Maze Comic Book Cover #63 - Toucan Do It !

Issue #63 in my comic book cover series is called Toucan Do It ! and features the maze of a Toucan. This was a difficult book to name because I had so many options to choose from, including Toucan Dance if you Want to, but it seemed a bit too long.

My comic book cover mazes can be found in 2 places:

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 1 (Issues #1-53)

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 2

To receive a book of my first year of comic book book mazes (Volume 1 with mazes #1-53) you can sign up for my book alerts - any time I launch a free maze book, or paid book (on Amazon), I will send you a note about the new book launch.

Maze of the Week 39 Redux - Spaceship Earth at Epcot Center (MOTW#167)

When I did voting for y maze of the year in 2022 I was surprised how many votes The Spaceship Earth at Epcot Center Maze received. I thought the maze was good (it was a finalist after all) but not top 5. It ended being voted the #2 maze ! I think it is because it brought up memories of childhood. There is something simple about the maze. Black and white. Geometric. But I wanted to see if I could improve it. Here is the original post for reference:

Maze of the Week #39 - Spaceship Earth - Epcot Center Maze

Here are the enhancements I made to improve the maze:

1. Added color. I like the black and white look but wondered if color would be better.

2. Changed Start/Goal. I switched to an internal start and goal written out vs the previous arrows to clean it up.

3. Re-sized. Originally the maze was made on 8.5 x 11 paper to facilitate printing easily, but now it is 8.5 inches square because that fits the structure better.

4. Title Changes. I changed the font for the maze title, and reduced the size of the city font vs. the title font. I also changed the location of title

5. Added branding. To the corner. Might as well get credit for my work

6. New background. I added a sky and the ground so the structure isn’t floating on the page anymore.

7. Base Changed. Previously I had some trouble getting the base right - depending on the photo it changes in shape. I re-did it to match the most common view I found.

8. Added Shadows/light. With an object like this light is always playing with the structure and changing how it looks. I added light hitting the globe on the left side, with shadows on the opposite side. I also added shadows to the right base and onto the ground.

I considered doing each panel with a shadow/light but the simpler updates look good enough.

Here is the before and after:

I prefer the new version.

Some data: The new file is 431MB from 316MB.

I will be replacing the homepage with the new maze going forward. You can find the maze download there !

If you like this type of content check out all of my case studies:

A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to Improve your Mazes

What I've Learned Making Mazes

Happy maze-ing !

Maze Book Creation - Options for making the Solutions page - Part 1

You just made a maze book full of 30/50/100 mazes for kids/adults with an interesting theme. It took a few months to make all the mazes and you are now putting together the book and you need to make the solutions pages. You thought the hard part was over, but now you have more choices to make. I want to take you through the different options you have for making the maze solutions pages. Choosing the right option for your solution page can change the retail price of your book, improving both your sales and your profits. Choosing a poor format for your solution pages will hurt engagement, reviews, and hurt sales and profits.

Here is the maze I will use as an example. A typical standard maze for 8-12 year old kids. The maze is from page 1 of one of my books available on Amazon. So Part 1 is to show many different types of solution pages using 1 standard maze. In the upcoming Part 2 blog post I will use a variety of different maze types and experiment to see what solution page method works best for each. Skip ahead: Maze Book Creation - Options for making the Solutions page - Part 2

Standard Maze

Let's start by considering the various size options for maze solutions.

MAZE SOLUTION SIZE

• Full Size Solution

  • This is ideal for a Kindle Maze book if you are want to paginate the book maze, solution, maze, solution, etc. I used a thick black line to show the solution.

Standard Maze with bold solution pathway

Mini Solutions

• In a 100 maze book, if we assume 1 maze per page, a full size solution for a printed book would mean an additional 100 pages for solutions. That is not reasonable considering the added printing cost (assuming we are not speaking about a Kindle book). Depending on the size and complication of the mazes you should target 4 solutions/page as a minimum, and can consider 6 solutions/page, and ideally 9 solutions/page.

• Remember to consider who your target audience is. Adults can handle 9 solutions per page. While I have never seen a maze book for retirees (is that an opportunity ?) I think larger solutions would be appropriate. Same with a maze book for young children.

• The shape of the mazes you are providing the solutions for, and the dimensions of the page will determine what format works best. I used the same maze repeated multiple times for simplicity. Let’s see what all three would look like in this gallery:

4 solutions per page example

6 solutions per page example

9 solutions per page example

MAZE SOLUTION COLORING

In most cases maze books will be printed, so the solutions pages will have mini versions of the mazes. That will make them harder to view, so how can you enhance the mazes to make the solution easier to see ?

• Bolded Solution Pathway

  • As shown in the above examples. Just make the solution being a thick black line.

• Color Solution Pathway

  • Typically this is in red, as it is in my example. Now, most maze books are in black and white because of the much higher cost of color pages. However, the color definitely works if you can afford it. I will use the 9 per page as the example since it would be the hardest to view.

  • Row 1 is red and a thick line. Row 2 shows red lines in a slightly thicker width. Row 3 has a red line that is the same thickness of the walls while being red. Personally I think all 3 work, although it is easier to see row 1.

  • I should mention my post, Why Maze Books are (almost) Never made in Color. The TL;DR is a color maze book is significantly more expensive to print, something very important to consider if you use this solution !

9 maze solutions per page with pathway solutions in RED

• Decolor the Maze with Black solution

  • This is my favorite solution page. Take the maze from black and white (or even if it is in color) and convert it to greyscale. I like to keep the border black, but It can also change to grey. Now make your solution pathway in black, easy to see. Again I used 3 different line segments.

Greyscale solution examples

• Dashed Line Pathway Solution

  • If you want to keep your original coloring of the maze, you can use a dashed line to differentiate the solution from the walls of the pathways. I used 3 different dashes, each in 3 thicknesses. I think the third row is somewhat hard to see.

  • The maze below is structured with pathways a right angles. Dashed lines are very helpful when the pathways are free drawn because your eyes have trouble following winding pathways without significant differentiation between the lines.

So those are the options you have for solution pages. No matter what type of solution page you pick to use, you are in the home stretch of creating your maze book.

My Conclusion : Try a few options from above and see what works for you. Depending on the shape, color and format of your mazes a different solution style may work for you better. And of course, happy maze-making !

You like making mazes, so you might like some of my other posts about maze design:

Maze Design Case Study - Designing a Grid Maze in Different Difficulty levels

Maze Construction - 5 Maze Design Decisions Make All the Difference

A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to Improve Your Mazes

12 Maze Art Ideas : Unlocking Creative Possibilities

What I've Learned Making Mazes

Maze Comic Book Cover #62 - Spiral

Issue #62 in my comic book cover series is called Spiral and features the maze of a Unicorn.

My comic book cover mazes can be found in 2 places:

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 1 (Issues #1-53)

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 2

To receive a book of my first year of comic book book mazes (Volume 1 with mazes #1-53) you can sign up for my book alerts - any time I launch a free maze book, or paid book (on Amazon), I will send you a note about the new book launch.