Beautiful job !! So die you just draw out the entire puzzle"shapes" layout by hand on paper - then scan, or on screen? Fantastic job and presentation !!
Note: If any readers make it out here to Tucson area - try and catch one of the Kitt Peak “tours” at night. It really is informative and awe inspiring !!
Definitely busier than when I was living there in the early 1960s!
Thank you! 
It was the first time I’ve tried making a box on a laser at all, and there were many trials and errors! It was worth it in the end, but dang, that “simple” box was far more difficult than the whole puzzle 
Beautiful results on both the box and the puzzle! 
Yep, drew out all the puzzle pieces with a pencil and eraser, traced it with marker, then took a picture to get it digital. Then used the pen tool to trace out each line, and the lots of other tools to add in individual pre-made vector shapes, like the telescopes, a rocket, and a simplified space station. This is the third time I’ve tried this technique, but this puppy was ~11x19, and definitely took the cake ;p
I’m out of likes … But wow! This is a fantastic puzzle. Love all the details added to puzzle, box, bag, box and tag!
Amazing work. For someone of my limited talent, “now paint…” is basically “draw the rest of the owl”. 
Thanks! If you look closely, you’ll notice that otherwise than some shading on each of the telescopes, the colors are more or less color-filled sections. Not too much different than a coloring book once I did the score “outlines”. I did it that way because I certainly don’t trust myself to paint that large of a scene. Drawing and painting are by far my weakest art skills, although I’ve been working on them over the last year! I much prefer sculpting by hand any day of the week ;p
Simply awesome. Love all the work that went into this, and thank you for sharing your pictures and information in this thread.
I don’t know how I missed this the first time around, but wow!
Thank you! Glad you caught it this time ;p
In awe
Wow! This a project to aspire to! Thanks for the detail in explaining its creation!
You could do that and then use Meshlab or other such software to get a 3D model and use that to get a white to black elevation model and then use that to to cut a 3D relief engraving into the thicker woods.
That would be amazing! I would cry about how long 3D engraving an 11x17 piece would take! Didn’t @jbmanning5 do that in Lather, Rinse, Repeat ?
Thank you for your kind note ;p
The question is what else would you be doing? you need to get a job out in 24 hours that will take 30 20 min cuts and you have to do a lot of finishing to do perhaps not. However, If you need to do a lot of work cleaning, or design work on the computer, so you are sitting with the Glowforge but not cutting then that is the time it could be cutting something amazing.
Also the larger the area the better results in speeding up the cut, so 1500 speed is faster than 1000 under such conditions, while not so much on tiny pieces,
I would love to see what type of 3D, or rather, 2.5D puzzles you could come up with! That would definitely be neat and I bet there would be a market for them, especially with the Association of Games and Puzzles members.
I was thinking more on the box than the puzzle. I have done a lot of relief carved boxes, as the relief carving adds enough value to not compete with those that are just simple boxes, often sold for less than one might buy the wood for.
I did. It took a few hours. That was before the engrave limits were extended, so probably 3 hours. Took me less time to paint it 
