Heye - Zozoville: Chaperone 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

A one-eyed monster the size of a small tree walking a child home along a forest path, holding hands, and the child is not remotely worried. Which is the joke, and also why the picture works.

What you are looking at

The monster is shaggy cream and grey, standing on two legs, with one large eye, a wide grin of blunt uneven teeth, teal-tipped spines running down its back and a long tail curling out behind. It is stooping slightly to hold the hand of a child in a red raincoat and red gumboots with a small pack on their back. They are on a dirt path. Around them, dusty green pines, mauve-grey mountains and a flat pink sky.

It is painted in gouache and it looks it: chalky, muted, with the brushwork left visible everywhere. From Heye's long-running Zozoville series, and this one is signed Mateo.

What it is like to build

The monster is about half the picture and it is nearly all one off-white, so be clear with yourself: this is a fur puzzle. That is what you are buying.

What saves it is the brushwork. The fur is painted in long strokes that all run downward and slightly outward from the spine, and those strokes are clearly visible at piece scale. Sort the pale pieces by the direction the strokes run and you can place a great many of them without any colour cue at all. It is the same discipline as sorting a sky by grain, and it works better here because the strokes are bolder.

Order of play: the child first, the only strong red in the frame and the smallest region. Then the path and the pines, which have real edges. Then the pink sky, which is flat but small. Leave the body for last and let the strokes and the piece shapes carry you through it.

Why Heye

Heye are German and their whole editorial position is licensing artwork that other publishers would not print. Zozoville is the clearest example of it in their catalogue: a monster series with no story attached, published as paintings rather than as a franchise, and running for years. Surreal and lowbrow art is a small corner of this category and Heye more or less own it.

Specifications

A little context

Zozoville titles get collected as a set more than most, partly because they hang well together and partly because the palette is consistent across the series: chalky pastels, no black, always one small figure for scale. We have two more in stock, Neighbourhood and Spring Time, and both are noticeably easier builds than this one because neither is half covered in white fur.

Stock is real and it is in Sydney. Free shipping Australia wide over $150, and free same-day delivery inside 6 km of North Bondi with no minimum.

Built it already? Use the Questions section below and tell us how you found it. Which part fought you, how long it took, and whether you would send someone else to it. We answer every one.