skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

[skater43]

Thank you. I started with the background stuff, to define my edges and all and figured that was going to be where the bulk of the stitch time would be going. But when I got to where the text would be, I stopped, stitched the text, then filled in the background around it. I thought about leaving blank spots for the text to continue with the background, but figured that would be too easy to make a mistake and not leave a spot where I needed one and so on. So stitched the text, then went back to background stuff. Generally, I've been going back and forth, left and right with the background. However, some of the text has five stitches in a row. I didn't want to run a thread over those spots, which wouldn't look good on the back (like someone would ever see the back ). Running a thread under was another possibility, but instead, I did a bit of up and down stitching and basically did two lines at once for those rows. As I say, every project is different and requires a new technique or new approach or something.

It really is incredible the amount of money GDQ raises at each of their events. It is a shame my prize wasn't highlighted, but as I said, I wasn't the only one during that block. And I get that they only have so much time to show things off and I imagine want to show off some of the $5/10 prizes, the small things lots of people will be interested in without having to make a big financial commitment. But also the big impressive stuff that people put a lot of time and effort into. I know how long my project took and I'm sure a lot of other donors spent as much time, and likely more, in making their prizes. So yeah, I care about my prize and want my prize featured, but so does everyone else. And while I've donated a prize now for each event the past 5 or 6 years, that doesn't make me special or grant any other rights or privileges. As I said, I think my SGDQ prizes tend to get featured more because they are more relevant to speedrunning in general, or more humorous, as opposed to my AGDQ ones which are usually highlighting some bad Engrish and the like. But yeah, definitely looking forward to seeing how both King's Quest and Mappyland look all finished up. And curious to see what we do here with Mega Man once I get it stitched. Some sort of bright blue matte to go with Mega Man is the obvious choice, but maybe we'll try to pick up on one of the background colors or something.

[skater43]

Things are definitely shaping up nicely. 31 hours in now, including today's work. Most of these past two weeks was spent doing background, and you can see what made some great strides on that front. However, latter half of last week, we got to do some more interesting stuff. When I got to the part of the background where we hit Mega Man's foot, I finished my current thread, then went about outlining Mega Man/doing all the black of his sprite. As long as I had black thread loaded up, I then went ahead and started his health bar. Yesterday, we started working on the top part of the second background color. In two weeks, I'm heading up to the Bay Area and Dad's for the weekend. I don't know how much I'll be able to finish before I leave, but I'm setting things up so that I can sit and stitch while we watch TV or something, without having to have the pattern up in front of me. So I've got the top of the right side of the background done, am working on the left side (and a few stitches of the second background color above Mega Man). Once we get those set, we'll then fill in the rest of Mega Man. All that won't take the next two weeks, but at least three or four days likely. We'll then go back to filling in background. If we manage to finish all the background before we leave, we'll see about outlining the enemy or at least figuring out the upper boundary of the health bar, so we can mindlessly fill that in. Either way, should have something to work on while I'm gone. And depending on how much we get done these next couple of weeks will give us a pretty good idea of a finish date. At this moment, finishing around the 21st seems pretty likely. We will have to move the hoop up again, but because we'll have finished all of the second background color, we can shift the hoop up and left so that we can stitch the rest of the health bar and the enemy.

[Firehawke]

It's looking good! Love when I can get a project to a point where I can just fill some stuff in without needing the pattern up in front of my face! Happy stitching and safe travels!

[skater43]

Thank you. It's coming along. Finished filling in Mega Man today and did the little bit of white at the bottom of the magnet enemy as long as I white loaded up. Next week or so, this'll also give us a better idea of where we are vertically and where to move the hoop and all. Looking at things, we are definitely going to finish the second background color before we leave. Ballparking things, I'd say we finish the background on Tuesday. So we'll spend the rest of next week working on the magnet enemy and finding the top boundary of Mega Man's health bar, so we can fill in said bar while we're gone. I'll take my laptop, and thus the pattern, with me, so I can work on detail stuff, too, but mindlessly filling is obviously simpler and easier. But this also means it looks like we'll be wrapping this project up a bit sooner than expected, maybe around February 13 or 14 or so, which means we really need to start figuring out/putting together our next project.

[skater43]

Another project done! Obviously, not stitching all the top of the background saved us a bunch of hours, but that was by design. All told, this took 47 hours to complete, so not too bad. Planning things out for this past weekend worked out perfectly. Actually finished all the background stuff the middle of last week, so spent the latter half of the week outlining the magnet enemy and defining Mega Man's (empty) health bar. I was actually able to finish the white of the enemy, too, before I left, so could have easily filled that in over the weekend as well, had I gotten to that point. As it was, I was able to work on filling the health bar and didn't quite finish it. But that was fine, we knocked the rest of it out Monday and then finish filling in the enemy yesterday. Tried to drop this off at the framer a little bit ago and they were closed, so we'll try again tomorrow after Bible study.

As for our next project, well, we'll see. I don't have anything currently lined up and ready. However, have few possibilities, so we'll see. At this point, I've finished stitching donation projects for SGDQ 2026 and 2027 (King's Quest V and Mega Man 3. Depending on when they get done, we'll see which decide to donate this year and which we'll save for next year). Also have AGDQ 2027's prize done. I have some ideas for AGDQ 2028, but haven't put anything together yet/haven't cropped things into a stitchable pattern yet. I have my idea for SGDQ 2028 and roughed out some of the text, but haven't gotten a screenshot yet, or even picked the game. Have a few possibles, but need to do further research into which of them show the info I want to show and such. Also still awaiting my Phantom Hourglass pattern so we can finish the Zelda series. I have the next series of games planned and have patterned up the first game in that series/first game of that series we'll be stitching (plan to make a new thread for that, too. So we'll keep this thread for our GDQ projects, other odd stuff that comes up and then have the new thread for our next series, to keep all those together and organized and such). However, I don't have the cloth for it. Ordered that today, but it's coming from Limeyland, so it'll take a little while. Estimated delivery is February 17-26. Knowing how these things work, I'm expecting it closer to the 26th than the 17th. So, next few days, week or so, we'll be taking a break from actual stitching, though I'll likely be putting together some of our upcoming GDQ patterns, as well as the next game series. We get a workable pattern for our next game series and it doesn't require a weird cloth color, maybe we'll go ahead and start work on it. We'll see. But excited to see what the framer comes up with for a frame for MM3 and we'll see what our next project actually turns out to be.

[Firehawke]

It looks so good! Congrats on another wonderful finish! May your fabric come quickly!

[skater43]

Thank you. Always good to finish one, and looking forward to the next. Speaking of, picked up the cloth this morning, so it arrived a bit quicker than expected. And, as promised, we started a new thread for this new series of games/projects, that can be found at https://www.spritestitch.com/forum/view ... =3&t=38221

And, once again, we failed to list the colors used on MM3. So, we'll do that now:
white: BLANC
black: 310
red of the magnet enemy: 3831
pinky purple the lower third of the background: 211
the lighter purple in the middle section of the background: 3747
orange of the magnet enemy: 977
Mega Man's face: 945
dark blue of Mega Man: 3765
lighter blue of Mega Man: 964