Over the past few years, I've had the good fortune of working with various puzzle manufacturers, creating a variety of scenic pieces which capture the spirit of adventure, exploration, and the beauty of our world. These are a lot of the themes I find most inspiring and they make their way into my work quite often.

Puzzle illustrations are an interesting challenge because every aspect of the illustration must have enough detail to make the puzzle solvable (nothing is worse than big spaces of a single color). This means there's room for lots of scenes within the scene - something I always love doing.

Let's dive in and see how these were made!

The lagoon was one of my favorite pieces to work on. I wanted to create a scene where the viewer is drawn into the illustration from a set of stairs which lead down a densely foliaged path which breaks to reveal a dramatic lagoon at sunset. I wanted to show towering rolling hills in the distance and lots of texture to unify the piece.

Typically I start my sketches in Procreate and use line work to establish the composition and some of the shape language. Once the layout is complete, I'll rough in colors which help me to establish the mood and feel of the piece.

Once the color rough has been approved, I begin solidifying the shapes, textures, and colors of the final illustration. Here are a few detail shots:

The next piece in the collection shows a family hiking through a rocky desert path where they reach an oasis. I sprinkled bits of desert plant life in the foreground and middle ground to help establish scale. The towering cliffs in the distance serve as the background which helps give the piece depth.

The Sketch

When I'm sketching landscape pieces like this, I always try to have a distinct foreground, middle ground, and background. This helps give the piece depth and if you use atmospheric coloring correctly, helps the piece feel unified.

I also like to use various compositional elements to visually direct your eyes into the piece. In this case, I used the rock arches on the right and left side of the piece to do just that.

Here are a few of the detail shots where you can see the textures & shapes used to create the overall look. 

The waterfall piece was a lot of fun to work on mainly because of the sheer volume of rock shapes. When I'm painting rocks and going for a stylized look, I break the rock forms into 3 basic elements: the base shape, the light side, and the shadow side. This helps give the forms dimension and creates a fun look.

I like the sketch of this one quite a bit as it's own piece. It was a lot of fun exploring the composition as I worked to create a cascading layout that echoed the subject matter of the waterfall. Everything works to lead your eye to the couple at the base of the piece.

And the details...

The Harbor

The harbor was a lot of fun to paint because it combined somewhat organic architecture with the organic forms of towering cliffs - all set upon the water. With this piece, I threw in a mixture of shapes and organic brush strokes to bring everything to life.

When I approached the sketch for this piece, I wanted to create a truly immense feel to the mountains which the village sat in front of. A low horizon with clouds circling behind the mountains helped me to accomplish this.

Here are a handful of detail shots.

Cliffside Trail

This was one of my favorites to work on because of the unique composition. I needed a way to show a trail which lead up to a lookout while still showing the ocean and mountain islands in the distance. I explored a handful of compositions but when I landed on this one, I knew it was the best solution out of everything I'd done up until that point.

As I mentioned before, one thing I like to do in my sketches is figure out how I can use forms to guide your eye to important parts of the illustration. With this piece, I used the angle of the rocks in the foreground to lead your eye to the family at the top of the lookout. The family looks and even points into the center of the composition where we see an observatory. I also used the mountains in the distance to lead your eye to the Observatory, while the roads on the rolling hills lead you to the ocean, to the foot of the path, all the way back to the family. It becomes a sort of circular composition which is a lot of fun to explore.

And the details!

The Overlook has a special place in my heart because it reminds me of all the amazing mountain towns we have here in Colorado (where I'm based). I loved the idea of creating an idealized mountain town which a couple stumble upon at the end of a winter hike. I had a very specific picture in my head where we'd see lots of beautiful ambient light from the town starkly contrasting the cool winter night.

This sketch really drives home the distinct foreground, middle ground, background concept I was writing about earlier. You can see here I used the trees in the foreground and background to establish scale and depth. All of it really helps the mountains feel powerful and towering.

Here are a few of the details. Notice how gestural you can get with textures! When you zoom out, the brush strokes look completely different.

This was definitely one of my favorite pieces in the set. It gave me the opportunity to draw a different landscape with different kinds of features in the distance. You can see a lot of the compositional techniques we've covered in the previous pieces on full display here.

Not much to say about this one which hasn't already been said about the others. Everything is about creating a composition which draws you in and allows you to explore in a circular pattern.

The details:

If you made it all the way to this point, thanks a ton for following along! I hope some of the tips I offered are helpful if you are an image maker. If not and you're just browsing, thanks for checking out my work!