Nonogram Dragons- Picture Puzzle

Nonogram (aka Picross) is a Japanese picture logic puzzle. The objective is to figure out which of the squares in the grid should be filled and which should be filed with single dot (or empty). You use the number clues for columns and rows.

I love nongrams because they are very visual and there is a final reward- a picture.

I tested all of these puzzles so they have only 1 solution. The Puzzles are at the end of the post if you wish to skip the tutorial.

Getting started- Heart

You first look for the biggest number in the grid to get started.

As there are only 5 slots, all 5 squares get filled.

Next you can see that 2 columns have been filled so you put dots in lines that have been completed.

The 4th row has only 3 spaces left, so you fill those next.

The first row- there are two 1-s and they cannot touch, hence you put a dot between and fill the two squares.

Now final step: the middle column is missing 1 adjacent square, fill the last square. At the same time you completed the last row.

Little harder- Resting Dragon

Numbers on grey background are double digit numbers.

The order of the numbers matters

Remember to also count from the edges.

Sometimes putting dots helps as much as filling the squares. If there are less empty spaces than required number, all of those will be dots.

If you have more than 1 number in a row or column, you can count the possible number of squares, a dot and then the
overlapping squares from the other direction get filled.

If there is only 1 number in a line, don't forget to connect any squares in that line.

When you have a lot of small numbers, work with negative space: find the dots instead of filled areas.

How I made the nongrams

I used 8bit painter (free app) on my phone to create the original pixel art designs.

Afterwards I scaled up the designs, with lowered opacity over a grid for reference.

I pre-made the 5x5 grid that I reused for all of the puzzles. I also used thicker line after every 5 squares for easier counting.

The grids are on separate layers, so I can easily add as many rows and columns as I need.

Before adding numbers, I cropped the unused space and made sure the border is thicker.

I added numbers and improved some of the drawings along the way.

More about the origin and additional tutorial.

Now the Puzzles!

Dragon Portrait- 8x8

The youngling-8x8

European Dragon-12x10

Friendly Dragon- 10x2

Big Portrait- 15x14

Wingless Dragon- 15x13

This was one of the harder posts to make. So if you enjoyed these puzzles and want more of them in the future, don't forget to:

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Let me know in the comments what difficulty nonograms would you like more of.

Also I will have a dragon painting for you tomorrow :D