Free gorilla SVG files

A heavy shape that is easy to cut

A gorilla is nearly all mass: shoulders twice as wide as the head, arms as thick as its legs and longer, and no tail, no thin neck and no fine legs to worry about. That makes these some of the sturdiest animal files to cut. Every file is 100 mm on its longer side. On the gorilla silhouette nothing is narrower than 6 mm, so it holds at 30 mm in vinyl and cuts well in 3 mm plywood, felt, leather and foam at any size you like.

The fine work is in the face. A gorilla is told from a bear or a monkey by its head: the crest that makes the crown a point, the brow that hangs like a shelf over small eyes, and the wide flat nose. On the gorilla face the eyes are about 12 mm wide and the brow line nearly 5 mm deep at 100 mm tall, with 4 mm of material between them. Weed the brow first, then the eyes and nostrils with a pin.

Black on black

Gorillas are black, and black vinyl on a dark shirt vanishes. Cut the silhouette or the chest-beating gorilla in white, silver or neon for dark fabric, or in black for light fabric. For the grey saddle that gives a silverback its name, use the layered silverback, or cut the walking silverback from black and lay it on grey so the hatch lines on the back show through.

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