SGDQ 2024 prize donation pattern assistance, please

[skater43]

Working on my pattern for my SGDQ 2024 prize donation and could use some assistance getting the picture together. zora with text and right size is what I'd like the final product to look like and the size I'm shooting for (since I'll likely be having to stitch everything/there is little background color, we want to keep this on the small side for time involved. 100 pixels/stitches one way is good and then 71 just happened to be how things worked out based on the ratio of the original throne room shot). Looks fine at 100%, but zooming in to 800% which is basically what I stitch at, each pixel is a stitch, so best to see things at that zoomed in rate, things look rather blurry and my fear is that is what the final product will look like. Sprite sheet I got King Zora from is also included. Was too small relative to the throne room (also attached) as originally drawn, but going to 150%, he fit good. Initial problem was copying him into the throne room, we had white background (see attached). A friend of mine figured out how to make the background transparent and that got us the docx file attached. Put the two images together and convert to PDF (also included), copy the picture from that and we get zora test 3.png. Which is super and awesome and way the heck too big (I know, 504x362 is no big deal for some of you guys, but I only have 3 or 4 weeks to do this). Shrink down and we get the aforementioned blurriness. Anybody here good with digital image manipulation? As I said, 100x71 is a good size, so that's what we're shooting for. And if that means simplifying things (especially the throne room), I'm fine with that. Once I get the pic, I can throw it into KG Chart Pro for colors, or take my laptop to Michaels and match colors, don't have a set number in mind. We blew things up to get the docx file/images therein, so maybe we can manip the original Kong Zora sprite/throne room and shrink down from there? png with the text I want to use is also included, but that is easy to insert. Big problem is getting King Zora and the throne room to look good at the size I want. Any assistance would be appreciated (aforementioned friend is still seeing what she can come up with, but I sent it to my sister, who also does stitching and some designing, and she was at a loss. But the more the merrier). Event is the end of June, but I want to make sure the framer has plenty of time to get it done, allowing for quirks that come up, plus I need to stitch this, which as I said, I hope to do in a month or less, so I'd like to start stitching the middle/end of February. So this isn't a rush job, but would like to have things in place, have my colors picked and bought, and so on.

[skater43]

Okay, just realized I was limited on the number of attachments, so here's the other files I alluded to.

[blackmageheart]

This any good?

zorathronewip.png (23.89 KiB) Viewed 631 times

[skater43]

We're getting somewhere. Attached is a screenshot of it at 800%. Looks blurry, though running it through Photoshop (which I don't have) or something fancier than Paint to sharpen it is possible? Also, you've got more experience than me designing and stitching. Am I right to be concerned/worried about the final product looking blurry because the picture is when zoomed in, or will it be fine/look as sharp and as crisp as it does at 100%?

[blackmageheart]

Am I right to be concerned/worried about the final product looking blurry because the picture is when zoomed in, or will it be fine/look as sharp and as crisp as it does at 100%?

When it's stitched it should look as it does at 100%, although the further away you are from it physically the better it will look, if that makes sense? But that's pretty much true of all of this type of cross stitch!
I actually made it as sharp as possible by resizing the background first, using some Photoshop techniques I learned years ago specifically for cross stitch patterns, and then adding in King Zora and resizing him to fit (a few times until I was happy it would look ok stitched as he was the main problem for me ) then the text. I know King Zora isn't exactly as the sprite originally was but it was a compromise due to his size vs background.
I've used this process for much bigger and more complex images as well as smaller ones and I've always found it works, so I'm pretty confident it will look as you intended! Just a case of picking out the colours etc now

But if you do want any changes I'm more than happy to do that as I've saved it in layers so I can move/adjust things if needed!

(P.S. I haven't forgotten about Spirit Tracks, I've just been ill and trying to keep up with regular life at the same time!)

[skater43]

Much appreciated. I shall bow to your expertise and if you say it'll look good as finished, then I'll believe you. I like NES games/pics because they are one pixel = one stitch and zoomed in look sharp and all. But I'll throw this in KG Chart and see what it says for colors. Obviously, I can set the number of colors I/it uses, but have any ballpark guesses on how many are used in the picture? Minish Cap is using 90 something, so I'm not afraid of a lot of colors, though fewer does make things easier. Be out and about Thursday, so can stop by Michaels and see what they have that I might need, plus check my current stash. And then depending on if I need to order any colors, we can start this in a couple of weeks at a usual pic/break point in Minish Cap, or three weeks after that. Thinking about now, there's not a lot of solid background color, so Aida color won't make much difference. There's some black, but I think it'll look out of place to just have a few patches not stitched. So we go white cloth. Seems silly stitching white on white, but for the picture, it'll make textural sense. However, for the text, it might be interesting to not stitch that. I guess once we start stitching we can go around where the text would be a little bit and see how it looks.

Sorry you haven't been feeling well, and yeah, I hear ya about real life interfering. As stated above, now that I have a pattern here, plan to start stitching middle or end of February. Hoping it'll take about a month, but we're starting early in case we need extra time. Do have a picture picked out for AGDQ 2025, that'll be pretty simple and straightforward (and right from an NES screenshot, so no need to manipulate anything, though I'll adjust some of the characters/text to decrease the empty space and make the picture a little smaller). So roughly speaking, we'll be doing GDQ stuff until the end of April. And then we have the next 9 months if needed to finish Minish Cap before we worry about SGDQ 2025. I hope it won't take that long, but 180, 190 hours got us about halfway, so end of October we finish? And then we will jump into Spirit Tracks. So I appreciate you working on that (and now that I know that blurry at 800% does not equate to blurry at 100%, I'm less fretful) and that gives a rough idea of my timeline and what you're working with. Obviously, the sooner a pattern is done, sooner I can gather threads/materials, but we are not pressed for time at this point.

[blackmageheart]

I like NES games/pics because they are one pixel = one stitch and zoomed in look sharp and all.

That should be the case here as with it being 100x72 then that's how many stitches you'll get. Obviously it's not going to be the level of detail the original size had but it's a decent compromise as you're still getting quite a lot of it considering how much it reduced in dimensions!

any ballpark guesses on how many are used in the picture?

I had thought about 70-80, but was interested to see what my various programs would think!

• KGChart (1.25) gave 56 colours which I think is a reasonable amount but had a couple of questionable colour choices

• PCStitch had it as 135 but so many of the colours were literally 1 or 2 stitches and absolutely could be replaced with a similar colour already in the pattern

• WinStitch says 134 colours but like PCStitch with so many unnecessary confetti stitches

• Cross Stitch Pro Platinum (demo version) says 57 and looked much like KGChart's output

Hope that's of some help!

And thanks again for being so patient regarding Spirit Tracks, it's kind of a labour of love for me so working on it when ill or with limited time just won't do!

[skater43]

Threw it in KG and it came up with 38 colors. Upgraded my version of KG and it came up with 40 colors. Like the look of it (see attached), so we'll go with it (knowing, of course, I can change colors in the middle if I have to). Stopped by Michael's this afternoon and was able to pick up 25ish of the colors. Few I already had (and I didn't count anything I'm using for Minish Cap, just to ensure I have what I need to finish that, though at least a couple of colors I could have gotten away with), so that left 11 I had to order. Able to get all I needed off Everything Cross Stitch, so just a matter of time waiting for the colors to arrive. End of next week would be my usual WIP update for Minish Cap, but I'll prolly go an extra week A) I'll be out of town that weekend and B) give the threads an extra week to get here. So I figure February 18, we'll kick this bad boy off and see how it goes.

[blackmageheart]

Sounds good to me, hope it turns out well!

EDIT: my KG chart won't open the file since it's an older version (if I remember right I didn't like the newer versions of it much so went back to 1.25!) - any chance of a preview screenshot or a pdf?

[skater43]

One pdf coming up.