Free bear SVG files

Sizes, materials and what to watch when cutting a bear

Every bear here is 100 mm on its longer side. A bear is a heavy animal with no thin parts: no long tail, no antlers, no whiskers. On the plain bear silhouette and the polar bear nothing is narrower than 6 mm at that size, so both can be cut as small as 30 mm for stickers, and at 100 mm they are sturdy in 3 mm plywood or acrylic. That makes them good first projects and good shapes for stencils.

The walking grizzly, the standing bear, the sitting bear and the sleeping bear carry fine cut lines for the eye, the ear, the shoulder and the haunch. Those lines are between 1.5 and 2 mm wide at 100 mm. In vinyl, weed the outside first and lift the lines out with a pin. For wood, engrave them instead of cutting them through.

The mandala bear and the bear with trees have the smallest cut-outs. Keep them at 100 mm or larger, and use card of 200 gsm or heavier so the bars between the petals and the trunks of the trees do not tear.

Brown bear, polar bear or teddy bear

The shape tells the species. The grizzly has a hump over its shoulders and carries its head low. The polar bear has a long neck, a small head and a rump higher than its shoulders, and it looks right in white on a dark or pale blue background. The teddy bear and the cute bear face are soft toys, not wild animals: round ears, a pale muzzle and a stitched tummy, for nursery walls and baby gifts.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions