retro video game bead sprite art

[greg]

I have posted some of these images on other forums, particularly the Pixelgasm forum.You can see larger images and more info on the blog I made about my Perler bead sprites on my homepage at http://stevethefish.net/life/life044.htm

These artworks are made from what are called either "fuse beads" or "iron beads," from companies like Perler in America, Hama in the UK, and Nabbi from Sweden. All three claim to be the "original" fuse beads, but I believe Nabbi are actually the first. I use all three for their various color gradations. It is a very fun hobby. It is time consuming and meticulous, but not tedious because it is fun.


Marle and Crono from Chrono Trigger


Bomberman from Super Bomberman 5 on the SNES/SFC


The twin ships from Galaga


Guzuta, Pinky, Akabei, and Aosuke!


Dig Dug


Arkanoid II: Revenge of Doh


Shin from Area 88, my favorite shmup on the Super Famicom


Etna from Disgaea


A larger-scale Bomberman


Arle and Carbunkle from Puyo Puyo 2, plus a Space Invader up in the corner.


Marth and Sheeda from Fire Emblem on the Super Famicom.

The following three are from the SNK Gals Fighters game on the Neo Geo Pocket Color:

Athena


Yuri

Mai


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

[Daniel]

These are really cool! Makes me want to make some to... I wonder if glow in the dark stuff or LED lights would work here...

By the way, I have a relative that's color confused as well, and I've been asked the "is this X color?" question quite a few times.

[greg]

These are really cool! Makes me want to make some to... I wonder if glow in the dark stuff or LED lights would work here...

By the way, I have a relative that's color confused as well, and I've been asked the "is this X color?" question quite a few times.

Thanks! They do have some glow-in-the-dark beads too, but I don't use them. The colors are very light, making it difficult for me to differentiate them. Pastels are very difficult for me. I can see colors, but I just get them confused. Especially red/green/brown spectrum stuff and pastels.

[Animusubi]

Wow these are really lovely! I especially love the Macross ones (obviously because of how detailed and beautiful they are). Roughly how much time does it take to make one of those?

[greg]

Well, a small sprite can be done in about 15 minutes or so. The larger ones, like the Macross characters, took several hours each. I just finished one a couple of nights ago of the car from Sega's Outrun arcade game, and that took me about 3 nights or so, working about at least an hour. I'd say totally it took about 5 hours total. Mind you, I have a visual impairment (being colorblind), so I have to think a lot about the colors I want to use, and I have to ask my wife what the colors are because I get the colors confused. Sometimes pastel green can look orange to me, and sometimes pink can look gray. It can be time consuming to count the number of spaces over to see how many of x color needs to go where, and constantly looking back and forth between my beads and the computer screen. When I make a mistake on larger projects, it may take a while to figure out where I went wrong, and shift all the beads beyond a certain point to where they need to be.

[greg]

Here is the Outrun bead sprite I recently completed:

[Animusubi]

Wow that is super amazing! O: Just out of curiousity, would you ever take like a commission for one of these in the future? I would love to get some Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle portraits in the future, they would be a great addition to my wall.

http://charas-project.net/resources/Fac ... 631401.PNG

[greg]

Yeah, those would be fun to make, assuming I can get the right colors. That was my very first SNES game I ever bought. It was made by a company called Masaya, which is one of my favorite Japanese game companies from the '90s. In fact, I am slowly in the process of making a fan page here: http://stevethefish.net/masaya

Have you seen the portraits for the Super Battle game? The character sprites may be a bit clearer.

Shipping from Japan would be the only real issue. I don't think they will turn out too large, so I could put them in a large envelope and put cardboard inside to keep them sturdy. I'll have to take a closer look at them to figure out if the proper colors exist, and to come up with a decent price.

[Animusubi]

Yeah, those would be fun to make, assuming I can get the right colors. That was my very first SNES game I ever bought. It was made by a company called Masaya, which is one of my favorite Japanese game companies from the '90s. In fact, I am slowly in the process of making a fan page here: http://stevethefish.net/masaya

Have you seen the portraits for the Super Battle game? The character sprites may be a bit clearer.

Shipping from Japan would be the only real issue. I don't think they will turn out too large, so I could put them in a large envelope and put cardboard inside to keep them sturdy. I'll have to take a closer look at them to figure out if the proper colors exist, and to come up with a decent price.

Oh neat. Never heard of Masaya, so that's pretty interesting how many games they've made.

I've seen the portraits for the other games, but I like the Hard Battle ones best, and it was my first Ranma 1/2 game. I bought it when it was in a bargain bin at Toys R Us for $5. Haha. It wasn't that great of a fighting game, but I played it ALOT. I also like the anime character designs of Hard Battle more. Super Battle follows Takahashi's designs more closely.

I didn't realize you were in Japan, but quote me anyways when you figure it out, no rush~

[greg]

Yeah, it's weird actually that so many people who have registered for this forum currently live or have lived at one point in Japan.

I bought my Super Nintendo the summer of 1994, right after I graduated high school. My very first game I bought was Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle. Looking back now, it was a rather mediocre game. However that night I stayed up until 3am playing the crap out of that game. I was very much interested in importing video games from Japan, and I chose the SNES over the Genesis because I liked the software library better and it was easier to play imports on than a Genesis. In the early 90s, I would drool over the ads for a company called Japan Video Games in the back of Electronic Gaming Monthly magazines and I wanted to start buying Super Famicom games. I bought my first SFC import game, Ranma 1/2: Super Battle back in the summer of 1996 for only $20 off of the Web, and it was in excellent condition (box and manual included). That began my love for import Super Famicom gaming, and the next SFC game I got was Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie. It went on from there, and in 1997 I began putting together my Anime Super Famicom page.

Masaya was the company that released the Ranma games until the Rumic Soft company took over. I own the three Ranma games for the PC Engine, the two Ranma games they made for the Super Famicom, and the one they made for the Mega CD (Sega CD in Japan).

How about I make the first portrait of Ranma from that picture, post a picture, and see how you like it. We can go from there. No pressure, because I wouldn't mind it myself.