteen of the 20 designs are Tyrannosaurus rex. The other six are prehistoric companions, and every design comes as a solid and as an outline.

Nine ways to stand, run and hunt

Design 01 is the classic side view, standing square with its tail held straight out behind. In 02 the rex stands tall and roars with its head raised, 03 runs flat out with its jaws open, and 04 stalks forward with its head lowered and its tail level. Design 09 is a young rex, slimmer than the adults. Turning Rex (13) is seen from behind at an angle, looking back over its shoulder while its tail sweeps round in a wide curve. In 14 it crouches low to the ground.

Two designs drop the realism. Friendly Rex (11) and Playful Roar (12) are cartoon dinosaurs with big eyes and grins.

Heads, bones and an egg

Two designs show only the head. In 05 the head is in side view with its mouth open wide, and in 06 it turns three-quarters toward you, closed-mouthed, with the skin drawn as rows of small scales. Design 07 is a skull with its jaws apart and every tooth showing, and 08 is a full skeleton walking in side view. The notes that come with the files call the skull and skeleton stylized decorative graphics, so treat them as artwork rather than anatomy.

Design 10 is a hatchling climbing out of a cracked egg, front claws gripping the broken rim and its tail curling over the shell.

Three other animals, two of each

Triceratops appears as a full side view (15) and as a head study with its frill, three horns and beak (16). Brachiosaurus walks in profile (17) and stretches its neck up to browse (18). The last two are pterosaurs, one in flight (19) and one resting on folded wings (20). Pterosaurs were flying reptiles, not dinosaurs, and the notes say so too.

Black with white lines, or bands

The solid version is the more readable one. It’s a black shape with the detail left as white lines and gaps, so the teeth, scales and ribs show even when the design is small. The outline version traces those same edges as narrow closed bands. On the full-body poses it reads as a clean line drawing, while on the two big heads and the triceratops head the scale and skin texture turns into dozens of small bands that look busy, more so the smaller you print them.

For cutting, the notes say the teeth, claws and bones have bridges where they need them, but the outline can still fall apart into separate bands, and they don’t promise a one-piece stencil at every size. Cut these large and run a test on your own material first. The files haven’t been test-cut on every design or material.

Canvas and page sizes

SVG and DXF files share a 10 x 10 inch canvas, with the DXF set in inches, and the artwork runs about 8.2 to 8.5 inches on its longest side. At 3000 pixels and 300 dpi, the PNGs match that canvas. In the PDFs a cover page comes first, then one design per page. On US Letter a single design is up to about 6.1 inches across, four to a page about 2.9 inches and six to a page about 2.4 inches, each sheet repeating the same design.

Questions

Are any of the designs cartoon-style?

Two of them. Friendly Rex (11) has a big round eye and a wide smile, and Playful Roar (12) grins with its mouth open and its tail swept up. The hatchling (10) sits between the two styles. Everything else is drawn as a detailed, realistic animal.

How many separate shapes are in each file?

A lot, because the white detail lines are cut into the black. The DXF files hold between 30 and 290 closed shapes each. The hatchling solid is the simplest and the three-quarter head outline the busiest, so check the count in your software before you plan a cut.