Squirtle Wood Art

This is my Squirtle wood art which I made as a piece of decoration to my room. This craft is easy to make and inexpensive. I created a design on AutoCAD and implemented it on wood by using a laser cutter. Too make the Squirtle more unique, I gave it a pair of sunglasses.

The supplies for this craft are:

• Autodesk AutoCAD
• Laser Cutting Wood
• Laser Cutter
• Wood Glue
• Paint (Optional)

The first step to this craft is creating the overall design. I wanted the Squirtle to have some uniqueness to it and not be just an ordinary Squirtle. I went surfing on the Internet and I found a picture of a Squirtle with sunglasses that I thought was pretty cool. I took inspiration from this picture and recreated it in Autodesk AutoCAD without tracing. I made use of many shapes and lines such as eclipses and splines. Finally, I hatched in some colors to give me an idea of what I wanted to engrave and cut using the laser printer. The final design looks pretty nice to me but I need to create another version of it for laser cutting which will be done in the next step.

For the laser cutting design, I decided to make the lines that I was cutting out yellow and make the lines that I am engraving blue. To do this, I had to copy the Squirtle, get rid of all the hatching, and then figure out which lines are getting cut and which lines are getting engraved. I decided to separate the sunglasses and the Squirtle into two different parts and glue them on top of each other. To get two different colors on the same spline, I trimmed a part of the spline and made on side one color and the other side the other color and then I just extended the line back to normal. The finished design is now ready for laser cutting. It doesn't really matter if the design is not to scale in AutoCAD because you can just make it to scale in the laser cutting software.

Import the AutoCAD design into your laser cutting software and adjust it to your desired size. I made my Squirtle 6 inches in length and 6 inches in width. The sunglasses are about 2 inches in width and 1 inch in length. Then, laser cut your design into two different pieces (sunglasses and body).

Here is a video for additional information on how to operate a laser cutter. CLICK HERE

Next, simply assemble the parts together. Use wood glue to create a thin line on the back of the sunglasses and make sure to center the sunglasses nicely. Also make sure to not use too much glue. Let it dry for thirty minutes before picking it up. Enjoy your new decoration!