Finally Made a Puzzle

I’m not sure if there is some official wording that is normally used, but forum rules say you cannot ask someone for their files. Sorry, if you’re looking for something to try out, you can try a puzzle generator for Inkscape and maybe add you own animal shapes in there.

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I just checked out @jbmanning5’s website, those are some really nice puzzles.

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Love it! Thanks for sharing. Gonna try this!

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WOW, congratulations @PlGHEADED, I love everything about it, the subject photo, the shape and size of the pieces, and the fact that you included animal “Whimsies” !
Excellent work.
Did you design the cut pieces or did you use any puzzle generating software?

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You can also try these other puzzle generators:

Dradarech Jigsaw Puzzle Generator

Voronoi Puzzle Generator

SVG Jigsaw Puzzle Generator

and of course there is an excellent Inkscape plugin that is my personal favorite because instead of cutting the individual pieces it generates horizontal and vertical cut lines which makes for a much cleaner finished puzzle.

Neon22 / inkscape-jigsaw puzzle generator

Also if you follow our resident puzzle master @jbmanning5 instructions to mask, cut horizontal, change mask, cut vertical and cut outline to make for faster weeding of the puzzle.

JBManning5 How to weed a puzzle like a boss

Have fun!

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Capturepuzzle
Using a standard jigsaw puzzle generator and saving as svg so that I could load into Inkscape. I don’t like any of the generators results as is, because they usually have about 5 unique pieces just repeated. But, starting on that, after Inkscape, I started moving the nodes and shaping the pieces. I found basic silhouette shapes and stretched the lines and nodes around them to create the whimsical pieces(animals). Then just pulled stretched dragged nodes , curves and lines toreach my end result. It is somewhat time consuming, but I find it very relaxing (like some people like knitting to relax). Cleaning up nodes and things like this is fun for me. This was my first attempt and leads to lots of ideas - themed puzzles/? Maybe a beach picture having items like pail, shovel, towel, sunglasses. I just picked this picture kind of random (is a gift for frinds of their “kids”) but could have done dog themed items like bone, bowl, collar, hydrant, etc. Silhouette shapes are available by the thousands and you don’t need high resolution, as well as modifying to get rid of too much detail, etc. Things to watch for are keeping puzzle interlocking, watch for small thin pieces (in between giraffe legs on this one), pieces too large. Again, a learning process, but fun and for my first attempt at this, was very satisfying for me!

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Oh my goodness, thank you so very much for taking your time to post the instructions. I am awarding you the Glowforge hero of the day.

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So adorable!!!

Thanks for sharing your experience, we all learn from everybody elses art.

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Just FYI, my generator also does that :slight_smile: . I really should output them in different colors, so that you are able to pause inbetween, if you want to - no idea when I will be able to get to that.

The pieces my generator creates are looking very similar, but they are all different (they are, however, all of the same size - the corners are in a fixed position). There are no templates, in fact, I don’t even generate pieces per se, but horizontal and vertical cut lines directly, the resulting pieces don’t exist anywhere in my code.

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Yup… the random settings (seed+jitter) on yours makes it obvious they are all just that. You can go nuts with it (but produce impractical puzzles!)

It’s the only one I use (although, I don’t do a lot of puzzles like some here…)

Would you be willing to share a step by step tutorial?
I have been trying to figure out how to do these kind of puzzles for my daughter & my mil as her birthday present that just passed told her we ordered something but wouldn’t be in until the 20th lol
It’s awesome! I love it

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Yowza, that’s great! Congratulations.

Welcome to the whimsy puzzle making club! There are a few of us that make and sell puzzles, me and @jbmanning5 come to mind :sunglasses:

Since you already have started customizing a pre-generated jigsaw, you might be interested in getting into more fun shapes, which are referred to as “Victorian cut jigsaws”, since the style dates back to Victorian times!

I’m excited to see your continued puzzle creations! If you are interested in a free Victorian cut puzzle to play with or add on to, I shared one in the free laser designs section: Fall Leaf Halloween Puzzle *Update*

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I need to try this!! Very nice!!

I did try the Halloween one I posted in another post (It’s not interlocking enough and some pieces are too small I think… will tweak it a little more) With black acrylic it’s almost an impossible puzzle!!


masking still on (14 halloween “whimsies”)

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@pigheaded your instructions and puzzle was great! Thank you so much

Very nice! I don’t think I’d have the patience for a black one, but do you have it in tabby? :wink:

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