This one was reasonably challenging — took a bit to get one’s eyes used to the contrasts between the puzzle pieces and the different frames, some parallel and some at angles with each other. The basic puzzle shape was a variation of the standard puzzle piece design, but with little tweaks — rounder and squarer pegs. Fun themed whimsies, including swashbuckling-style characters, along with a few things (the fish?) that I never was able to spot in the puzzle. Perhaps because of my one complaint, which was:
My only complaint was that the overall puzzle was so small I couldn’t fully appreciate the detail of the design — it was by no means a tiny wooden puzzle, almost 12″x17″, but still too small to catch a lot of details easily, much less appreciate them.
The “Swordfight” painting is by Ukrainian painter Valentin Rekunenko, and when I bought it from Artifact, it was being sold in part as a fundraiser for Ukraine. I don’t see the Ukrainian fundraiser still on the Artifact website, but I’d recommend the puzzle anyway!
Artifact website: “Swordfight” by Valentin Rekunenko. “New March 2022! This is an exciting 439 piece wooden jigsaw puzzle of a battle between some swordsmen and some cats (and lots of other creatures and details) by the Ukrainian painter Valentin Rekunenko. The puzzle design by Matt Lyon only has three distinct connectors (non-unique connectors) to make this puzzle a bit more challenging than you might think, but the highly-detailed image makes it clear if you put pieces in the wrong place. The puzzle has a smattering of delightful whimsies themed to the image, and a clean straight edge. 11.75″ by 16.75″”
I guess it was swordfighting. I prefer to think of it as Lilliputian swordfighters playing with cats, as if they were interactive cat toys ….
