Most of the acrylic we ship is functional: a case, a frame, a base. A layered diorama is the line where the acrylic sits closer to set design. This is the SCENE-LAYER build, and the brief behind it is always the same shape: here is our artwork, we want it to stand on a counter and read as a scene rather than a print.
The answer is not a filter and not a thicker sheet. It is separate panels, cut to different silhouettes, held at fixed offsets.
What “layered” actually changes
The artwork does not change. The engineering does. One panel prints a character and hangs it at a single distance from the eye, which is why a flat standee always reads as a picture of a scene. Split the same file across separate panels and the eye reads depth, because the depth is real: it is a physical gap between one layer and the next.
Two things make that work. Each panel has to be cut to its own outline, and every panel has to sit in the base at a fixed depth and a fixed angle. Get either one wrong and the piece stops being a scene and goes back to being a print on a stick.
The tiers, and why the count is not a budget decision
The line is quoted in three tiers: Lite 2-layer / Story 3-layer / Premium 4–5-layer. Lite separates a character from its background, which is the cheapest way to lift a flat print off the page. Story adds a mid-ground, so a character can stand in front of something and behind something else. Premium spends its two extra panels on mid-ground props and a separated light-through element.
Tiering gets treated as a pricing choice, and it is really a drawing question. Every extra layer is another cut path, another colour pass and another registration to hold, so the tier follows from how many truly separable planes the artwork has. Artwork with a strong foreground and a flat background works at Lite. Artwork where everything overlaps works at none of them until someone redraws it.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Layer tiers | Lite 2-layer / Story 3-layer / Premium 4–5-layer |
| File input | PSD / AI / PNG with layered breakdown service |
| Base options | Clear, themed color, or LED light base |
| Starting MOQ | Sample 1 set · small batch 30–50 · mass 100+ |
Cut-lines decide whether it reads, not the print
Our own note on this product is that the moat is not printing. It is layered engineering: character, foreground, mid-ground and background relations, semi-transparency, visual occlusion, base load and slot tolerances. That list is what a file review works through.
The failure mode is easy to picture. A cut-line that clips a shoulder, a hair strand or an antenna leaves a hard edge floating in front of the face on the panel behind it, and no amount of print resolution fixes that. So cut-lines are drawn to the silhouette the artwork needs rather than to the outline that would be easiest to cut.
Artwork arrives as PSD, AI or PNG, and the layered breakdown is part of the service. What goes back is engineered cut-lines, with a manufacturability review inside 48 hours. Where two elements cannot be separated cleanly, that is solved at this stage, either by redrawing an outline or by letting a cut follow the artwork instead of the object.
Registration, and the slot that holds the scene
Every panel sits in the base through a slot, and the slot sets both the depth of that layer and its lean. Tolerance is taken from the panel thickness, so a layer cannot rock forward when the piece is moved, and the base carries the load of the whole stack rather than the front panel alone.
Because the panels are clear, a stack that is out of register shows as a double outline around the character. It is the same fault you would see in a misaligned frame, and it is checked before the base is bonded, not after. Edges are laser-cut and flame-polished so a cut reads as clear glass rather than a white line, which matters more here than in a closed case: in a diorama you are looking straight through several edges at once.
Effects that only exist because the artwork is split
Two of the printed effects on this line depend on the panels being separate panels. Colour-white-colour is a sandwich: a colour pass, an opaque white layer, then colour again, so a panel reads the same from the front and from behind. Light-through areas are the parts left deliberately clear, so a lit base can push light up through the panel and the scene glows exactly where the artwork says it should.
Both are decided at the file review rather than at the printer, because both change which parts of the artwork have to stay unprinted.
One base, many characters
Multiple characters share one base platform, which is the part that changes the arithmetic for an IP line. A new role needs new inserts and packaging rather than a new tool, so a series can be extended without re-quoting the whole piece. The base is the constant and the characters are the variable.
If the scene needs to be lit, the light is a separate layer under it rather than a rebuilt diorama. Our LIGHT-SLOT bases are a magnetic LED strip on USB power with warm and cool options, so a counter unit can run on the same cable standard as the rest of a display wall.
Where a layered diorama is the wrong answer
Worth stating plainly, because a layered piece is easy to over-specify. It is not the cheapest way to show artwork. Two panels cost more than one printed sheet, and every extra layer adds a cut and a registration step. If the artwork is a flat logo, a repeating pattern or a photograph with no separable foreground, splitting it produces layers that mean nothing, and a buyer looking at the result can read it as a printing fault rather than as depth.
It is also a display object rather than protective storage. A diorama holds a scene. It does not seal the way a display case does, so if the job is keeping dust off a set of figures, a case is the right product and a diorama is not.
What to send before we quote a layered piece
- The artwork as layered PSD, AI or PNG, with character and background on separate layers where the file allows it
- How many depth layers the scene needs, and which elements should move forward or back
- The footprint of the base and the height you want the piece to stand
- Base preference, and whether the piece needs its own light
- Where it will stand, and how close people will get to it
- Any branding on the base or on the packaging
Even a rough file starts a useful conversation. The full tier and base options are on the SCENE-LAYER page, and you can send a short brief through our project enquiry form.