The Big Five

328 pieces

This customer wanted a special puzzle for his wife, who loves puzzles and posters depicting national parks. He wanted it to be difficult, and liked my use of sliver dropouts. This poster is of Denali National Park, which is famous for (among other things) it’s "big five" animals -- Dall sheep, caribou, moose, wolves, and bears. I left out the sky, but put figure pieces of the big five animals jutting into the sky; they interlock naturally with the edge via their feed (and the moose's tail). They actually are edge pieces.

I also created sliver dropout figures for each of the big five animals. Sliver dropouts always surprise people the first time assembling a puzzle; at first they think something is "wrong" with the pieces, then only later do they realize that the missing slivers of wood form a shape.