skater43 stitches Zelda games

[Firehawke]

It continues to look great! Especially love the details of Ezlo's head!

[skater43]

Thank you. Progress is progress and I like how this is moving along. Have 2? 3? stitches I want to do today on the right side of the sword and then we can finish up the bits and pieces on the left so we can move the hoop down. Right now, we're jumping between two pages, so it'll be nice to just be on one for a couple of days. Actually, since we're moving the hoop down and a bit left maybe, we'll be staying on this page for a few weeks.

Ezlo does look great and I love the details/subtlety throughout the picture. I really need to track down where I got the pattern to give the creator their due. There's a simpler version of the picture on these boards, but doing some searching this morning, I am not finding the version I'm stitching (and no name/credit is given in the pattern). But I plan to keep looking, so that we can give credit and recognize their work (and it is a well made pattern. Despite the 90 whatever colors, I haven't had any issues telling symbols apart and once I figured out there was overlap on the pages, it has been no trouble keeping track of where I am even jumping between pages).

[skater43]

And we continue to make great progress. 150 hours in now through Friday (didn't stitch yesterday and haven't yet today) and close to halfway? We've hit the halfway mark up top, but need to fill in more of the bottom. But, stitch by stitch, we're getting there. Moved the hoop shortly after our last pic and I'm pleased with how this is filling in (and was real happy that I was able to position the hoop so that it connected up with what we had been working on, but also went all the way to the bottom of the picture, so we don' have to move the hoop down again), We spent the first week just doing the black outlines and that has helped. Purple emblem in the lower left corner only had 4 colors, so that was fairly easy to finish in two or three days. Of late, we've been working on Link's shield (and as you can see, it's mostly done, just individual squares here and there to fill in, but those generally are much time for not much progress. But, every square needs to be stitched and one stitch done is one less to do), just so we had something identifiable to look out. Next plan is to knock out the very bottom few rows, just to get those out of the way, then we'll work on the hilt of the second sword, then take care of the empty patches in the middle. We're mostly at the point of few stitches here and there of colors, but we do have a few decent sized patches left in this hoop. With how progress has gone so far, I think we have a good chance at moving the hoop before our next pic. There's more outlining I could do in the lower right corner, but we'll focus on what we have already, and take care of that stuff when we move the hoop to the right.

Prize applications for AGDQ 2024 are now open and I filled mine out over a week ago. Haven't heard anything yet, but with 5 weeks or so to go until the event, they prolly aren't looking at things much yet. No prizes are listed yet on the Accepted Prizes page, so I'm not worried at this point. We have the picture done and in our hands, so just a matter of packing it and shipping.

[Firehawke]

You are zooming right along on this...it continues to look great!

[skater43]

Thank you. Don't know if 150 hours to do about half qualifies as "zooming", but I am pleased with the progress we've made. Have 4 stitches to do to finish off Link's shield, so we'll knock that out first thing tomorrow. Individual stitches for the shield, but I look for other spots the same color is used as long as my needle is threaded. In the course of doing those four stitches, we'll knock out some other stuff. His belt buckle and hilt of his sword should be mostly done by the time we end stitching tomorrow. Soon as I finish the shield, though, my focus is going to turn to doing the bottom rows, then hilt of the second sword on the left of the hoop, then work our way right. Just eyeballing things today, guesstimating how much I can stitch a day, I think I have a decent shot at moving the hoop the end of next week. Depending on how the middle/right side of the hoop shakes out, though, I may spend a few more days filling more stuff in before we move again. But most certainly, by the time we take another pic in three weeks (this one was actually after four weeks, so a little more work was done/could be shown than usual), we're heading to the right and just over the halfway point.

Shared the pic with a friend of mine and her reaction was just "wow". I said if she thought this was impressive, what is she going to think when I do the second half? I think we'll find that after I finish this, that Twilight Princess will still be my most impressive looking piece I've done. But this will be a close second. I'm definitely excited to see what the final product looks like. And I can't wait to talk to The Artery about framing. Because there's so many colors and shades, I'm looking forward to seeing what ideas they have about what to focus on/draw out. Because of all the white background, simple black frame might be best. But maybe a dark blue or something to tie in with some of the border of the picture? And bright green matte to go with Link's clothes? Should be a lot of fun. But we've got a ways to go to that point. 160-175ish hours left to stitch, that's about 4, 4 1/2 months. Have about a month break for SGDQ prize, so finish this mid-May?

[skater43]

180 hours in now (including today's work) and closer to halfway? The vertical line in the middle bottom of the hoop/the right side of the light green is roughly the halfway point, so that gives some idea of how far we are. Up top, we've done past that, where the hoop is currently, obviously, we haven't gotten that far yet. But we've made progress. Moved the hoop the end of last week or so, so most of this week was more outlining. Last couple of days, just to fill something in to give some color and something definitive to look at, we've been working on Link's belt. Few stitches to do in the buckle still, but the belt itself is done. So that helps give some perspective of what we're looking at. Link's head is at the top middle of the hoop, with his outstretched arm just below that. Most of the middle section is his tunic and that's almost all the same color. So that should make for some relatively fast progress (did all the right hand green section today). Done four week intervals the last two pics instead of the usual three, but think we'll have most of this hoop done in the next three weeks for another pic.

Been watching prizes get added to GDQ's page https://gamesdonequick.com/tracker/prizes/46 and finally, yesterday morning, I got the email that my prize had been accepted. So got that mailed off yesterday morning and it should get there by Friday. Event starts the 14th, so even if it gets delayed a little, they should still have it in plenty of time.

[skater43]

We have crossed the 200 hour mark (201 with today's work) and are over halfway done. Haven't done everything to the left of the halfway mark, but we've done more to the right of that line than we haven't done to the left. But very pleased with the progress we've made the past three weeks. Big thing, of course, was getting Link's body/tunic done. Some big sections of one color, so that made for relatively fast stitching and filled in a lot of the hoop. Got the main part of his scabbard done, so there was another good section. Currently cleaning up all the little stuff in the lower right of the hoop. And many of the colors here appear further up, so we'll be filling in more of the right side/upper right of the hoop, too. We will be moving the hoop up and right some next, so I want to take care of all the bottom stuff so we can do that. But, as long as we have the color out, might as well see what else we can get done. All has to be stitched at some point. But the plan is to clean up this stuff, then move the hoop, then we'll do all of Link's face, rather than do a little bit now. Next hoop, we will likely be able to finish most of the rest of Ezlo, too, so looking forward to what I'll have to show off next pic.

[Firehawke]

Woot! It's looking really really nice!

[skater43]

Thank you. It is coming along nicely. As I've said, it's nice for me to see these updates, too, gives me a chance to see the big picture how everything is coming together, how far along I am, etc. since day to day I'm zoomed in and focused on my hoop area and usually a small area within that. Hard to believe it's been 200 hours already and we're only a bit over halfway done, but we're committed and we're still having fun, so we'll see it through to the end. Finishing up the right/bottom right of the hoop is taking a little longer than I anticipated, but still expect this weekend/early next week at the latest to be moving the hoop up. Excited to get to do Link's face and finish off most/all of Ezlo and really having that part of the picture complete.

[skater43]

So here's where we are pausing Minish Cap. 228 hours in (through yesterday. Today's stitching time was spent starting our new project which we'll discuss below) and moving along. Won't say we're close to the end, but it is in sight. From the right most stuff we've stitched, the edge of the picture is roughly another 30 squares to the right. Link's eye and belt, and the right side of Elzo's bill is roughly the halfway point to give some idea that way. On the right side, we have most of the outline of the third sword and actually to the right of that is the start of the outline of the fourth (the second diagonal line is the left edge of the point of the sword). Near as I can tell, we have four hoops to go, and because the edge of the picture is curving down, the last hoop will be fairly quick/won't have nearly as much to do as the others. 100 hours to go? Maybe not that many? We'll see once we resume here in a couple of months. But because I was going to be leaving this for quite a while, I spent most of this week outlining and doing a few little bits here and there so it'll be easy to see where I was and wasn't working on anything in particular, so can resume anywhere. In fact, may resume on the bottom, even though that wasn't where I was last stitching, just to clean up our straggle ends and go from there. We'll see.

In the meantime, we have started our next project, a prize donation for SGDQ 2024 (see attached). Had this idea for a while and finally, with some assistance, got it together and a pattern I can stitch. My sister helped some initially, friend of mine really got things rolling getting King Zora on his throne (background and sprite of the King coming from different sources and had to do some resizing of the King to make him look right), and then our own @blackmageheart helped finalize things. So big thanks for their help putting this together. For those interested in some of the process, you can check out the thread at http://www.spritestitch.com/forum/viewt ... 15&t=22318 And for those who don't know what we're depicting, I offer this https://youtu.be/zSykPzw9cOg Bane of Ocarina of Time speedrunners everywhere, the 30+ seconds you have to wait for King Zora to get out of the way. Skips have been found around him, but there's no way to speed up the cutscene; you just get to wait. Which, as my Contra prize I donated a couple of years ago alluded to, speedrunners hate doing. Anyway, I think it's funny, I think it'll be a hit at GDQ with people getting the reference and everything. Having started stitching today, I think this is going to take a bit longer than I initially imagined, since it'll all be stitched (or almost all. For contrast/style, I think I'm going to leave the text unstitched since I'm using white cloth. But we'll see). However, the reason we're starting in mid-February is so we have extra time if needed. This goes to mid-April, that still gives The Artery 6-8 weeks to frame it in time. But we'll see how things go. And while this is technically a Zelda game/project, I plan to post updates in my other thread. Keep this one for my ongoing project of stitching a picture for myself of each of the Zelda games I've beaten, and have all my GDQ prizes and such in the other thread.

I also have a pattern planned/designed for AGDQ 2025, so we'll do that right after this, as long as Minish Cap is paused. That will be a pretty quick one, maybe three weeks at the most. But after that, the calendar is clear the rest of the year, so we'll be able to focus fully on finishing Minish Cap.