skater43 stitches Zelda games

[skater43]

Thank you. I agree. Still a long way to go as I said, but definitely coming together quicker than previous estimations. Found a mistake yesterday, half dozen stitches in Link's face I had to undo/need to redo, so that'll cost a little time, but only a few minutes, so hardly a big deal. I'm sure BMH will be back at some point, so see what she says about those blank spots and as I said, if needbe, I can just pick a color or two. It's three stitches out of 32,400, so not critical, but I'd like to give her the chance to offer suggestions since she spent a lot of time/effort putting the pattern together for me. Got some stuff to do today, but figure at some point, if I haven't heard yet from GDQ, I'll shoot them a message. As usual, no reason for my prize not to be accepted, just need to get the official okay and mailing address.

[skater43]

I am very happy with the progress we've made since my last update and really happy how things are taking shape and the picture is really starting to come together. Last hoop, we got to do all the funky stitches of this pattern: we have the backstitching on Link's belt, along with the half stitches to give a little more definition? subtlety? spiffyness? whatever to Link's eyes. Didn't actually practice the half stitches, just jumped in and did them (there were only 10, so hardly any). And think they came out just fine. Certainly much easier to stitch using the whole square, but can see how this would allow for a little more detail. Other note of significance on our previous hoop is I still haven't heard back from BMH about the blank squares, so made an executive decision on the one that was in the hoop. Just went with a nearby color and it works fine. We'll see if she has anything to say about the other blank squares, but those are in what will likely be our last hoop, so I have quite a bit of time to try to connect up with her and get her thoughts/intentions.

I'll direct your attention to the right side of the current hoop and the column of stitches there. That's the right edge of the picture, believe it or not. When I moved the hoop up, I saw we were veering to the right, that we weren't going straight up, so I wanted to see where the edge was/if we could reach. So I made a point of working on the outline of Link's hat to see if we could reach that edge. We could, so I did a few stitches on the edge to clearly show that's where it is. So for this hoop at least, we're done with this row. I don't know how much of the right edge we'll be able to do from here, but at least a chunk. Looking down the road, I think we'll need to do two more hoops to get the upper right corner stuff we still need to do, plus one more hoop to get the lower right corner. Lower right one in particular won't be a full hoop, nor the very upper right corner one, so those won't take as much time. I mean, a month to do this hoop, a month to do up and left, another month to finish off the two corners? Seems fairly reasonable (and some of the top stuff might go a bit quicker since a lot of it is sky and tree and thus big patches of the same color). Which would put out current estimated time of finishing at mid-October. We're at 248 hours including today's work, so we're maybe looking around 330ish hours at completion? Plan then would be do SGDQ 2026 and AGDQ 2027 the rest of this year (also have a idea for a quick project I'm thinking about doing, but still need to pattern it up) and then start 2027 off with Phantom Hourglass.

Another GDQ event has come to a close. Just over $2.4 million raised this time. Unfortunately, despite my prize making the prime time, final day of the event, last block of games, it was not highlighted or talked about. Final prize segment of the marathon starts about the 36:39:30 mark of https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2509521885 My prize and a couple of others are mentioned, but the focus is first on hitting $2 million raised in the event, and then some of the bigger prizes. So a bit disappointing, especially because there was a bit of a story behind it/it could use an explanation to fully appreciate (when I got the email saying it had been accepted, the guy mentioned that he liked that I was able to find a real world application if you will, that it wasn't just a funny saying. So I'm thinking about requesting that the few sentence explanation I included when I submitted it be printed out/included for whoever wins it to maybe fully understand what they're getting). But stuff happens, they don't necessarily owe me anything (or any of the creators whose prizes weren't highlighted. Looking over the prizes, there were certainly several that took as much time/effort as mine, and many that took more). You can see my picture in a couple of the shots and it was on the rotation of prizes shown between runs, so it was visible/people could see it, it just didn't have the spotlight shown on it. AGDQ, I tend toward bad translations and leaning more towards the Awful Block of games, which is usually late night Wednesday or Thursday, but we'll see what they decide. I have something set for SGDQ 2026. Not quite as big/impressive looking, so not likely to be on Saturday night again, but featuring a popular franchise that is usually shown mid/late mornings, so maybe that gives me a better chance of it being highlighted. We'll see. Meantime, we got several more weeks of Spirit Tracks to finish up. And coming up with a pattern for Phantom Hourglass.

[Firehawke]

Spirit Tracks is looking great!!!

Bummer about your project not getting much attention, especially since it has a story! Good luck with figuring out the next AGDQ/SGDQ projects!

[skater43]

Thank you. Yeah, it's really coming together. Today I did most of the rest of Link's face then a little bit of the sky below his hat. By the end of the week, Link will be done plus what we can of the lower sky, then we start in on all the sky above him. Looking forward to seeing how quickly that all comes together and we start knocking out some of the tree in the upper right corner.

Correction: my prize was highlighted, just earlier in the day than I'd checked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxQ-Op4 ... u&index=46 5:30 mark They didn't go into the story behind it, but at least got the joke.

Also, I emailed GDQ and they agreed to add my little story/explanation behind my picture with the prize, so whoever gets it can appreciate some of the background.

Next GDQ projects are already figured out and patterned up. SGDQ 2026 actually ties in with a game ran this year, though that's entirely a coincidence. Idea I had months ago, with two possibilities to showcase it, though one proved impractical. Had to work with Option 2 a bit to get it down to a reasonable size, too, but I think what I have shows the relevant information. Those that know, will know and others may need a little explanation, but that's okay. I think it'll work. For AGDQ 2027, I've got several screenshots as possibles and found one that was fairly simple, though I had to move sprites around a little. Couple of others are on the larger size, so I'll spend the next few months, whatever, messing around with them some, see if I can make them a little more feasible or maybe what I can copy in from elsewhere in the game to show what I want. And have a non-gaming related idea I'm kicking around that would be pretty simple and easy, but still need to figure out the details and draw it up. But we'll worry about that down the road. For now, we get to keep chugging along the Spirit Tracks!

[Firehawke]

I'm so glad that they agreed to add the story/explanation with the prize!

[blackmageheart]

Really sorry about not getting back to you! I didn't know I had messages, as for some reason it's not emailing me anymore! I've sent you a reply now so hopefully that helps!

It's looking amazing, by the way - really loving how it's coming along!

[skater43]

Got the message. Thank you. Don't sweat the delay. I know that while I'm on this site pounding refresh every 5 minutes 24/7, I recognize not every one else does.

This week has been an admittedly boring week, doing a huge block of blue sky, but it's making for relatively fast progress on this hoop. Not saying we'll be moving the hoop by the end of next week/in time for the next WIP pic, but my ballpark guess of a month per hoop to finish things out is looking pretty good.

[skater43]

Things are zipping along and I think we'll be finishing much sooner than previously expected. With so much sky in the last hoop, as you can see, we actually moved the hoop again since last update. Now, I did put in an extra half hour yesterday and today to make that move happen, but that extra work wasn't entirely needed. But as I got to the end of last week, I saw I was pretty close to finishing what I wanted in that hoop, so planned to do what was needed to get that hoop moved before this update pic. We're now 270 hours in, included today and the extra little work, but I think my estimate last time of 330ish hours total is going to be high. Especially if we have a bunch of sky and tree this hoop. Wasn't quite able to maneuver the hoop in such a way to complete the rest of the upper right corner, but we'll be able to do a significant portion where we are. So we'll have to move the hoop to do the last little bit, then move it again to hit the lower right corner and that's it. Four weeks to do this hoop, a week each for the other little bits and we're now looking at finishing mid-September? As I said, by the time we finish this hoop, we'll have a real good idea where we stand.

Question came up about number of stitches and how quickly I stitch. First question is easy. Picture is 180 stitches by 180, so that'll be 32,400 stitches total to do this (actually, add about 20 or 30 to that because we had 10 stitches of backstitching for Link's belt, plus I'll add my initials and the year of completion). Once I'm done, we'll see what the total time needed was and then can calculate the rate of stitching for this project. This picture had a nice balance of big blocks of colors, like we're doing with the sky here, which are obviously quicker to stitch because it's all one color and doesn't require changing threads, and intricate detail stuff that is slower to stitch because of having to frequently change threads, but is what gives the details really makes the picture. So I think our average rate, whatever it comes out to, will be a pretty good estimate.

Been looking at pictures/ideas for Phantom Hourglass and haven't decided on anything yet, but we'll figure something out. Actually have my next two SGDQ ideas patterned out. Planned to do one next, but after putting together the other, think we'll do that instead. Not that I'm pressed for time, but the second idea will take longer/is more involved, so might as well get that done while we have some extra time. And then we'll stitch up something for AGDQ 2027, which I already have patterned up. And then maybe December or so, we'll jump into Phantom Hourglass, whatever I choose to do for that. Maybe next email I'll included some of my ideas and have you guys weigh in on them.