A Gusty Galaxy appears!

I'm trying to stray away from classic NES chiptune type songs more than I'm used to as they're not as universally enjoyed by all than more modern game soundtracks. On that note, I give you the best track on Super Mario Galaxy 1. I still get goosebumps as it builds up. Even if you hate Mario with every fiber of your being or anything related to Nintendo just because you think everyone is a bunch of NES-hipsters clouded with nostalgia, You HAVE to admit how awesome this song is and Mahito Tokota deserves some major props for the entire soundtrack. I encourage you to listen to more of the soundtrack if you liked this.

A small behind-the-scenes and 100 followers!

Wow, 100 followers! Woot. Even though there are still a few bloggers from before my hiatus, I'll just say Thanks to my current readers for following my ACTION PACKED AND THRILLING STITCHING ACTION! YYEEAA. Thanks!

I'm really new to cross stitching, so I'm primarily using Paint.net to organize and recolor my sprites. The easiest way for me to get templates is to use video game sprite sheets, so I used a Powerpuff game (The Powerpuff Girls: Him and Seek!) on the Gameboy Advanced. It was a bit tough because I was not happy with the original look of Bubbles in the game. Her hair was the best aspect of the original sprite, but I lacked the colors so I chose to make the hair one solid color.

Before(ripped by Kenshin Himura from http://www.spriters-resource.com/):

The #1 gripe I had with the game sprite was the grey outlining. These photos are at 8x magnification, so the grey lines were originally there to make her features more noticeably on a tiny tiny Gameboy Advanced screen. But if I wanted a 3 inch cross stitch, the grey lines would just look very ugly so I scraped it but kept some of the shadowing on her hair and skirt. I also wanted to stay with the cartoon's art style of sharp solid colors, so I opted to remove the gradient on her eyes and skirt. Lastly, her smile on the ripped sprite is just so akward. She's making the duck face! So that had to go for a more traditional smile. And....

After (My edit):

Tada! Overall I'm happy with the edit. I would have definitely kept the original hair colors if I had the colors to do it. Stay tuned, I'll have a quick mini project up soon!

Finished Bubbles

She's done! It actually did not take as long as I thought it would. Outlining her took more time just because I had to count each pixel to make sure she was proportional. After that it's just a matter of filling in the color which is more straight forward. I'm very happy with the way she came out especially since I'm only working with 36 colors. I had to make do with a slightly off-color but it's near perfect. I had to recolor her sprite to make sure I could work with the 5 color limit I set for myself but for future projects I definitely need to expand my color pallette to get quality looking finishes. I'll post the difference between the original sprite and the recolor I did next time. If/When I do expand my color choices, I'm gonna have trouble organizing my floss. Anyway, it's done!

A great composer!

Since everyone knows my next piece already, I'll skip the boring Work in Progress photos until it's done for good. It's not too exciting to update them unless they're still unrecognizable or completely done. I should be done with her by tomorrow or the next day. Also, made a Title banner for my blog. 10 minutes in Paint.net, fun.

This update I'd like to show some appreciation for Richard Jacques. He's well known for composing some of the songs for Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Super Smash Bros. Brawl!, and Headhunter. Headhunter's gameplay was very close to Metal Gear Solid (action, stealth, etc). I've never played it, but the reason I want to bring Mr. Jacques up is because I've admired one of the soundtracks from Headhunter for as long as I've been watching GameCenter CX (I'll post about this show in the future). GameCenter CX used "Jack's Theme" from the Headhunter soundtrack and I've got to say I can't of a better song to use as a montage than this. Sure you can use songs like Chariots of Fire, but I really love how orcestral Jack's Theme sounds. It's sweeping and dramatic. Here's the song on Youtube, give it a listen and tell me what you think!

Guess that Cross-Stitch 1 again!

I must admit after I read the comments about my last picture, it DOES look slightly phallic so no hard feelings. I did like the Gun/heart balloon guess; I didn't even see that before. I'm sure this time the picture will be much clearer. I actually messed up already, but it's not noticeable. Though for future works I'll have to be more careful because a single mistake/miscount can ruin an entire row or column, making my subject look fatter or skinnier than I anticipated. I've only been doing this for a little over a week, so I'm still going at a really deliberate pace and I have to slow down when I mess up or cause a knot, wasting a lot of time to backstitch and correct myself.

Please tell me you recognize it now!

Guess that cross-stitch 1!

Work in progress:

I think it's pretty obvious, but that's because I've been staring at the template for days making sure it works. But if you need a hint, check my previous post.

What do you think this stitch will be?

Sup Bub?

Say hello to Bub. I was never a big fan of either the Bubble Bobble NES game or the Puzzle Bobble games, but the tiny little Dinosaurs just have a really awesome and distinctive look to them that I couldn't help but make at least one of them. I think it's the little buck-tooth that makes it so lovable. My next project will be about four times as large, so I'll be posting Work-In-Progress pictures.

Sugar.

The boy of squishy red juices

I'm not done with my current stitch, but I'll post it up tomorrow definitely.

The latest game obsession I've had is with Super Meat Boy. There's already enough great things said about the game, so I'll keep it brief: Awesome soundtrack, challenging but fair level design, and just an enormous amount of value for the price. My favorite soundtrack has to be "Hell, Light world", but a close 2nd is the "Hospital, light world" music. You can listen to the soundtrack HERE . Here's my progress and the Hospital theme. Enjoy. I'm only a few levels away from 100%, but I haven't played in a while.

CHARMANDER!

Hm, I'm a little worried about my sprite choice. I wanted to do a small work so I chose this Charmander from the Mystery Dungeon Series, but I don't think the background foot is easily recognizable. Anyway...this took longer than I'd like to admit.

A boo is born!

I'm back after a long Hiatus and hopefully I'll be updating regularly. I'll post some of my cross stitches (assuming I keep this up).I'd be happy to take some suggestions for what to make next. Just try to keep it small for now.