Pixel Puzzle Picture Help

August 8, 2006 7:58 AM

I'm working on a book of puzzles and need help coming up with interesting images to use. [mi]

The puzzles are paint-by-numbers. The more of them I design, the harder it gets to come up with interesting images. I've got a month to complete another 40 of them and I'm experiencing, I think, stress-related brain freeze.

I'm trying to avoid the usual famous people's faces, well-known cartoon characters, etc. that most of these books use. Just about anything is fair game. (Although porn, or goatse-type images need not apply.)

For instance, I did one of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and my editor got very excited -- "Interesting! Edgy!"

Thanks for your help.

posted by papercake to sports, hobbies, & recreation (6 comments total)

I love this image, lots of fun stuff in it, might be good idea fodder.

Robots are always popular among kids...
posted by skrike at 8:17 AM on August 8, 2006

You could go for iconic art (Van Gogh's starry night; Hokusai's wave pictures, the Jumping the Bull fresco from Crete, Escher and his stairs etc) or significant imagery from fiction (Alice in Wonderland is an excellent candidate for this - there's lots going on in mad tea parties and croquet games).

You could also do a series of landscapes (mountains, beach, meadows, cityscapes, etc) that are quirky, realistic, etc. You could be labyrinthine and do a series of puzzles that are mazes - once they solve it, they have to solve it again. You could even spell out messages using the maze "walls" that look like letters.
posted by julen at 8:48 AM on August 8, 2006

Look at some extreme macro photography maybe?
posted by aubilenon at 9:45 AM on August 8, 2006

I'd cruise through flickr and maybe ask some photographers if you could use their images or crops of hteir images. Because it's for a commercial work you'd almost assuredly have to get permission.

I get solicited for these types of things (commercial use, non-paid) regularly and if I like the project I agree to it.
posted by FlamingBore at 10:17 AM on August 8, 2006

What about puzzles within puzzles, eg a labyrinth, where the completed paint-by-numbers image is a maze? (Or maybe a crossword puzzle, I'm sure there will be software online to help generate crosswords, but I prefer a maze - a crossword is too much "work" to feel like victory :))

What about stereoscope images (there is free software to easily do this too, from an image you paint with darker tones behind further behind lighter ones), where the paint-by-numbers image looks like random noise, and you have to do that relax-your-eyes things and it becomes a 3d image of a simple shape or scene?

Since these are not one of the puzzles I play, I'm finding it hard to know what sort of images would work best, because I don't know the effective resolution you'd be working work. Can you give a link to the completed image of a puzzle of similar complexity to those you are creating?
posted by -harlequin- at 11:34 AM on August 8, 2006

If it's possible within the limits of your book's specifications, I second what -harlequin- said above (I think I did that somewhere else recently, too...).

Puzzles within puzzles turn otherwise potentially repetitive puzzle styles into something novel for which you don't necessarily need to learn new rules (e.g. variety cryptics).

I've only designed a couple paint by numbers, but some ideas that come to mind for me would include:
-creating a crossword grid as a solution and giving clues under it
-having a series of puzzles that need to be overlapped for a "meta" answer (maybe one is a R PBN, one is G, one is B? Or overlapping them all leaves only one square empty, or leaves a typical iconic picture but for which you had to solve all the puzzles to get?)
-making a "flip book" out of strategically placed (i.e. bottom right hand) PBNs.
-making an answer that has a typically styled answer, but the answer is part of a rebus, or a pun on its own

But something like that. Gives you something more rewarding to do at the end of a puzzle than just turn the page...
posted by whatzit at 12:30 PM on August 8, 2006