1000 Piece Ravensburger Dragon Puzzle

Well, I promised I'd review jigsaw puzzles as well on this blog, it's about high time I delivered. I've loved jigsaw puzzles since I was a kid. I was the only child that grandma would ever let touch her 1500 piece puzzles.* I've always believed that you can tell a lot about a person by how they solve a puzzle. Let's see what we can find out about me. Please note, this is not a new puzzle. I've put it together once before.

It should be noted that I begrudgingly wear reading glasses. I am naturally far sighted so I need to wear these when I cannot hold a computer or book at arm's length. I also wear them for puzzles though because of things like this: 

So close!

So, back to puzzles showing you things about people, let's look at the types of approaches there are to puzzles. The vast majority of people, myself included, like to start on the outside and work our way in. Others prefer to group the pieces first by color, shape, or something else. Others prefer to just grab a bunch of pieces of and work with what they get. I like to set up my borders, get some parameters and structure in place, then go for more substantive** aspects of the puzzles.

Setting up the borders.

After the edge pieces are all in place, some people will go after the big sections of the puzzle. In this case, they'd focus on the dragon, get the big stuff out of the way and then work on the details. I'm too much of a procrastinator for that so for the next several hours of puzzling, I worked on the sea, the clouds, the sky, the rocks, everything BUT the outlines of the dragon.

This was taken right before I was done for the night.

Progress on the beautiful sunrise/sunset.

 Finally, it became time to work on the dragon! I found this part of the puzzle to go quickest because of all the details in the dragon. So while working from the outside in may have been slow going at first, it is fast running from here in.

Dragon's outline.

Finally I have removed all the pieces from the box. But what's this? I am missing one piece and have an extra of another!

Missing Piece

Extra Piece

I've completed this puzzle before so the missing piece is on me, but the extra piece? The one that caused hours of contemplation and cursing the first time I assembled the puzzle? That's on Ravensburger. I just hope there isn't another puzzle out there that is missing this piece!

Finally, I am done with this puzzle for the second time:

I have to admit, I do enjoy this puzzle. It's nowhere near the brain-wracking mess that is the Krypt Puzzle, and I'm grateful for that. I am very happy with this gift from my husband, Fluxxdog. I find that it is a beautiful picture, well structured and, aside from an extra piece, very straightforward. I give it 4 hoots!

Hoot!Hoot!

Hoot!Hoot!

*It greatly surprised her that I was so good with puzzles because my mother was always the type to pound pieces together if they didn't fit like she thought they should.

**I actually wrote this word before I was certain of what it meant. I'm pretty sure I'm using it right. Hit me with a comment if I haven't.