Designer Diary - Bumfuzzled #15 - Waning Geometries

I would make a terrible Youtuber! Stopping to record the development of my work doesn't come naturally to me, as I'm more of a nose to the grindstone person, and it's hard for me to remember pause from the work! It gives me a lot of appreciation for some of the channels I follow, and how they do amazing work while also documenting it!  :D

In this case, I don't have a lot of progress recorded, especially since I didn't have the idea of doing these diaries when I was sketching Bumfuzzled #15, but thankfully, I periodically scan in my work along the way!


The Original Idea

This puzzle is definitely of the "sit down and start doodling" variety, where I had a very faint design idea. If you look through my puzzle designs, you'll see I tend to think very geometrically. I thought it might make for an interesting art piece to have a geometric design, but where the geometry appears to be deteriorating in some way. Essentially, the Second Law of Thermodynamics as a piece of art, where an originally perfect design has undergone decay, on its way to devolving into chaos.

Here's the first scan I have recorded:



I wish I'd made a scan prior to this one, as the design is already fairly well-developed at this point. I remember the original sketch was pretty much purely geometrical. At this point, I'd already traced over it once (my light table gets very well-used!), adding a lot of decay to the geometry.

This first pass is generally just me creating an overall layout, and delineating blocks of color, which gets really tricky to keep track of once all the cut lines are added! This is why I stop and make a scan at this point, as a point of reference for later in the process.


Design Detail: Tiny Drop-Outs

Since there are some larger blocks of color in this one, which tends to make a puzzle a bit easier, I added some trickiness with tiny drop-outs. I somewhat accidentally discovered this trick back when I was designing the watermelon in the bottom layer of Party in the Back #2, where I created tiny drop outs to form watermelon seeds.

While I really just made these drop-outs to aesthetically represent seeds that would be far too small to include as pieces, when I tested my first sample, I discovered, wow, all these tiny holes made this section far tricker, especially when combined with an organic cut style.

For Bumfuzzled #15, the small holes felt like a great thematic fit to illustrate decay, but also were a great add to the puzzling experience!


Further Iteration

Since I tend to get bored if I'm not seeing much progress, I tend to add detail in progressive passes, as adding all the detail at once always feels slow and boring to me. In reality, it probably means it takes me longer, but it keeps me more engaged.

It's similar to why I often like driving on back roads rather than the interstate; the interstate is certainly faster, but it feels like forever since there's nothing interesting along the way. Unless there's some kind of time crunch, I'd rather something feel like it went quickly and be interesting along the way, than worry about the actual time it takes. I suppose some would describe this as focusing on the journey rather than the destination!

Here was the next scan I made, which is essentially the final design:




Cleaning Up!

As you can see, my scans often get quite muddy due to working in pencil and getting smudged and erased along the way. I usually have do do a final digital clean-up so my digital guy can follow my design more easily. I also add color in the file I send him so he can envision the overall design, which can be hard to see in all the squiggles and jots of the uncolored file! This way, he knows which lines are most important for the art piece, and which are merely cut lines that don't affect the art if they're modified a bit.




A Side Note on Outsourcing

I could probably write an entire blog post on this, but I feel the final product and customer experience is strongest when you personally handle the parts you enjoy and excel at, and outsource everything else.

So, while I could do my own digital tracing, the guy I pay to do it is way faster than I would be, and I also have a full-time job outside of Puzzle Bomb along with being a full-time worshipper of Jesus (life in Him is phenomenal!), husband, and father of three kiddos. So, I'm more that happy to be the creative input that defines our puzzles, leaving the more rote tasks to folks that are better and faster than I am in those areas while also freeing up time for what's most important in life!

The same goes for manufacturing and shipping. While I could have my own laser cutters, and I could have a garage full of puzzles and ship myself, there are entire businesses that are better and faster than I am at those tasks. It makes the whole business far more enjoyable for me, while also providing you a better product that ships far faster!


Fin.

I hope you enjoy discovering this work of art as you puzzle it!



Love and blessings,
Chad