Tulips puzzle

[chrispuzzle]

The talk about jigsaw puzzles reminded me that I haven't posted any new ones for a while. Here is Tulips:

This was another calendar picture. It is about 10.5" x 8.5" and has 225 pieces, including nine whimsies. The cut is quite intricate, and becomes extreme in some places - overdone, I think. As usual I have puzzled the edge so as to invite assemblers to start somewhere else and discover where the boundaries are as the puzzle develops.

Here is the back of the picture, a mirror image so that the pieces coincide with the front picture.

The whimsies are much bigger than the individual pieces so I cut them up too, except for my dragon piece. Although it is a challenging puzzle to assemble, the whimsies substitute for edges, because it is quite easy to put a few of them together and then find the unusual shapes that fit around them. So the easiest way to put this puzzle together is to start in the middle and work out to the edges last.

Here are the whimsies by themselves:

The piano (harpsichord? spinet?) player is one of those "tells a story" pieces, since you can't tell what the figure is doing until the group of pieces is assembled into the puzzle.

Chris[/img]

 

[Gill]

I love your puzzles, Chris. Incorporating the whimsies makes them such fun .

Gill

 

[Taffy Turner]

Very nice indeed Chris.

I have not tried my hand at puzzle cutting as yet, but your work inspires me to have a go - it is just that I get so little time, and there are so many things I want to cut....

Regards

Gary

 

[Carter Johnson]

Chris....

Simply fantasmagorical! (I learned that word 30+ years ago from a minister and I've saved it for occasions such as this).

Carter

 

[Brucio]

This is Brilliant!
I'd love to create something like that.
And maybe I will, if I live long enough!
Bruce

 

[Woodmagnet]

Chris that is

 

[chrispuzzle]

Thank you all for the compliments, it's always heartening.

Gill, I discovered that the whimsies are especially good for breaking up areas of the same colour and making them more fun to assemble. I have always hated assembling the great expanse of sky in most commercial cardboard puzzles.

Brucio, if you want to make puzzles like that, I'm confident you will. I am sure it takes less technical skill to cut Tulips than you need to cut your puzzle boxes. But you will, eventually, want as good a blade as you can find in order to make the small, tight turns. I use Flying Dutchman "Superior Puzzle Blades" which I know many other puzzle cutters use also. Mike's Workshop sells them http://www.mikesworkshop.com/blades.htm and although he is based in the USA, the postage is inexpensive and the exchange rate works in our favour.

Chris

 

[Brucio]

Thanks Chris,
I've read about these blades, but know nothing about them.
But I'll have a look at this.
bruce