Introduction: Lion King - Light Shadow Box

About: Seafarer by profession, When in land I do projects for fun, always curious to learn!

Not a big story for this instructable, wanted to do this for a long time. I've very bad drawing skills so had to find a easier way...

Step 1: Materials Required

  1. The Image - Anything with depth from Google Images
  2. A Computer
  3. Adobe Illustrator
  4. Basic Illustrator Skills
  5. Thick paper 170 GSM is good
  6. Printer
  7. Foam board
  8. Utility Knife
  9. Precision knife
  10. Glue
  11. Super Glue
  12. Led Strip Light - Color is your choice
  13. Power supply for lights
  14. Patience - It didn't happen at the first try

Step 2: Breaking Down the Image

    I won't be guiding the in depths of illustrator, as said earlier a little knowledge over Illustrator is required

  • Open Illustrator
  • Create a new document
  • Set Canvas size, I'm using A4
  • Drag and Drop the Images
  • Start tracing using the pen tool, this maybe time consuming depending on the image.
  • Try visualizing the image's depth, this gives the number of layers for the box.
  • Continue tracing
  • Export and Print
Dos and Don'ts:
  • Have margins.
  • Don't try to have complex parts on the first try.
  • No small hanging parts, these become hard to support once done.
  • Make sure that everything could be cut by hand.
  • Before printing make sure if any clean up is required.
  • Don't print on a thin paper.

I've cleaned up the tracing and attached a zip file with all layers, just download, print and start cutting.

Step 3: Print and Cut

This step is simple, start cutting the printed files, it requires a lot of patience if you tend to have plenty of detailing on your design.

I wanted to add some stars, so the rear layer is a normal A4 paper with some holes around the moon area.

As said in step 2, I've kept a 10mm border. Cut foam board into strips measuring 10mm wide.

Next is my favorite part, gluing. Glue foam board and the layers together.

Step 4: The Frame

Next thing is to make a box to hold the lights and layer stack.

Cut foam board accordingly, stick around using super glue.

Check and Stick LED strip

I made three notches, on the back and a sliding cover

Step 5: Show Time