A couple new puzzles =D

So I bought a couple puzzles over my hiatus... And I promised to post pics if someone aside from penny posted a comment, so here goes, I'm going to avoid saying prices because I don't want to make some other people feel bad who own the puzzles and probably paid WAYYYY more for them =)

got this new, not much to really say I will tell price on this one because as of right now it's like $55 on amazon brand new =) (which is really pretty inexpensive for a puzzle of this size from ravensburger)

I was a little disappointed when I opened this because the idiot who first owned it had for some reason completed the first section, and then glued it... then opened the 2nd section, but hadn't really even started it... so I was forced to break apart the glued section very carefully  (only tore the image on two of the black pieces, which I'll just touch up with a black sharpie, noone will ever notice the tear), and honestly it came apart pretty easily (it wasn't glued very well) I'm hoping it wasn't glued enough to warp the pieces so that I'll have difficulty assembling it... it was inexpensive enough though that it didn't really matter to me... and two of the bags were still sealed... I'll assemble it, and the pieces are the REALLY hard cardboard, so I doubt that it hurt the puzzle... not only that, but the previous owner had failed to assemble section one correctly... so there were 3-4 pieces completely (and obviously) out of place... and no, I forgot to take pics of the glued sections xD

 I decided to mix this puzzle =) It should be fun I don't know, and I don't care if it's missing pieces... if it is, I'll either be bugging someone to help me make my own replacement, or buying a replacement from the jigsaw doctor... I decided that I'm not going to even think about buying the new 18k image for a long time, because honestly I don't like the way it's cropped, and I prefer the way this one is cropped (18k cuts off the entirety of jonah, and two of the pendentives (the corner images of old testament stories) I still eventually want it, but I'm in no hurry to buy it...

Finally I got this baby secondhand, Love the image, one of my favorite map puzzles... the previous owner had taped the box so there's some tape damage... but otherwise it's in great condition, one of the bags was open, but taped shut, and the other was still sealed.

needless to say, all of these puzzles came with their respective posters, and box contents. I'm quite happy with them, and looking forward to assembly.

As for my current project, I'm working on a 1,000 piece F. X. Schmid puzzle for my moms b-day which I'm going to glue (GASP) and give to her... I'll post images of that once I've finished =)

Glitter Puzzle Mk 2!!

I FINALLY FINISHED MY SENIOR RECITAL!!!!

The hardest event of my college life, and it's DONE!!

I also finished m secret project!

But I can't tell anyone what it is yet =) so don't ask...

anyways... the past few weeks have been hectic, I've had minimal puzzling time... the only puzzle I did was the second of the 3 glitter puzzles I bought by ceaco, but I only managed to do the easy parts... no time to do the solid blues and all... mainly the biggest time sink was that stupid secret project, BUT IT'S DONE!!

Now the only stuff I have left this semester are to finish my piano and guitar proficiency exams, my arranging and orchestration exam, and my clinical practicum.

anyways! I bought a few more puzzles, which will remain a mystery for awile =) maybe I'll post pics and info of one of them if someone other than penny comments on one of my posts (lova yah penny, but I'm starting to wonder if anyone else is reading this thing)

AND I PREORDERED WILDLIFE!!!!

That's right, I preordered the new worlds largest puzzle... hopefully I'll have the money when the time comes =D, I know a guy who already owns wildlife (Course you and your super early european releases, CURSE YOU!!!!) and I'm now counting the days until I get my hands on that bad boy.

anways... time for puzzle pics! I spent the evening last night finishing this ceaco puzzle, it was honestly almost more frustrating to do than double retrospect... mainly because of the poor quality of the pieces, I mean, sure it looks great now that it's finished... but some of the chipped edges and slightly bent pieces really grind my gears when putting it together...

 So I started with the tigers (I love the shade of blue in this puzzle)

 More tiger, I finally linked all 3 tiger heads in this pic =D

 Full finished tigers (except for a small section of the rightmost tigers tail)

 I filled in the water and the horizon, and then carefully removed the top half of the puzzle so as to work on it on my desk.

 Top half, those aurora lines all have glitter on them, so they were easy to connect... unfortunately you can't really see the glitter =(

 Top right finished =)

 once the top right was filled in, the rest came REALLY easily, It was odd, I could barely tell the aurora line left of the tiger was any different from the rest of the sky, until I found where it went...

Finished puzzle! I think it's really pretty =)

Glitter Puzzle!!!!

So I've been working hard on school related things, but I HAVE been doing some puzzle related things...

Lets see, first of all I disassembled DR, it took about an hour, I guess putting my time up to 70 hours total (but I don't think I'm going to count that)

I took a page out of Toms book over at sex drugs and jigsaw puzzles, and broke it up into 16 sections, created my own holding box, and packed the package into the DR box... Here are some pics.

 First of all, a Picture to illustrate the in/out pattern of the knobs on each section of DR.

And the box I made, and stored!

Meanwhile I dropped by the jigsaw puzzle section at walmart (I always find such nice surprises there) and found this

10 puzzle set of thomas kinkade puzzles =) I couldn't resist =D

Aaaaaaand of course I immediately went and combined all 10 puzzles into one giant 3,400 piece puzzle =) this should be fun!

Finally, aside from recital stuff, schoolwork, and another secret project I've been working on behind the scenes for the past 6 months or so (Can't say anything yet, but I will say I'm within a month of being finished) here is what I've been working on for the past few days!

 Edges done!

 Animals and all other pieces sorted into two groups

 Small animals done

 Tiger done

 All animals added to main puzzle

 Water done

 The waterfall pieces about to be worked on

aaaaand done!!

This is one of the nice little finds I found at walmart... It's a 750 piece ceaco puzzle... The pieces were kind of cheap cardboard, but the image ended up being really nice, and the pieces fit together nicely... There are two other puzzles in this set, which I'm going to do next, so I'll post that stuff in the coming weeks.

DR day 32/33/34/35 SECTION A FINISHED!!!!

So section A is FINISHED!!!! WOO-PEE!!!

I actually quite enjoyed doing this, although it was frustrating at times, I'm quite proud of the finished product =)

Now for pics =)

 First off I sorted the edge pieces out which took about a half hour, I then sorted the edge pieces into pieces with exact duplicates and pieces that were unique... I then did the leftmost edge which was entirely made up of the single pieces which took about another half hour

 A pic of the sorted doubles

 I then began the top edge, this was quite a bit harder and took me about an hour as a LOT of the pieces could be placed incorrectly... I FINALLY got it right though...

 I then spent about 2.5 hours sorting the remaining whites, and placing them onto trays... I had to get a little creative with storage as I didn't want my cat to mess with them, and with identical pieces stacked I couldn't just stack trays...

 The final product

 Left two sections

 right two sections

Okay, so one thing you might notice is a lack of pictures of the white process... This is because I did the normal white pieces in one sitting, and was so engrossed in the process that I didn't take pictures... In total the white pieces took about 4 hours total =) I made this chart to show which panel each white row corrisponded with...

Basically this is how it worked...

Top left is A(red), top right is B(black), bottom left is C(green), bottom right is D(pink)

The outermost left and top rows were edge pieces, the left edge was made up entirely of unique pieces, while the top repeated in sections A and B

the edge pieces however did have matching normal pieces... The pieces were identical, except they had an alternating pattern of knob, hole, knob, hole, etc, instead of the flat edge this pattern is repeated between each and every 1,000 pieces section...

honestly, the entire thing still makes my brain hurt... and I'm never going to be able to explain it properly... but I'll just say that there was never more than two identical white pieces in the entire white section because of how it was made... also, once I figured out the alternating knob pattern between each 1,000 piece section, it got a LOT easier =)

Anyways... final times...

Sorting 19.5 Hours

Pink: 8 Hours

Green: 3.5 Hours

Orange: 10 Hours

Blue: 5 Hours

Red: 10 Hours

Yellow: 4.5 Hours

Black: 3 Hours

Edge: 1.5 Hours

White: 4 Hours

Total: 69 Hours

So 69 Hours total... if the math is done, it will take me a total of 552 hours to finish this entire puzzle =)

DR 29/30/31 + What's next??

So the night I finished yellow, I also sorted out black, which took an hour, however I didn't have the oomph to start  the black edges, so I held off... I sorted black not entirely by shape, but by % of black which was on each piece... This made the black edging MUCH easier...

Day 30 I started the black, finished the dolphin guy section pretty quickly, and then went to bed...

Day 31 I finished the last 3 sections, they went pretty quickly, only took around 3 hours total of puzzling to finish all 4 sections...

Now you may be wondering, I stated before that I wasn't sure if I had all of the black pieces that had color on them placed properly, since some of them were interchangable... I finished the black/white, and only 2 pieces were in the wrong places =) Horray for me!!

Now all that's left is the white... This shouldn't honestly be all that difficult, IF I take the time to match up the pieces, and use the repeating pattern... It means it'll take a MUCH longer sort time, but I believe the puzzling time will be a LOT less if I do this...

I'll of course do the edge pieces first, then match any pieces that go into the repeating pattern from the edge (as there will only be 3 matching pieces in each of these sections, instead of 4...)

Then I'll do the single row along the top and left side, which will be easy as I'll know what 2-3 sides of the puzzle piece look like, and I can use that to find where the matching pieces go...

The I'll only have two single rows left =) and that will work the same way... I think...

Sorting 15.5 Hours

Pink: 8 Hours

Green: 3.5 Hours

Orange: 10 Hours

Blue: 5 Hours

Red: 10 Hours

Yellow: 4.5 Hours

Black: 3 Hours

Total: 59.5 Hours

Anyways, so what's next? I'm not entirely sure, but here are a few options...

I could do a Historica Comica

The Official Site shows details of each panel... My favorite is the Big Bang panel...

I also bought The Time of Day, the 2,000 piece version by Educa, with the money I was refunded for that knock-off puzzle...

Or I have a dozen or so 1,000 piece puzzles I could do, but I'll post images of some of those later =)

DR Day 29, and color is DONE!!!!

Finished all of the color in double retrospect =) at only 55.5 hours =D

Now on to that army of white pieces... which shouldn't be too bad if I'm going to be honest...

I'll do the black/white pieces first, which shouldn't take more than a few hours...

and then from there, I'll do the edge on the top and left...

And then from there, it's simply a matter of one row of white around every panel.

Sorting 14.5 Hours

Pink: 8 Hours

Green: 3.5 Hours

Orange: 10 Hours

Blue: 5 Hours

Red: 10 Hours

Yellow: 4.5 Hours

Total: 55.5 Hours

DR day 26/27/28

First off, I did an hour of yellow/black sorting.

Then I spent two days working on the dang yellow... and I was right, it was significantly easier than red... even though there are just as many pieces...

So Pic time...

 Took an hour to do the border and between the legs

                                 Then another hour outlining the body in yellow
                                      
Then another hour working on the movement lines

And finally an hour working on the yellow outlines in the double bodied guy panel

So total!

Sorting 14 Hours

Pink: 8 Hours

Green: 3.5 Hours

Orange: 10 Hours

Blue: 5 Hours

Red: 10 Hours

Yellow: 4 Hours

Total: 54.5 Hours