8- and 16-bit sprite pixel art with Perler beads

[greg]

I found a new hobby to suck at. I'd seen some web sites on pixel art before after I saw Retrocalypse on Youtube showing some of his pixel art (don't remember the medium though). A few years back I bought those .S "puzzles" (very search engine unfriendly product name, btw) of Pac Man and Dig Dug in Harajuku's Kiddie Land. Some people have done this with Lego bricks. Well, I was at Joann's with my wife last night and I saw these boxes and bags of Perler beads. I figured that this would be a cool way of making these. Turns out that this girl has already done a ton of this. Check out her photos; they're awesome. Apparently szycag has some of these too.

Check out her Tritoch from Final Fantasy 6:


It's pretty easy, but the trick is the color matching and I happen to be color blind. I started putting together Marle from Chrono Trigger while my wife watched and my baby daughter made a mess of the beads on the floor. Most of the conversation was like:
"Is this orange?"
"No, it's light green."
"Thanks. Is this brown?"
"No, it's dark green."
"Nuts."

It sucks being color blind. I can see colors, but my eyes get them confused in relation to other colors and the context they are in. Sometimes I need a reference before I can identify a color. This sucks when I'm playing color-dependent puzzle games such as Super Puzzle Figther, Puzzle Bobble, and Puyo Puyo (The latter two are particularly hard on my Neo Geo Pocket Color).

I found this website of sprite archives. I downloaded a bunch of these tiny sprites, loaded them with MS Paint and zoomed in 800%. Bang, translate pixels to beads. Put some wax paper that the beads come with on top and iron them together. The iron will melt and fuse the beads together, and viola. Neat stuff, huh?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Some shmup styled art with Perler beads would look awesome. Thanks for bring up this cool topic. Imagine if someone made a stop-motion flick using this medium, would've definitely be a labor of love indeed.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[greg]

I looked but unfortunately didn't find any R-Type, Gradius, or Twinbee sprites. I guess I could just get a screenshot from an emulator and blow up the pixels. Should be pretty easy to get a usable reference for a Vic Viper from Gradius III.

This bead-based pixel artwork is a real labor of love, along the lines of those who reproduce game music using Mario Paint.

[Fudoh]

There's a nice NeoGAF thread on this topic as well. Has lots of nice pics.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=353924

[mortified_penguin]

Never thought I'd run into someone here and on HF.

Anyway, very cool.

[greg]

Never thought I'd run into someone here and on HF.

Anyway, very cool.

Hi there! Yeah, I frequent Hobby Fanatics way more often than this forum.

Tonight I finished Marle and Crono from Chrono Trigger! I think I may try to frame this somehow.

[fastbilly1]

The most incredible Perler work Ive seen is by Doc. He does both 2d and 3d perler works (before finding his site I was unaware of 3d perler works). His Marvel stuff is crazy:
http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/tag/perler/

[Pirate1019]

The most incredible Perler work Ive seen is by Doc. He does both 2d and 3d perler works (before finding his site I was unaware of 3d perler works). His Marvel stuff is crazy:
http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/tag/perler/

He has a 3D one of Vic Viper!

[ZOM]

The most incredible Perler work Ive seen is by Doc. He does both 2d and 3d perler works (before finding his site I was unaware of 3d perler works). His Marvel stuff is crazy:
http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/tag/perler/

He is the one with the Vic Viper right?


EDIT: yeah, found it: (Pirate beat me to it.)

[null1024]

The most incredible Perler work Ive seen is by Doc. He does both 2d and 3d perler works (before finding his site I was unaware of 3d perler works). His Marvel stuff is crazy:
http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/tag/perler/

He is the one with the Vic Viper right?


EDIT: yeah, found it: (Pirate beat me to it.)

And I weep with joy upon seeing that. WOW.

[szycag]

[AcidBath86]

Now that is pretty crafty indeed. I remember using those perler beads back when I was a kid but all I came up with was some random crap. Looking at this actually makes me want to try it out again someday.

[Lordstar]

there are a few people over on Aradeotaku.com who do this. Some pretty good ones over there nothing as 'grande' as the FF phoenix or the megaman X though.

[fastbilly1]

The most incredible Perler work Ive seen is by Doc. He does both 2d and 3d perler works (before finding his site I was unaware of 3d perler works). His Marvel stuff is crazy:
http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/tag/perler/

He is the one with the Vic Viper right?


EDIT: yeah, found it: (Pirate beat me to it.)

And I weep with joy upon seeing that. WOW.

I was unaware of that one. Now that is simply awesome.

[greg]

OK, so after looking at the papercraft thread, I decided to resurrect this old thread of mine to show off something I'm proud of. Today I completed my third sprite art from SNK vs Capcom on the NGPC. These are rather large, about 14" tall each.




These are pretty badass. I will begin on Kyo, Iori, and Terry soon. I can't remember if it was Rancor or Dcharlie who also does bead sprite art, but I made these Raiden fighters for the Tokyo shmuppers when I visited them in April.


Here are some other shmuppy sprites:

[drauch]

Nice ones, Greg! I do this as well, although I've been slacking off lately. I was making a HUGE Mai Shiranui from KOF, a Richter from Dracula X, and a Jill Valentine from MVC2, but those have all fallen through due to not having enough time. Hopefully I'll start off again soon, and when I do I have this in mind:

Myau from Phantasy Star. It'll take awhile, but I think it'd look really good framed.

Anyhow, a bit of my bead work is in the creative thread somewhere in the off topic.

[greg]

I think that Myau will be a large project. The best way to fill in large areas of just one color, I've found, is to dump a bunch of beads onto it and just nudge them onto the pegs. A lot of them fall right onto the pegs right away.

Here's a Mai sprite I made. I also did Yuri and Athena too. I took the sprites from the SNK Gals Fighters game for the NGPC. I've enjoyed using sprites from the NGPC. The images are both simple in color, yet rather detailed.



Here's a link to the gallery I've made on my homepage:

http://stevethefish.net/life/life044.htm

[Franco B]

Here's a couple of mine.

Wiimote tidy:







Spacies coasters:





Xmas tree star:

[greg]

Neat stuff, and the star on the tree is a great idea! Can you try re-linking those images? The first several just display as "image".

[KennyMan666]

Here's a pretty awesome thing a friend of mine and her husband did.

[rancor]

You made the blue one for me:



I got some double-sided tape and stuck it to the mirror in my bedroom - Its one of the first things I see when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I can (clearly) see when I take out my contacts at night! Thanks so much, its a beaut!

[BPzeBanshee]

Those Raiden beadworks are AWESOME!

[Sumez]

Before I go out hunting on my own, does anyone know, are "Perler" beads cheaper than "Hama"?

I wanted to make some awesome huge sprites, but getting the specific colors I need in the amount I need turned out to be too expensive for my tastes with Hama beads. I didn't realise there was an alternative.

[RNGmaster]

Before I go out hunting on my own, does anyone know, are "Perler" beads cheaper than "Hama"?

I wanted to make some awesome huge sprites, but getting the specific colors I need in the amount I need turned out to be too expensive for my tastes with Hama beads. I didn't realise there was an alternative.

Perler beads are better since they don't instant-kill.

lol SMT joke

[greg]

I got some double-sided tape and stuck it to the mirror in my bedroom - Its one of the first things I see when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I can (clearly) see when I take out my contacts at night! Thanks so much, its a beaut!

I'm touched! You're welcome. Were you the one who also does bead work, or was that dcharlie?

Before I go out hunting on my own, does anyone know, are "Perler" beads cheaper than "Hama"?

You're in Denmark, so I imagine that Hama may be cheaper for you. Hama is from the UK, Perler is from the US. There's another brand called Nabbi, which comes from Sweden. Nabbi are actually the original fuse beads (also called Photo Pearls, their website is http://photopearls.se/).

I live in the USA, so naturally Perler are easy to find in stores and are inexpensive. However, if you get serious about the hobby, it's good to use beads from different manufacturers. Take those Raiden sprites I made for Rancor and the gang in Tokyo. The red fighter has about five shades of red and the blue has five shades of blue. Perler only has red and "Cran Apple," which is more like a burgundy color. Very dark red. I've found that the regular Hama Red is a tad darker than Perler Red, and Hama Dark Red is what I'd expect dark red to look like. I just received my first package of Hama Blue and it's noticeably darker than Perler Blue (they actually call it Light Blue to differentiate from Dark Blue, but it's more of a medium blue). Those Raiden fighters also have four shades of gray, and so a bit of variety is necessary (unless you don't care about detail).

I use mostly Perler because of the availability, but I do have several Hama and a few Nabbi colors. They are all interchangeable and I have little problem fusing them together.

Chun Li, Ryu, and Sakura above were all 100% Perler, but the Iori I finished yesterday used Hama dark blue. I'm working on Terry and I'm using the Hama dark red on him.

[greg]

Here's the second set of characters from SNK vs Capcom on the NGPC: Iori, Terry, and Kyo!



Here are two more I've made: Plenair from Disgaea DS and Chibi Totoro.



As with all images I put on here, you can click on them for a closer look. I found the Chibi Totoro design by doing a Google image search. I'd provide a link, but I can't seem to find it again. I modified the Chibi Totoro slightly, and the white one I designed myself. My wife says you can't have one without the little white one. I used the Nabbi Light Gray beads for that. They're such a light color that they're practically an off-white color. I wish I had those when I made my Arkanoid bead sprite pixel art last year.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I don't know if it would help or not, but I or somebody else could probably make a program that gives you an exact count of each color.
Making shopping a bit easier. Load a sprite into the program and get an instant shopping list.

[drauch]

^that would be excellent.

[greg]

I don't know if it would help or not, but I or somebody else could probably make a program that gives you an exact count of each color.
Making shopping a bit easier. Load a sprite into the program and get an instant shopping list.

There actually already is such a software. http://www.dolkow.se/perler It works okay, I guess, but it's not quite as useful as I'd like it. Sometimes its color approximations are a bit off. There's an iPhone/iPad app called Bead It that seems superior.

[greg]

I just posted this on the Pixelgasm forum. Does anyone here like Macross shmups?


Hikaru, Max, and Millia from Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie on the Super Famicom. These are big and took a lot of time to make!

Depending on your monitor's resolution, your screen may cut off Millia's face. Just click the image for a zoomed version of the image.

I wasn't satisfied with some of Millia's hair. The quality of Perler beads seems to have changed recently, and the colors aren't as bold as they once were. Plus, they feel different.