Everyone, probably, collected puzzles in childhood - these are pictures that have different sizes and shape. Such parts have many different squares and figures with convexities. Mostly such crafts are made for children. Puzzles very well develop a child’s thinking, logic, attentiveness and perseverance. In this article we will look at how to make a puzzle with your own hands.
Before making a paper puzzle with your own hands, you need to draw a large picture or print it on a color printer. Then cut into pieces. In addition, little material is needed and everyone should have it.
The following materials are used in creation:
- thick cardboard;
- scissors;
- White paper;
- PVA glue;
- ruler;
- simple and colored pencils;
- stationery knife.
Let's take as an example beautiful picture with a landscape – it’s nature against a backdrop of beautiful hills. Now spread PVA glue over the entire surface, without missing a centimeter. This is necessary so that the puzzle that is cut in the future has all the parts glued together.
We wait a while for the glue to dry and turn the picture over.
On back side For strength we glue thick cardboard. Wait again for it to dry.
Then we draw a grid on the glued cardboard using a pencil and ruler. We draw lines at an angle, one under the left slope, the other under the right. Thus, we get the details different sizes. Take a utility knife and cut along the lines.
The end result will be a DIY puzzle with minimal costs. It's very beautiful to look at you
To make a puzzle based on a drawn picture you will need:
- scissors;
- paper;
- glue;
- ruler;
- pencils;
- thick cardboard.
Draw any picture on a piece of paper. Also, don’t forget to make a photocopy - you can use it as a hint when making a mosaic.
Glue the picture onto thick cardboard and then leave it to dry completely. Then flip the image front side down.
Using a ruler, draw a grid, which should consist of shapes of various sizes. Stationery knife or use scissors to cut out the puzzle along the lines.
Your puzzle game is ready. Mix the mosaic pieces and enjoy assembling them.
How to make a puzzle based on a photo
There are more complex ways making a homemade puzzle, which can serve, for example, as an original gift for a friend. To do this you will need:
- a color printer that can high quality photo A4 format;
- thick cardboard that will fit the size of your printed photo;
- PVA glue;
- scissors;
- pencil.
If you want to make a fairly large puzzle, you should contact special studios that print large-format photographs for photo printing.
So, stick the printed photo to the cardboard and wait until your product dries completely. Then trim extra cardboard so that the edges of the photo exactly match the edges of the cardboard and have the same shape.
After this, on the back side of the cardboard, using a regular pencil, apply markings according to which you will need to cut out the puzzle pieces. If you are making a puzzle for adults, try to make the puzzle pieces more complex rather than simple geometric shapes. Use not only straight lines, but also semicircles and geometric figures from different angles. This way you will make the process of assembling a homemade puzzle as difficult as possible.
In printing houses there are special machines that will allow you to cut your photo different ways. This option may come in handy if you are in a hurry with a gift or are too lazy to use scissors, but original gift I still want to give it as a gift. When the puzzle pieces are cut, try to assemble them into the original picture yourself. At the same time, make sure that they fit well enough to each other.
How to make a puzzle for a baby
To make a soft puzzle for small child, you will need:
- several sheets of multi-colored porous rubber;
- scissors;
- household cellulose napkins.
Cut out any figures that are familiar to the child from sheets of rubber and stick them on a cellulose napkin. After this, using scissors, cut the resulting figures into 2-3 parts.
For kids who have not yet fully acquired the skills of folding puzzles, it is best to cut the picture into 2 equal parts. After some time, when the baby can easily put together a picture, you can cut each piece of the puzzle game into 2 more parts.
Alternatively, to make a puzzle, you can use a bright page from an old illustrated magazine, paste it onto cardboard and cut it into squares, triangles or other geometric shapes. Even if you don’t have cardboard at hand, it doesn’t matter! Take advantage of the most in a simple way make a puzzle for a child - take an old and elastic postcard with color illustrations and cut it into pieces.
It is recommended that parents put puzzles in a bag or envelope so that they don’t have to look for them all over the room. In this way, you can create a variety of puzzles for your child, allowing him to develop fine motor skills and thinking.
Putting together a puzzle is a very exciting activity, and it is interesting not only for children, but also for adults. In addition, collecting pictures is quite a useful activity. Puzzles develop thinking, memory and attention. This kind of entertainment is popular in all countries, but not many people think about the fact that you can make an interesting puzzle yourself. Even a child can make a game - it’s not difficult at all. Of course, the quality will be different from the store, but you won’t waste money.
What materials will you need
To make a puzzle, use Photoshop, take cardboard, you must have a printer, paper for printing and scissors.
Making a puzzle
Open Photoshop and load your favorite photo. In the program we make a copy of the Background, that is, the working layer. Give the file a name. Between the resulting layers, make another layer and also give it a name.
Fill the new layer with black, go to the topmost working layer and start drawing the puzzle. Open the Texturizer panel and select the line called Texture. A dialog box should open where you will need to load the texture of the working layer by clicking on the “Load Texture” button. Now you need to configure the options. We determine the relief of the puzzle pieces and select the desired size.
After setting up the textures, click on the well-known “OK” button and see that a texture has formed in the photo.
Now we proceed to printing the resulting image with a visible texture; we paste the printed sheet onto a cardboard sheet. Take the cardboard as tightly as possible so that the parts do not break or bend. Use high quality glue. The image should stick tightly to the cardboard and not peel off. After you have glued the sheet and tightly fastened it to the cardboard, place an even heavy weight on it, for example, a brick.
When the image is completely dry, check the adhesion. If everything is in order, you can start cutting out the parts. Take the sharpest and most comfortable scissors. The main rule in cutting is accuracy and clarity. You need to cut the pieces strictly along the lines, otherwise the puzzle will not stick together well. Entertaining game ready.
Puzzles for kids
If your kid loves to put together pictures, then you can please him and make interesting puzzles with your own hands and you won’t have to spend a lot.
All you need is: colored sheets of foam rubber and household cellulose napkins.
From sheets of rubber we cut out any figures that might attract the baby and glue them onto a napkin. Take scissors and cut the napkin into several pieces. Children's puzzles are ready. The variety of shapes will attract the baby’s attention, and such game puzzles will help him develop fine motor skills.
For the youngest players, it is better to cut the puzzles into two parts, and the pieces should be quite large. When your child masters the technique of folding two pieces, you can complicate his task and make a puzzle with more pieces.
This game is great because in the evenings you can get together with the whole family and have fun. As you can see, it is not at all necessary to spend money on purchasing puzzles; you can make the game yourself very quickly and without difficulty.
How are plywood puzzles made? Today, many of you have seen on the Internet many sculptures created using intersecting ribs. In our humble opinion, the Japanese company d-torso has been most successful in this matter. We will tell you how such masterpieces are created in this article.
There are several ways. The first and simplest is creating drawings using special software. Of the programs we know, this is Autodesk 123d make: you load a 3D model, set the parameters of the sections, and as a result you get a layout in vector format. Disadvantages of Autodesk 123d make are a section only in two selected planes (this is normal, since the algorithm cannot work otherwise) and a problem with loading many 3D models. The program is still raw and the last update was from 2014. There is also a plugin for the SketchUp program, which we will talk about later, and it is called Slice modeler. A common disadvantage of such programs is the manual modification of models and the throwing out of a huge number of unnecessary parts. It may take the same amount of time as the third method, which will be discussed later.
The second method is to create vector drawings in a graphics editor with the calculation of sections in different planes. For this method, you must have at least minimal artistic skills and good spatial thinking. The contour can be drawn in the same CorelDraw. This is where you cut with planes. Anyone who studied engineering graphics well at a university will immediately catch on. We don’t see any downsides to this method; with experience, such models can be made quite quickly. Plus there is a creative component to this. A minor minus is the inability to see the 3D model in isometry already in assembled form without preliminary cutting.
The third method is to create a puzzle from the original 3D model “by hand”. This method combines the advantages of the previous two. You can decide for yourself where to divide the model by planes, how far the contour of the element will extend into the model. You can immediately see the overall picture when creating planes. The disadvantages of this method are the mandatory presence of a 3D model, as for the first option. We will tell you about this method using the example of making an elephant's head.
The main manufacturing process is working with the SketchUp program. Moreover, there is free version this product (although this method can be modeled in almost any program for creating 3D graphics). Find a 3D model that you want to make into a puzzle and load it into SketchUp.
... we copy with a certain step in the right direction.
Next stage is the intersection of the model with planes. It is necessary to carry out such operations with parallel planes or with planes that do not intersect each other. Before doing this, be sure to create a reference point in order to correctly group elements from different planes in the future.
Select the planes and use the Intersect Faces command to intersect the model in the right place.
After executing the command, which can take quite a long time depending on the PC, you can see the outline where the plane intersects the model.
After this, remove the model along with the section planes and you should be left with the outlines of future puzzle elements. Be sure to first copy the model along with the reference point for subsequent sectioning with other planes.
We have a set closed loops, which form future puzzle pieces. In order to form sections, we close each of the contours with a line.
Some contours may lose segments after removing the model and cutting planes. In this case, you need to manually close them. All this, of course, depends on the original model.
All that remains is to remove the small “garbage” and the final picture will look like...
The next stage is similar to the previous one. We just cut the model along a different axis. If the first axis was conditionally X, then now we take Y.
Subsequent operations are repeated.
Don't forget about the anchor point. On bottom photo you can see the overlap of sections from different planes when using an anchor point.
Let's crop our future model and remove unnecessary elements.
As you can see, the lower sections of the trunk hang in the air. Let's make a section between the two previous ones and “link” the elements of the trunk into a solid structure.
All that remains is to add sections along the Z axis. The whole process is familiar to you.
Later it turned out that two sections along the Z axis would be enough and the middle ones were thrown out. We added tusks and drew the ears to scale in Corel. The vectors were imported from Corel into SketchUp and combined with our elements.
Next, using the Push/Pull command, we add volume to the sections. We pull to the thickness of the future material. If you plan to cut from 4mm plywood, then accordingly you will use this value. We advise you to immediately make the entire model on a real scale to present the overall picture in the future.
Final 3D model
Creating grooves for joining puzzle elements is done manually and this is a rather long and monotonous process compared to the previous one. Anyone familiar with SketchUp will do this without any problems. Let us demonstrate this operation using the example of two trunk parts. Important point: in the process of creating elements, even at the stage of creating sections, be sure to group each element separately.
Select one of the elements and go into editing mode. We draw the outline of the intersection of our elements.
For convenience, using the Hide command, we hide the “unnecessary” element for now and close the contour of the groove.
Using the Push/Pull command, we extrude a groove in the element.
We carry out a similar operation with another puzzle element.
Creating grooves can be done faster using the same Intersect Faces command, but you will still have to modify it manually. Next, we carry out similar operations with the remaining parts of the puzzle. And ultimately, we lay out all the elements on one plane for subsequent export to CorelDraw.
Let us immediately clarify that exporting 2D graphics from SketchUp is still poorly implemented and some files can only be exported using installed plugins. The most suitable file format for export is dxf. You can try both dwg and eps. In general, any format will do to achieve the goal. When exporting sections, be sure to make sure that they lie in the same plane and that you have selected the appropriate camera (view) mode. The camera (view) should look strictly perpendicular to the elements. Otherwise, unnecessary curves will be exported.
Actually, at this stage the creation of a model for vector cutting of a 3D puzzle is completed. Next is the actual production of the puzzle on any CNC cutting machine or manually using patterns. We also promised to talk about the “Slice modeler” plugin for SketchUp. This plugin allows you to do the above work automatically, but as with any automation process there are some drawbacks. Slice modeler works great with simple three-dimensional shapes, as well as simple 3D models. It worked a bit crookedly with all the models that we imported into SketchUp.
When you launch the plugin, it pops up a window in which you select the section step, axis direction, thickness of the final element, color and layer. For example, we will select the X axis. The plugin provides information about the number of sections and carries out the process itself.
After some time, it produces finished sections of the model and requests information about the other axis. For example, the Z axis is selected.
The result of the plugin working with this model is not very good, since many sections need to be corrected and brought to mind. At normal operation At the end of the process, Slice modeler places the puzzle elements in one plane, and also numbers each part. This plugin cuts in two planes; sections in the third plane must be completed manually or in a cunning way– carry out the process in pairs in two planes, and then superimpose them (for example, XY and XZ). The bottom line is this: Slice modeler can be used with simple 3D models or with models made on high level(example). This process can take even longer than manual cutting.
Now let's move on directly to the manufacturing process of our parts. We will cut out the puzzle elements on this beauty.
Laser engraver A3+SPLIT in tabletop version. This is already the second generation of A3+SPLIT. The working field size is 300x450, the actual engraving speed is 550 mm/s. Cutting 4mm plywood at a speed of 12-15 mm/s. After suffering with the K-40 engraver, working on this machine is a pleasure. Made here in Ukraine, the guys always have the components in stock and the support is at a high level. By the way, there is a package with a “pin” table. Anyone who has worked with plywood in large quantities knows all the “delights” of washing the edges of the knife table from soot.
The actual work process comes down to installing plywood on the desktop and launching a program for cutting contours, which is closely integrated with CorelDraw.
In total, the entire model required five sheets measuring 300 x 500 mm. This is even taking into account the base of the shield, which was already completed in CorelDraw. Be sure to check the thickness of the plywood before cutting and adjust real drawings taking into account the laser cut thickness of 0.1 mm.
Dimensions finished model amounted to 50x50x40 cm.
And finally, the finished result.
Total by time this work took one full working day. Of course, for beginners this time may be a little long, but with experience comes automation of the process. We would like to emphasize that this method manufacturing similar products don’t be the only one, and if you have the desire and time, then go for it.
No animals were harmed during the making of the 3D puzzle.
MATERIALS AND TOOLS
- workpiece for sawing up to 20 mm thick;
- files #5 or #7;
- fine-grained sandpaper;
- drill with a diameter of 1.5-2 mm;
- double sided tape;
- printed diagram;
- preferred finishing composition.
Original wooden puzzles from the archives of Scrollsaw Woodworking & Crafts magazine are a stylish and easy-to-make project that will be appreciated by... professional craftsmen, as well as those who are just starting to master. Mosaic puzzles have smooth and uncomplicated cutting lines, without sharp turns, making them easy to make not only on a power machine, but also with a hand jigsaw.
Both softwood and hardwood pieces are suitable for sawing this project. Instead of a glued board, it is advisable to use a solid mass or scraps with a single texture pattern. This will preserve the visual appeal and design brevity of the project. Optimal thickness workpieces – 13-15 mm. Puzzle sizes may vary depending on individual wishes.
To cut the workpiece, cut out the main shapes and create cuts, it is appropriate to use jigsaw files #5 or #7. In a good puzzle, all elements should fit perfectly together. You should not rely on finishing grinding of the ends; the quality of the cut should initially be as high as possible. To do this, choose files with an increased number of teeth per inch (higher TPI value in the marking). When working on the machine, it is also important to correctly select the optimal speed, since an excessively high stroke rate can lead to the formation of burns on the cut.
When cutting out a puzzle with a jigsaw, the printed diagram can be pasted onto wooden blank any in a convenient way, but the experience of the masters shows that the most practical solution in this case is to use double-sided tape.
Eyes are made into the cut out elements using a 1.5-2 mm drill for animal figures. After this, peel off the tape and carefully sand the front side of each part. Cutting out educational puzzles with a jigsaw is completed by applying decorative finishing, chosen at the discretion of the master.