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skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Video game craft projects made with thread and needles...
skater43
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

As I've said, this pattern is one I've been working on for several months now. Not that it took a lot of work, but it's changed a few times, added some things, tweaked it, changed the direction I was going with it some. So the included pictures are numbered 1-9 for easier reference and kind of show the process/evolution of the pattern. 4. is really the first real idea of the pattern I came up with, but 1-3 show where we got 4. from. The background/original scene is from Castlevania 3 for the NES. Three times throughout the game, our hero Trevor Belmont (grandfather of Simon Belmont who I stitched for my Castlevania 1 picture hanging up in Gordon's Good Games and is still available for sale) meets companions that will help him fight Dracula. You can only have one companion, so we see in 1. meeting the first companion and the player choosing whether to take him along or not. If you say yes, the two shake hands as seen in 2. So that was the backdrop for my big plan. That's well and good, but if we put in other text, reference to another game, we can add some humor and such. One of the most famous lines in NES history is that of the first cave in original Legend of Zelda (3.), which is one of the first crossstitch projects I did for myself and what kicked off this project to do something from each of the Zelda games I've beaten. So we insert that text, add a little and we get 4. Which is good. Funny, people will get the reference and all that. But then it was, well, we included Zelda, can we add more? Had grand schemes of including a reference to every series of at least 3 or 4 games on the NES (Zelda wouldn't have qualified, but you can't have the NES without a Zelda reference), changing the background to a scene from Contra or other game, bit too ambitious, cluttered and such. But figured we could get a couple of other games in. Mario, of course, is the big Nintendo staple, so had to get him in there. And using him in place of the companion you actually meet was the easiest. Couldn't find any screenshots of something that would work from Super Mario Bros. 1-3, but did find 5. which is a collection of sprites used in SMB3. Did have to flip it so Mario was facing right, but otherwise could copy and paste. So we got Mario in, so then we set out to find a couple of other well known quotes/references from NES games. 6. is from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. Pull up the menu as seen here and April will give some advice or state the current objective, and concludes her messages with "You have my support", which is about as useful as the info she gives. But NES players will get it/know it's source. 7. is from Mega Man 2. Any of the 6 NES Mega Man games would have worked. I chose 2 because it's the one I'm most familiar with. Nothing special in and of itself of Item 2, it was as good a weapon/item as any other. So these three quotes were also chosen because they form a logical progression/work together. So we put them together and we have 8. Because part of Mario is black, as is the background, I did have to position him a little further from Trevor, but the idea/concept of everything still works. And then 9. we cropped down to what we're actually going to stitch. Lose a lot of the background, but A) we don't want to be stitching this for months, we have a deadline and B) NES players will still recognize it from Castlevania 3.

So this is what we'll be working on the next few weeks. I really like this as an idea, I think it's a lot of fun and hope an NES fan wins it and appreciates it. I have a pattern and a screenshot of two other "odes to the NES" in my "one of these days" pile, but I'm considering doing this for myself as well. We'll do this, finish up Wind Waker, then see where we are in the calendar. May do this for myself, then do our AGDQ 2024 prize, then kick off the end of 2023 with Minish Cap as our next Zelda project. But for now, we'll be doing this as our next prize donation (SGDQ 2023 is May 28 - June 4 check https://gamesdonequick.com/ for details/schedules, etc.)

And looks like we're limited on number of files we can attach per message, so look for 6-9 in the next post.
Attachments
5. NES - Super Mario Bros 3 - Mario & Luigi.png
4. sgdq castlevania3.png
4. sgdq castlevania3.png (2.03 KiB) Viewed 1703 times
3. legendzelda-12.png
3. legendzelda-12.png (2.95 KiB) Viewed 1703 times
2. castlevania3-29.png
2. castlevania3-29.png (2.27 KiB) Viewed 1703 times
1. castlevania3-27.png
1. castlevania3-27.png (2.71 KiB) Viewed 1703 times

skater43
Rank 6 - Tanooki Mario
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

Pictures 6-9 from previous post.
Attachments
9. sgdq nes mashup 2.png
9. sgdq nes mashup 2.png (1.84 KiB) Viewed 1703 times
8. sgdq nes mashup.png
8. sgdq nes mashup.png (3.97 KiB) Viewed 1703 times
7. megaman2-40.png
7. megaman2-40.png (2.56 KiB) Viewed 1703 times
6. tmnt1-25.png
6. tmnt1-25.png (3.6 KiB) Viewed 1703 times

skater43
Rank 6 - Tanooki Mario
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

So here we are, two weeks in. Actually, about 15 hours because this includes today's work. As you can see, we've made a lot of progress already. In fact, I was thinking we could maybe finish this in closer to three weeks, but I don't think so now. Had this been about a three week project, I would have skipped doing a WIP pic and just waited to show the finished product. But since it'll take a little longer than that, you guys have a chance to see what we have done. We only have Mario, the background blocks and Trevor to go (we've started some of the outline of Trevor, starting with his feet), and each will take a few days. However, this won't take more than 4 weeks, so we'll finish up sometime next week. Pleased with the text/how it turned out, and looking forward to working on the characters and background.
Attachments
sgdq 2023 WIP 3-26-23 IMG_20230326_162018.jpg

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Firehawke
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by Firehawke »

Ooooh...it's looking SO good! :clapping:
"May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong." - President Thomas S. Monson

skater43
Rank 6 - Tanooki Mario
Rank 6 - Tanooki Mario
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

Thank you. :) Text isn't the most interesting thing to look at, but it was easier to start there to figure out my boundaries/stitching area. And does make it easy to see progress. Need to do a few more stitches on Trevor to finish him up, then we'll move the hoop to knock out Mario and the background blocks and we're done. Still figuring about this time next week we'll finish up.

skater43
Rank 6 - Tanooki Mario
Rank 6 - Tanooki Mario
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

And here we go, everything stitched. Finished up this morning and dropped it off at The Artery this afternoon. As expected, a quick project, but that's what we want with these. 26 days stitching means we did it in about 26 hours. Marathon is the end of May/start of June (May 28 to June 3), so we've got a good 4, 5 weeks to get it framed to have it in plenty of time to get shipped off. Overall, this went very smoothly and the only real mistake of consequence was this morning when doing the dark green to the right of Mario. Got near the bottom of the third one and realized I'd done an extra stitch at the bottom of the first one, which I used as a guide for the other two. I briefly considered just adding an extra stitch to the bottom of the pillar to Mario's left, but then figured I'd have to do it to the pillar in the right corner, too and in the grand scheme of things, it would look off. And frankly, it was prolly faster and easier to take 20ish minutes to undo and redo things. So that's what we did. Pleased with the results, and think everything came out well and is a nice tribute to the NES. Not close to all inclusive or even hitting all the major series, but we got five of the big ones covered.

And with this finished, we turn our attention back to Wind Waker. Get that going again tomorrow. 6-8 weeks to go on that or so, so end of May-ish. And after that, I'm undecided. As stated when I started this project, I really like how the design came out and am thinking about stitching it for myself. Know I can bust it out in just under a month, so we do it after Wind Waker, we're looking the end of June. I have a pattern for Zelda: Minish Cap, so that would logically be my next Zelda project. However, I've got a pattern idea for Spirit Tracks, so I plan to post on the pattern request page here so you guys can help me turn one of the pictures I have into a workable pattern. We've got 2-3 months before I'd need it, which should be plenty of time. In which case, I may do that next, and then Minish Cap. Other possibility is to come up with an idea for AGDQ 2024 (have some screenshot possibilities, including one rather likely option), stitch that, get it taken care of by the end of July or so, and then go August to March working on whichever Zelda game without interruption. But, we've got a few weeks to figure all that out. Wind Waker first, finish that up, then we'll see where we go from there.

And lest I forget, here's the colors I used. nce I finished the text and started work on the pillar in the lower right, I double-checked my colors and was glad I did. Not that it would make a huge difference but I discovered that the light grey of the pillar was different than the light grey of the blocks. Fortunately, thanks to Twilight Princess and it's 15 different greys, I had another thread to use. Surprised me, considering the NES is limited in the number of colors it can show, but that's what MS Paint was telling me.

blanc - text
168 - grey in the lower right pillar
319 - dark green of the pillars
433 - brown outline of Trevor
415 - middle of the blocks (think I got myself confused on this one and originally intended to use 414, which is darker, but this works)
745 - Trevor's skin
762 - outline of the blocks
796 - blue of the blocks
816 - Mario's clothes
819 - Mario's skin
3064 - orange of Trevor's clothes
3810 - turquoise of the pillars
Attachments
sgdq 2023 done 4-6-23 IMG_20230406_112333.jpg

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Firehawke
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by Firehawke »

Fantastic job!!!!! :clapping:
"May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong." - President Thomas S. Monson

skater43
Rank 6 - Tanooki Mario
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

Thank you. :) I do like how it turned out: not only the stitching, but the overall pattern/what I was shooting for. Really do think I'll do this for myself as well.

Meantime, WW is moving along. Lion head is starting to take shape and I plan to spend the next few days doing the neck/connecting the boat with the head. Still a few weeks to go and we'll likely have to move the hoop one more time to get everything, but mid-Mayish I expect to be wrapping it up.

And work has begun on a Spirit Tracks pattern. ovi.sergiu has come up with one draft and blackmageheart is working on one herself. Anyone else wish to chime in/offer assistance/come up with a possible pattern, they are more than welcome http://www.spritestitch.com/forum/viewt ... 15&t=21780

skater43
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

Nothing like waiting until the last minute. Unfortunately, because of the delay in getting the frame, this wasn't finished until yesterday. Doubly unfortunate, I was at work all day yesterday (adding to my resentment of mid shifts. Much prefer closing so that my days are free to take care of things like this), so I couldn't pick it up until today. However, all is not lost. Emailed GDQ yesterday stating I had something ready to go, just needed to pick it up and got the green light to send it. Just mailed it off and it might get there by Saturday, so they should have it on hand to display in the background. It is listed on the Accepted Prizes https://gamesdonequick.com/tracker/prizes/43 (NES mash-up cross stitch), but as of this post, they haven't started sorting by games/when what prizes are available. Not really an NES block, so not sure where they'll put my prize, but they'll come up with something appropriate. But I'm happy we were able to get it in. Definitely sweating this week, wondering if it would be finished in time. Event does start Sunday https://gamesdonequick.com/schedule/43 so coming right up.

As for this picture for myself, we are making great progress. Finished stitching Trevor this morning, have the lower right pillar down and all the text. So all that's left is Mario, the blocks and the pillar behind Mario. Looking at a week+, so prolly June 4 or 5. Because The Artery is closed Mondays, we may go a little extra if needed to finish the 4th, or go easy and just wait until the 6th. We'll see how stitching goes the next week.

And then we start in with our AGDQ prize. And turning that in the start of July should ensure we have it done and ready before January. :) Fairly simple picture, though a lot of solid coloring, so will take the usual 4-5 weeks I think. But a chance to showcase why proofreaders provide a useful service.
Attachments
sgdq 2023 framed IMG_2691.jpg

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Firehawke
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by Firehawke »

It looks fantastic! Love that framing job!

Happy stitching!
"May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong." - President Thomas S. Monson

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