Cut-Out Animation
- paper cut out
- jointed paper puppet
- paper puppet
Flat paper pieces pinned at the joints and moved by hand on a lit surface.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
Building a body from separate flat pieces makes the joints honest: an arm rotates around a pin because that is all it can do. The limitation shows in every frame, and that visible economy is exactly what people like about it.
How it works
Each limb is cut from paper as a separate piece and pinned to the next at a pivot. The pieces stack, so each one throws a small hard shadow onto the one beneath. Everything is photographed flat from above under an even light, which is why the picture has no perspective.
When to use it
Use it for anything that should look economical, handmade and a little naive. Avoid it where a figure needs to turn or foreshorten, because flat pieces only work face on.
Told apart from its neighbours
Paper Craft is folded and three dimensional. Shadow Silhouette throws the light through the paper rather than onto it. Cut Paper in the print catalogue is a collage surface, not a jointed puppet.
- Paper Craft
- Shadow Silhouette
- Cut Paper
Where it is used
It suits an explainer, a title sequence, a children's book and any picture that should look like it was made on a table.
- Independent animation and television
- Explainer films and music videos
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own character, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
<character>, cut-out animation style, the figure assembled from separate flat paper pieces with a visible round pivot at every joint, each piece cut with scissors so the edges are slightly rough and not perfectly straight, the pieces layered so each one casts a small hard shadow on the layer below, visible paper grain and a slight curl at one corner, photographed flat from directly above on a plain lit surface
What goes wrong
A flat vector illustration comes back with clean edges and no shadows. Ask for scissor cut edges, a pivot at each joint, and a small hard shadow under every piece.
Leave out
a single continuous figure, smooth vector edges, no shadows between layers, digital flatness, perspective
Watch for
The pivots and the layer shadows are what make it read as paper rather than as flat illustration. Ask for both, in that order.
Questions
Draw it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
