Turbo perler bead/pixel bead "art"

[roflmao]

Thanks!  Here's one I did during lunch today, Soldier Blade!

[Nando]

Thanks!  Here's one I did during lunch today, Soldier Blade!

NICE! the local gaming conventions have tons of folk selling wares like these, but non Obey centric. Very well done!

[esteban]

Well damn, these are nice!

Agreed! I especially like how rofltonmrofl made a background out of peeler beads. Brilliant!

[bob]

Thanks!  Here's one I did during lunch today, Soldier Blade!

I'm lovin these. Do you take requests?  Do WMAC.

[roflmao]

I'm lovin these. Do you take requests?  Do WMAC.

Thanks!  I probably should know what WMAC is... but I don't.  Is it a ship? 

[esteban]

I'm lovin these. Do you take requests?  Do WMAC.

Thanks!  I probably should know what WMAC is... but I don't.  Is it a ship? 

The only thing I can think of, sadly, is our fellow forum member: wacdonagle.

[Retrocool]

Holy shit, that is EPIC

[roflmao]

Thanks, gang! My son and I have spent the weekend sorting one of those big buckets of random perler beads so now I've got a much wider range of colors. hopefully I'll have some new pics in the next day or two.

[roflmao]

I made a Super Star Soldier Ship today (in the pic below next to the Soldier Blade one), but I think with a little tweaking I can make a better one.  But first I want to take a crack at the Final Soldier ship (which I think will look awesome!).  Here's a pic of my current worktable.



I'm having way too much fun with this...

[420GOAT]

those are cool.

[esteban]

I think they are kool. I WOULD USE THEM AS XMAS ORNAMENTS.

[Tatsujin]

ah, so i'll need me to buy one of these transparent perler boards, so i can copycat them much easier. hehe.

[roflmao]

ah, so i'll need me to buy one of these transparent perler boards, so i can copycat them much easier. hehe.

Yeah.... not exactly.

Once I capture a sprite from an emulator it's taken into Photoshop and cropped and the background is removed.  Removing the BG is sometimes tricky because it can be hard to tell what's part of the sprite and what's the BG. There have been a few sprites I've started on and gave up because the BG is just too busy.



Then I recolor the sprite using a custom palette I created by taking pictures of my beads and sampling them.  You can see the custom palette in the top right.



Then I enlarge the image and print it out.  But the colors that I see on the screen and the colors that get printed aren't always very consistent (I'm using just regular printer paper, not expensive photo paper).  So sometimes it's not always apparent which shade is which.  This became a problem with Final Soldier and I had to redo a good chunk of it because I was using the wrong shade of blue.



And the printout isn't the same size as the pegboard, though I'm sure with a little tinkering I could get it to fit.  But I find it more useful to have it next to me in case I have to take it back to the computer to compare colors...



But Final Soldier is done!  I like how it came out.  But I'm DONE with beads for the day.  That one took longer than I was anticipating...

EDIT:  It's no wonder more people don't make Obey bead art.  There are just too many damn colors in the sprites!   Not to mention the perler peg boards are 29x29 and a lot of the sprites are 32x32, which can be done but is a pain.  I've been thinking about getting a really big pegboard, but I hear they warp easily (after reading amazon reviews).  Still on the fence. I have worked out some really nice, big projects (like title screens), but they would have to be done on a larger pegboard.  And I'd need a larger work area.

[Tatsujin]

i have two of those pegboards which can be connected (of course) so that i'll get a 58x29. for most sprites higher than 29 pixels (which are most of them in the later 8 to 16bit era) it does work perfect.

that's also a reason why i totally would like to re-invent that whole perler thing as mentioned on a previous page.

[NecroPhile]

Neato beads, rofl! 

Removing the BG is sometimes tricky because it can be hard to tell what's part of the sprite and what's the BG. There have been a few sprites I've started on and gave up because the BG is just too busy.

In Magic Engine you can turn on/off the background (sprites too if you want) on the fly, making it child's play to get just the sprite.  I've not much experience with other emulators, but I imagine they all do it.

[FiftyQuid]

Damn.  These are incredible.  The closest I've come to Perler bead are is when I got a Lite-Brite back in the 80's for Christmas.

[roflmao]

In Magic Engine you can turn on/off the background (sprites too if you want) on the fly, making it child's play to get just the sprite.  I've not much experience with other emulators, but I imagine they all do it.

Cool tip!  I'm using Ootake.  I'll have to see if that's do-able.  Should would help streamline the process a bit.

[Tatsujin]

magic engine is free as a 5 min trial limitation per game (iirc). nuff time to rip some awesome sprites

[hizaygizirlz]

Wow you guys are amazing all of these are really nice.

[JoshTurboTrollX]

I made a Super Star Soldier Ship today (in the pic below next to the Soldier Blade one), but I think with a little tweaking I can make a better one.  But first I want to take a crack at the Final Soldier ship (which I think will look awesome!).  Here's a pic of my current worktable.



I'm having way too much fun with this...

O_O

That blue ship towards the bottom right looks SO familiar!!!

*glances down at Xmas gifts*

xu7n.jpg

[roflmao]

I made a Super Star Soldier Ship today (in the pic below next to the Soldier Blade one), but I think with a little tweaking I can make a better one.  But first I want to take a crack at the Final Soldier ship (which I think will look awesome!).  Here's a pic of my current worktable.



I'm having way too much fun with this...

O_O

That blue ship towards the bottom right looks SO familiar!!!

*glances down at Xmas gifts*
xu7n.jpg

Guilty!  Merry Christmas, Joshua! And that's the ship from the Twinbee series! Fun cute-em-up series (though the play mechanics can be pretty challenging).

I made these for my son for Christmas.  He's a huge fan of anything Plants vs Zombies:

[Nando]

Wow, great job!

You guys got a place where you are selling these at? 

[roflmao]

Wow, great job!

You guys got a place where you are selling these at? 

Thanks!

I've thought some about trying to sell them, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to pay what it would cost to make these worthwhile for me. ;)

I see people selling similar bead art sprites on etsy and ebay for $5-10 apiece and I don't know how they do it.  Maybe because they are sticking to smaller sprites with a lower color count and can sell a lot of them, but I can't imagine hordes of people picking these up. 

And I spend an absurd amount of time working these out in Photoshop before I even sit down to assemble them. 

Plus, I have to keep a ton of different colors on hand.  For the zombie above, I ran out of 2 colors and had to improvise in a couple of areas, but that means I've got to go out and buy 2 more colors (at least) to do any more of them. 

If I knew I could crank out a lot of these and knew they'd sell, I'd do it in a heartbeat, because it's fun and somewhat relaxing.  But for the time being, I think I'll keep doing them as gifts and just for the fun of it.

[Nando]

Wow, great job!

You guys got a place where you are selling these at? 

Thanks!

I've thought some about trying to sell them, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to pay what it would cost to make these worthwhile for me. ;)

I hear ya man.  Either way, keep up the great work and maybe do a few small ones that you can sell in bulk ;)

[roflmao]

I've also thought about getting a table at some local craft show, but then I'd have to focus on making stuff that would sell.  Mario, Zelda, Mega Man, Pokemon, My Little Pony all seem to be pretty popular right now... meh.  I really like the process of coming up with something new.

I'd be happy to take on a commissioned piece, if anyone's ever interested, though! 

Will work for Obey!