I’ve nearly completed my newest project, a Buildings of Detroit Peg Puzzle. The buildings are all laser-etched, so the real challenge was trying to get the design right.

I used Adobe Illustrator and at first just dropped in the color photographs and etched them as they were. What came out was mostly a brown blob that bore some resemblance to a building. Since the key is to have contrast, I went and made each image black and white and increased the contrast so the blacks were really black and the whites were really white.

The image above was one of my final tests. I was starting to get some more detail, but there were still some areas, especially on the Belle Isle Aquarium at the top, where parts looked sort of smeared out. I tinkered with the file a bit more, and finally got it to where I liked it. They’re still imperfect and kind of look like rough sketches, but I think I like it that way.

Now I just need to glue, sand, and attach some pegs.

Trevor