Cuphead is rightfully praised for its amazing art style and animation based on classic cartoons and that will be reflected in a museum thanks to a 3D printed zoetrope in Australia.

But first: what is a zoetrope? Every so often these amazing pieces of art will do the rounds on the internet so you’ve probably seen one before and not known what it’s called.

In short a zoetrope is a rotating art piece with multiple slices of an animation represented in some way. When the piece is spun around and light is projected onto it in a certain way the appearance of animation and movement can be seen.

Cuphead developer Studio MDHR has shared a short video of the zoetrope in action:

A marvel of the modern age!! We're thrilled to share this first-ever look at the Cuphead museum exhibit in motion.

Housed at @ACMI in Melbourne for the next decade, this 3D-printed Zoetrope contains over 100 individual models that "animate" with the help of strobing light! pic.twitter.com/tjRXhasL8o

— Studio MDHR (@StudioMDHR) April 12, 2021

This video doesn’t really give you much context as it’s very zoomed in which leaves the mechanics of the machine out of the frame.

You can see our story about another 3D printed zoetrope for more, or this old Kickstarter campaign for a zoetrope platform called 4-Mation. YouTube is also filled with videos of these pieces in motion to get a better understanding of their movements and mechanics.

With that explained what about the museum that will house it? ACMI is an institution which was once called the Australian Centre for the Moving Images and that longer name gives us a clue as to why it will be housing this Cuphead piece.

It seems that Studio MDHR will show off more of the zoetrope in the future, something we hope to see as international travel isn’t on the agenda right now. While Australia has the pandemic contained to a large extent, we are happy to know that the exhibit will be available for the next 10 years so there’s plenty of time to go and see it.