I do wooden jigsaw puzzles and take pictures of them.
Whimsy, 425 pieces. I really like this upgrade to their oceanic cut--the border adds a lot of interest and some difficulty. Nice wooden box, too. 3/5
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| trying out a new puzzle table--it might be too small for my preferred habit of spreading out |
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| submarine |
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| dolphin and manatee? |
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| closeup on edge |
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| shipwreck and shell |
I wrote about it here. I hope it is resolved quickly!
Elms, 1004 pieces, marked as difficulty 9 in their old scale. I think that's mostly from the size, which leads to large areas of highly similar color, though as is standard with good-quality puzzles, the colors start to show distinguishable variations as you work through the puzzle, leaving more manageable areas for assembly. Four pieces have been replaced, with some related dulling of the pieces around to make the replacement less noticeable. So there are some color variations that weren't there originally, but it only occasionally was noticeable to me. Lots of internal false edges as well as some color line cutting around the figures. 7/10
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| two-piece whimsy |
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| replaced piece, multipiece horse and rider |
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| replaced piece, single horse and rider |
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| replaced piece, interacting flowers |
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| replaced piece |
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| another horse and rider, some internal edges |
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| shoe and starburst |
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| shield |
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| nearly interacting figures (up top), three fleurs-de-lis, horseshoe/horsehead |
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| doggo |
Stave, 100 pieces. A Tormentor, with some guidance once you figure out one area (since it's symmetrical) but the pieces vary a fair amount so you will still have to do advanced pattern matching. 8/10
Hidden Piece Puzzles, 548 pieces. A nice Liberty-style laser-cut puzzle, with good colors and nicely themed whimsies. Whimsy placement on this one is mostly symmetrical. A worthy market entrant; I'd be happy to do more from them. 3/5
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| I like how the beak is cut to get a beak splash of color |
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| multipiece moth closeup |
BCB, approx. 120 pieces. Fun teaser-style puzzle with larger than average teaser pieces. 6/10 Stave scale.
This may show up behind a cut--we'll see!
Unidragon, 1000 pieces. I think 1000 pieces may be too many for my maximum pleasure with MDF--among other things I find it frustrating to try to move big segments around my puzzle table--but that doesn't detract from the serious accomplishment here. Disclosure: Unidragon sent me this puzzle for free to review. Great whimsies recreating famous Van Gogh images, fun themed connectors (there's a picture of a particularly vicious one below) and really interesting printing on the front that gives a facsimile of brushstrokes. I particularly liked the Sunflowers and the mini Starry Night. Definitely a step up for Unidragon in this series (and I'd love to see them try the same thing at 500 or 750 pieces too). 4/5
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| a figure from the front |
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| OK, i realize this is hard to see, but there's a cup and saucer connector, and in this picture it's only slantingly intersected by another piece, making recognizing the connector incredibly difficult. Respect! |
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| why is this one upside down when the others aren't, Google? |
