I do wooden jigsaw puzzles and take pictures of them.
Artifact/Ecru, 282 pieces. Road trip whimsies aren't exactly "American-themed" whimsies, but they are close, given the association between the US and car culture. This picture has bright colors and the pieces have angular connectors. The cars (with dropouts) on the irregular edges are a nice touch, as is the charming two-piece safety cone, in orange no less. A nice display of Artifact's actual whimsy with its whimsies. 3/5
Nautilus, 400 pieces. A nice image with Japanese-themed whimsies, including a number of multipiece whimsies. (An Artifact puzzle coming up is a partial answer to the question "what would American-themed whimsies look like?) 3/5
Liberty, 650 pieces. Retired/special edition, with pieces that can make 3-D invading robots! I didn't do that part because I've realized that's not of huge interest to me compared to the initial assembly challenge, and I'm old enough/cranky enough to just do what I want with multi-stage puzzles. Even without that, this was a difficult puzzle with limited colors and (because of the robots) a lot of architectural angles/whimsy-esque pieces. 4/5
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| A cluster of UFOs (there were a few more I missed in the initial pass) |
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| running from the alien tripod |
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| UFOs, brain alien, and an exploding clock tower (?) |
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| The woman comparing her huge telescope results to what's on her drafting table is impressive but I also like the tentacle monster menacing the woman looking at the explosion coming through the window |
DaVici, 250 pieces. A nice image with relatively large pieces. Some multipiece whimsies, including lovers (themed to puzzle), many with details more easily seen on the back. 3/5
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| my interpretation: king with fairy on shoulder presiding over fairy marriage |
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| fairies sharing various artistic gifts with favored baby? I would have put Bottom in there |
Perplexing, 454 pieces. More conventional cut on this second Perplexing for me, with money- and landmark-themed whimsies to fit the picture image. Nice colorful image, good quality laser-cut puzzle. 3/5
DaVici, 240 pieces. Most of the interest here is the irregular edge, but the cute puppet whimsies were fun. Paper chipped a fair amount, more than on other DaVici's I've done, sadly. 3/5
Artifact, 390 pieces. Some nice flying-themed whimsies here--I particularly liked Mary Poppins-see bottom left of the first picture; connected with her umbrella a bit to the right of center on the bottom half of the complete puzzle. 3/5
Nervous System, 345-365 pieces (didn't count; box gives a range). Really nice geode puzzle with lots of color variation. I really enjoy the branching, coral-like piece shapes. 3/5
Artifact, 313 pieces. Bright colors and lots of dog related whimsies, including a nice dog/walker connected by a "leash" created by cuts--next to jumproper with a "rope" created by cuts. Clever! (next time: double dutch!) 3/5
Joyful Nook, 982 pieces. (And the postcard-sized bonus puzzle they sent, untitled). I bought three of these larger puzzles from Joyful Nook; the two largest, including this one, had essentially push-fit cutting with occasional interlocks. I got a sense of accomplishment from doing the first, somewhat less so with this one, which also had some real slivers of pieces. The image was pretty and I was often convinced that a piece was missing but then eventually discovered it. For true difficulty lovers only (who don't mind moving sections around very carefully, given the absence of interlocks). 3/5
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| bonus puzzle |
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| whimsies, much larger than most other pieces |
