maze
The herbalist has invited us over for tea! Can you find all the missing potions on the way?
I adore the alchemist simulator game Potion Craft. I played through at least five times on the Steam version. Fans of the game will also find plenty of easter eggs!
Potion Craft Homepage —>
Potion Craft on Steam —>
The design of Potion Craft is extraordinary and the game-play delightful.
I loved the Marvel Special Feature, Michael Giacchino film, Werewolf by Night. And when the camera rises to show the garden maze? It’s like he pulled it from my brain.
Especially cool? Giacchino Retweeted!!
So this image is scaled to print across 2 pages, have fun!
I enjoy jigsaw puzzles immensely, though I only build occasionally, maybe 4 or 6 a year. I had a blast assembling the NYC puzzle when I got my copy. It is surprisingly challenging, so I thought I would share some hints.
After assembling the edges, focus on the water boundaries and bridges. While working on these, you will probably discover many of the landmark buildings as well. But at this point, all the remaining pieces look the same!
Edges and water assembled. Now things get tricky!
Since we are in a city, the pieces have an obvious orientation! All the pieces in the puzzle are “opposing tabs” and are either tall/vertical or squat/horizontal. Separate the remaining pieces into these two groups. This will also help position any remaining water bits.
Galison puzzle pieces are all “opposite tabs” style. But orientation is super easy!
Notice about 2/3 of the remaining pieces have at least some part of a bright magenta bridge on them. Locate the partial bridges in the assembled puzzle and find the piece that matches.
The bridge color is unique, and often crosses an edge
You should have only a handful of pieces left! Hope this helps!
Sean
My third book, Marvel Mazes will be out October 4, 2022!
Marvel Mazes, a new book by Sean C. Jackson, arriving October 2022
I had a tremendous amount of freedom making this book, able to draw from the greatest storylines from the past 50 years of Marvel comics. All the fan favorite heroes are included, a little something for everyone.
Pre-orders are great because it gives booksellers an idea of the interest in a book. They can be sure to have enough copies available when the book is available in October. Last year, my books were sold out and on back order by mid-November! Don’t get caught having a mazeless holiday! Pre-order today!
The advance copies look fantastic! I am so happy how the book turned out. Each theatrical Star Wars film gets at least 2 mazes, plus one Mandalorian and Black Spire Outpost on the inside cover.
This detail is from the Naboo maze, based fairly closely on the capital city.
Well, was yesterday and I posted this Hoth maze from the book all over my social media.
Below is the sketch for the maze. You can see it is very similar! Phil Szostak, content and asset specialist at Lucasfilm, asked me to rotate the Millennium Falcon and add additional snowspeeders.
The yellow lines are the gutter. Though the book can open flat and my publisher is has excellent precision, I wanted to be sure there were no bridges or vertical paths in this area.
All the mazes in the book had to be canon or canon adjacent. I made adjustments to create a fun maze in my style, but it was important to feel like the recognizable Star Wars from the films.
I used tons of research! Screen grabs from the film, 3d model references, images from the Battlefront video game, Wookieepedia, and the DK Star Wars Locations books. The Hans Jenssen cross-section of Echo Base is amazing! His illustration includes much more than I needed and a lot of information not in the film. It was especially helpful because relationships between the scenes is never shown in the movie. Jenssen’s illustration is the best, canon-approved overview I found.
These people are drawn 600dpi, so are very small on the page! They look jagged because soft, anti-alias lines are not so friendly for print. Also much easier to work with my preferred flat colors
While doing research, I found this cool picture of director Irvin Kershner on a tauntaun
Happy Holidays everyone! If you got From Here To There today, Hooray!! I encourage everyone not to draw in the book, but use your finger or something pointy, so you can explore the mazes again and again.
If you’re visiting this page for the first time, let me be the first to tell you about my upcoming book, Star Wars Mazes, available in July!
Star Wars Mazes, a new book by Sean C. Jackson, arriving July 2021
Currently, the name on all the bookshop websites is misspelled Staw Wars Mazes, which is hysterical. I’m sure my publisher will update that on Monday. Hopefully they are not all on vacation until January 4!
Pre-orders are great because it gives stores an idea of the interest in a book. They can make sure to have enough copies available when the book comes out in July. If you we shopping this year for my current book, From Here To There, you might have noticed the book sold out everywhere! I feel like a lot of folks had a sad, mazeless Christmas. Don’t let that happen to you! Pre-order today!
I’ve been having a blast with Dr. Ph Martin’s Dyes! These colors are super bright and look lovely when combined with brown or sepia ink. Here are some smaller mazes and mini-mazes that I’ve played with since the completion of my super-secret project. Several of these originals are now available on my shop, and would make a great present for maze-loving family or friends!
The movie, Parasite, is absolutely wild. I went into it cold, only knowing it was created by Bong Joon Ho, the director for Snowpiercer, and that it has 99% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Maze-themed fan art for the video game Sea of Solitude. Follow the path to the boat in the lower right, then return by water to the open sea.
Even though this piece is digital, I wanted it to be painterly. I used a nice rough, oval brush in Photoshop set at about 92% opacity. Since I was not relying on black outlines to define the shapes, it was important to add the cast shadows. Once I picked my shadow colors though, I would also lay those in opaque (92%)
The buildings continue under the water, like in the game. I only reflected the sky, which seems to work well. Many of my decisions were based on eventually making more maze oil paintings.
Sea of Solitude the game is both lovely and haunting. It is a string of interactive puzzles overlaid with dread, anxiety and childhood trauma. It is somewhat linear and story-like, but also beautiful and cathartic. I enjoyed the game very much. The game’s creator, Cornelia Geppert at Jo-Mei Games saw my maze on Twitter and kind of dug it, which is kind of awesome.
You can see purchase the game or watch the trailer on the Sea of Solitude website.
I've mentioned often how the Larry Evans maze books influenced me as a kid. His first two books were published in 1976 and 1977. I was 10-years old. The introduction said to not solve the puzzles with pen or pencil, so I was able to run the mazes over and over again. I would practice drawing my own mazes. When learning perspective, I would attempt rectangular tube mazes similar to the works in his books. Hose mazes, landscape mazes- I have been drawing mazes ever since.
My original Evans books were lost, probably to my younger siblings. Recently, as I was finishing my first book for Chronicle, I thought it might be fun to see those early books again. Once I shipped my final work, I hit eBay to see if I could find those books from my childhood.
eBay finds of the books I grew up with. That’s my pencil work in the background.
Evans professionally made architecture renderings and most of his mazes were ruled with strong one-, two- or three-point perspective. Needles to say, it was all manual pen and ink. No computers. How badass is that?
Evans did a few landscape mazes like this one. These were a huge influence!
I have since met a collector of Larry Evans originals. He sent me some photos of the works in his collection that included pieces I've never seen.
If you want to read a cool article about Evans's publisher Troubador Press, I linked it to a post here-->
The book 3-Dimensional Mazes is also available at the Open Library —>
This ramped maze was designed specifically as a skateboard deck! The path goes around the truck mounts, so cool. It can be found in my Threadless shop
Working on a fairly large red and blue ballpoint commission based on the maze from my December post. It’s too fun!
Any larger, I’d have to work on an easel or wall.
The maze is created in the red ballpoint. I did use light pencil guidelines for the isometric grid.
Though I used a grid, I still kept the buildings and paths kind of loose.
Cleaning the pens as I draw. I love my Zebra pens!
How many bicycles? How many cats? Can you find the cannon?
Giant Robot Gallery in Los Angeles has an annual group show where hundreds of artists are invited to submit small, 3x3” works on Post-It notes. The pieces can be bought for $25. It can be a fun way to score original art from your favorite artists and illustrators or discover new stuff. After the initial week or two, the unsold work goes online.
Here are some of the pieces I sent in for this year:
Here is the art I picked up last year:
Top: Eric Nyquist, Ako Castuera, Genevieve Santos
Bottom: Gemma Correll, Gina Triplett, Allison Cole
My first GR issue! >sigh<
You may remember Giant Robot as a magazine in the 1990’s-2000’s. The magazine was all about West Coast, Asian-American and Asian pop culture. I devoured every issue. The editor then, Eric Nakamura, created the Giant Robot brand and runs the current gallery in Los Angeles. The gallery continues to promote Asian-American artists and West Coast pop and street art. Everyone should follow.
Read this article about the Post-It show, Nakamura, and the artists at My Modern Met —>
Tackling more detail in these ballpoint mazes. I make the initial drawing in red ballpoint, then deepen the shadows and paths with blue and a little black Micron pen.
In April, I visited the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in West Palm Beach, Florida. Winding paths through palm gardens and monumental sculptures- it’s perfect. I took many pictures... Norton’s towering Gate sculptures loom out of the foliage or are revealed around bends of the path.
This summer I made a maze based on the gardens. Here is a detail.
You can see the full puzzle on my Twitter!
I find making circular mazes a challenge. I have designed a few flat circular puzzles and then redrawn them as steps and buildings, but the results are unsatisfactory. The final work feels heavy and burdensome. They are overly complicated. So when I discovered Henry Cheung’s Instagram feed @henryscheung I was inspired! He photographs the circle mazes he has elegantly doodled in coffee shops adjacent to lattes on warm surfaces of wood, tile, or stone.
Detail of @henyscheung April 25, 2018 Instagram post.
After liking a bunch of his photos, Henry and I chatted about mazes. He was cool with me trying to convert one of his puzzles into my style! I printed out a few and got to sketching. The first one was a little lumpy. For my second attempt, I laid down some guidelines to keep the isometric under control. This was better.
The guidelines help me translate Henry’s lovey shapes better. I loathe rules, but some structure in the beginning can really help. You can see me marking off parts of the original as I go.
I’m happy with the puzzle, but I’d like more detail. My original is only a few inches wide, so the stairs are especially gnarly. Upscale the old-timey way!
I drew my version too small. I wanted more detail, so I scaled it up to ink onto larger watercolor paper. I will eventually paint it, but for now I’m happy with the digital coloring. This way I can play with color choices before laying down the real thing!
Collaboration between me and Henry Cheung. The foundation is totally his puzzle. See if you can match how his fits!
The final result is great. Collaborations are awesome! Follow @henryscheung on Instagram, your feed will be more beautiful.
The previously posted towers were studies for this new watercolor maze. The colors are more gentle than my earlier trials.
Want something new almost every day? Follow my Instagram! It’s much less formal than this blog. Sometimes I post mazes, but often I post other projects I’m working on. Here are my last three posts:
I made this especially for IG, you can tell because it is exactly 2:1, taking advantage of the panoramic feature. It’s simple but fun. The statues are based on IG NYC folks I follow.
Ballpoint practice with White House chief of staff John Kelly. I’m not a fan, just think he has an interesting face. He reminds me of the cop played by Richard Burgi in the Firefly episode “The Message”.
Also getting into relief print. I was totally into woodblock as a younger man and have been carving again. You can see that my skills are a bit rusty, but my work translates well. Follow my progress on Instagram!
