#1: Timo Frenay (timo) on Jan 8, 2008

I've been having a hard time coming up with ideas for puzzles, then I came up with something that I didn't know how to draw. So I did an image search and started drawing from an example. Well, I've been working on it for a few days now and I'm still not quite satisfied with the now mostly finished puzzle. To make matters worse, to get the details right I resized the image so much that I've now ended up with a whopping 40×35. :( I'm pretty much tired of this puzzle for the time being, and I can't publish it yet because the solution is nowhere near unique, let alone solvable. If only I had more inspiration I'd do a few smaller puzzles in the meantime, I prefer those anyway. But for now I'm probably gonna be stuck just solving puzzles. Sorry to bug y'all with this...

I run into the same problem. I want to make puzzles, but I'm not quite artistic and I haven't got any ideas for puzzles. I perfer the smaller puzzles as well but it's hard to make the puzzle recognizable and solvable.

I'm the perfect exemple of someone who can't draw even if its for a life saving occasion and I did nearly 80 puzzle now ( some of them are not that good but) the idea is often in the way you draw the idea there always a easier way. As for uniqueness sometime adding background color help ( but it make the puzzle easier) As you can see there are many serie on the site because when you got a good idea for puzzle you can try to explore it to the max. I did the comic-book them, the black on white, the bob, etc Marz did the Teddy serie, Relbelcat did some amazing flower, Nancy is doing portrait so real its scary etc you have to find ONE good idea and run with it

good luck

There's a lot of advice on how to make puzzles unique in the "Advice on Creating Puzzles" page. There is a link to this on the "Create Puzzles" page.

Of course I've already read that, but thanks Jan.
Actually the problem with the image I've created is that it's much too detailed, making the grid very large and disallowing me from thickening the lines because that would mess up the detail. Also I'm afraid that even if I would manage to make the image simpler, it would just make it less recognizable. (I'm already not quite satisfied with it as it is.)

Personally, I prefer to sacrifice detail and artistic quality in order to make a solvable puzzle that's a size I would enjoy solving. I'm sure someone could make a perfect Mona Lisa, but mine has three dots for each eye and four for the mouth.

And I was going to suggest looking at Sylvain's BoW 20x20 puzzles. They're a perfect size for a short puzzle and a lot of them are simple things like syringes. So you don't have to have some fantastic idea or great artistic ability to create a fun puzzle! Just keep at it! Look forward to your creations, Timo!

I liked Sylvain's BoW series.

I hear what your saying Timo..there are a lot of pictures I have discarded because they would have to be way to big to get the detail I want, it's frustrating I know..

I have a hard time coming up with ideas that make small puzzles too Timo. I start small enough and they just grow and grow and become totally out of hand. I've tried using google images as subjects but rarely post them as I'm rarely happy with the result. The ones that have worked for me are not realistic looking. I can't (yet) make "real" work in a puzzle.
I like your advice Arduinna. Chose something simple to portray. And when it isn't working, save what you have and do something else for awhile.
My advice is: if it isn't fun then walk away until it is. In the meantime, play around with program. You may be surprised by what you actually create when you're trying to make something else completely different.

I map out my puzzles (well, the one I've done so far) in Excel. Change the column width to 2 and the cells will be nearly square - close enough to get a good image. I use the highlight color to fill the cells with the color I want.
To do the one puzzle I've posted, I made a simpler grid that I printed out. I also found an actual image that I wanted to base the outcome on. I put the grid over the image and then traced an outline using a light table. I'm lucky enough to have a light table for projects I do at home but taping your image to a window and then taping the grid over it will work just fine.
The trick for me was to not try to capture every detail but to simplify to get the highlights, outline and the basic shape that will make your image recognizable. Remember that you have a limited color palete to work with anyway.
In my case, I originally wanted to just make it black & white image. When I loaded the design, the error checker said that it might have too difficult a solution but I published it anyway. I had a day to think about it - the original image I was working from had been photographed with a light to one side so half of it was in shadow. I knew that filling in more cells would help with the solution but I didn't want a big black blob so I went with a shadow color - blue. Unfortunately, when I went back to edit the image I had comments from two people who had already solved it. It proved to me it was a doable puzzle, but I edited it anyway because I know how frustrated I get with a more difficult puzzle.
I agree with the person above who said that too much detail can cause a problem. You don't have to create a photograph for other people to appreciate it. A lot of the 10 x 10 puzzles I've been working do a pretty good job of getting the idea across with out hardly any detail at all.
Mostly, just try to create something others will have fun with, save the "artwork" to sell at the gallery!
Whew! I didn't know I had so much to say!

I've never used a technique like that. Usually I just find google images to find an image that is close to what I want, and then I put that up on the screen next to the puzzle editor, and draw it by hand. Once I downloaded an image of marilyn monroe, loaded into my drawing program, pixelated it to divide it into big squares, and then thresholded it to turn it black and white.

I've considered modifying the editing program so that you can load a gif image and display it under the drawing grid, but it'll probably be a while before I get around to doing that.

what is your drawing program Jan?

Gimp.

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