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skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Video game craft projects made with thread and needles...
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skater43
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

Yes, I think she'll be quite pleased with it as well. And I'm looking forward to playing Mission: Impossible and getting over to her place to hang it in secret. :)

Meanwhile, we were going to continue or quest to stitch something for all the Zelda games I've beaten, with Twilight Princess up next. Got a few days into it and frankly, it's going to take much longer (maybe 8 or 9 months) than I was originally thinking (2 or 3 months). Nothing wrong with that, but going to be a challenging several months. However, you'll note I said "we were going to..." This because when I was dropping off the bird pic to be framed, the gal there said that a guy was in a few days prior. Just opened up a gaming shop in town and was looking for local artists who might want to show off some of their stuff. My pictures are obviously nerdy/gaming related, so The Artery was showing some of the ones I'd done. Guy was interested, so hit me up about displaying some of my pictures. He was thinking as a chance to sell them, though was fine with the fact that I said what I'd done, I did for me/have no interest in selling them. But I said I was open to maybe loaning one or two of my pictures out or even doing one to be sold. He was on board with that, so that's the current plan. Once done, we'll figure out if I sell it to him, then he hopes to resell it, or I retain the rights and he gets a cut once it sells (I'm leaning that way. That way, he doesn't get stuck with it if it doesn't sell, and then I can either keep it myself or donate it as a prize for GDQ or whatever). Figure time and cost of framing, this is going to have a price in the $350-400 range and I have no idea if some one would be willing to pay that. But, we'll see. Have enjoyed doing these as a hobby, we'll see if we can have commercial success, or at least get my name out there around town. So I'm curious and excited to see how things will go.

So, for our project, we're working on the attached. Castlevania is certainly a well known series, so that should help the sale. And if not, I'm a fan of the series, so would have no problem with it on my wall, or as I said, donate it as a prize. But I was able to find a nice action shot from the first game, cropped out some of the extra stuff, leaving what we've got. We're a little over a week in and making good progress. First few days were just the grey diamonds in the corner, so that was a little disappointing in my progress. But since then, we've gotten most of Death done and have started in on the pillar. Most of this week will be spent on the pillar, but I think I can finish up Simon (our hero), Death's head, the curtains and such next week. That's my tentative goal. However, since both the gaming shop and The Artery are closed Sundays and Mondays, if I can't finish by the 14th without doing lots of extra work, I've got a couple of days to work that I can't turn it in anyway. But still shooting for the 14th. Went up to Michael's last week to pick up the light red for the curtains and got a couple of possibilities. Once I get some of the bright red in, I'll see what actually works/looks better. But happy with the other colors I've chosen thus far.
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castlevania wip 8-1-21 IMG_20210801_093953745.jpg
castlevania 1.png
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Firehawke
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by Firehawke »

Wow...that's way cool! Good luck!

And love how the new project is looking so far!
"May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong." - President Thomas S. Monson

skater43
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

We'll see where this goes. Don't believe for a second I'll be quitting my job/becoming a full time stitching artist, but we'll see what others think of my work. And if they like it enough to pay good money for it.

We're making good progress, though finishing by the 14th looks a bit too optimistic. Pillar is taking a little longer than expected. But we've moved the hoop up to do the top half of the pillar, Death's head, and the curtains. So once we finish all that, we'll be 85-90% done, with just Simon and the thrown scythe to go. Wouldn't be able to turn it in the 15th or 16th anyway, so Tuesday the 17th is a pretty likely finishing date. But we'll see how next week goes.

skater43
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

And here's where we currently are. Another week in and making good progress. As I said, finishing Saturday isn't very likely without extra work, but early/middle of next week is very doable, so we'll shoot for that. Finished off Death today, including his scythe, so that's one piece of the puzzle done. As you can see, the grey of the left side of the pillar is done, so we're making progress there. Was doing some of the curtains today so that I'll be able to see if the light reds I have picked out will work for them. I'm running low on dark grey, so may be running up to Michael's some time this week, so if I need to get a different light red for the curtains, I'll want to grab that at the same time. So tomorrow will be doing a bit more of the bright red of the curtains for context, then we'll see about finishing up the grey of the pillar and then we'll know if we need to pick up more thread or not. Then the rest of this week will basically be doing the rest of the curtains and the pillar. Interesting thing about the pillar is that while it seems like a random bunch of pixels and colors, there is a pattern there. It's interrupted some with Death's robe, Simon's whip, the contact point, but look at how the blue, yellow and grey are arranged and you'll see things repeat as you go up.

Prolly should have done this at the start, but I'm also including the screenshot from which I took my picture/pattern (taken from http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/nes/01/castlevania1.html ). As you can see, we zoomed into the action part, but the overall pic will put things in context.
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castlevania-35.png
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castlevania wip 8-8-21 IMG_20210808_093902941.jpg

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Firehawke
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by Firehawke »

Oooooh...looking nice! Hope you were able to pick up the floss no problem!
"May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong." - President Thomas S. Monson

skater43
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

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Fortunately, I had just enough (and by "just enough", I mean I had about a foot left of two strands) grey to finish the pillar, so no need to go get more supplies. Content with the pink/light red for the curtains, so we've got all we need to finish up. Did a bit more of the yellow in the pillars yesterday than expected, so we'll easily finish the pillar today. The rest of the week will then likely be taken up finishing the curtains. That leaves Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to do the whip, Simon and the flying scythe, which is very doable.

skater43
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

And we're done! Finished stitching it yesterday. Unfortunately, the gal that does the framing at The Artery is out of town this week, so I couldn't drop it off. But this worked out because I wanted to show it to the gaming shop owner before turning it in and his store was closed when I stopped by yesterday afternoon. So, I'll have another chance next Tuesday to show it off and drop it off. But we've got it stitched and ready to go. Figured this one took about 25 hours to do, so we'll use that as our base to set the price, plus the cost of the frame (which I'll guess will fall around the $150 mark). So price it at $400-450? As I've said, no idea if there's a market, if people would be willing to pay that for this picture, but we'll see. Game shop owner wants to buy it himself, that's out there, or it's one I would hang on my wall, or could donate to GDQ if it doesn't sell by next year or so (do have an idea for AGDQ 2022, so this would be for next summer). And who knows, maybe it will sell. Obviously, things become a balancing act between continuing my Zelda projects, doing stuff for GDQ and then other works like this for commercial purposes, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
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castlevania done 8-17-21 IMG_20210817_160100679.jpg

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Firehawke
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by Firehawke »

It looks fantastic! Can't wait to see where it ends up!
"May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong." - President Thomas S. Monson

skater43
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by skater43 »

Thank you. :) Yeah, curious to see how this'll all shake out myself. Game shop owner's wall, my wall, prize winner at GDQ, patron of the arts that buys it, one way or the other, it'll find a happy home. Dropped it off last week, so a couple of weeks, we should have it back and framed and we'll see where things go from there.

Before I forget, let me list the colors used in case anyone else wants to take a stab at stitching this (all colors DMC).
415 is the light grey in the bricks
414 is the dark grey of the bricks plus the grey on the pillar
3608 is the pink in the candles, the flying scythe and where the whip is hitting Death
778 is the light red/pink of the curtains
349 is the bright red of the curtains plus the other parts of the candles, flying scythe and attack point
826 is Death's robes and scattered throughout the pillar
746 is the light yellow of Simon and his whip
3855 is the yellow in the pillar, plus the darker yellow of Simon/his whip
221 is the brown outline of Simon and the whip
819 is the off-white/light pink of the scythe Death is holding, plus his face and other bits of him

As I've said, nice thing about doing NES screenshots is the lack of a multitude of colors (only 10 used here), but they can still show a lot.

And in other news, successfully ran over to Mom's this afternoon to hang her picture (see below for the final product), so just a matter of waiting for her to find it now.
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look at birds framed 20210828_193738.jpg

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Firehawke
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Re: skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

Post by Firehawke »

Yay! Glad that you were able to get it up...hope she spies it soon!
"May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong." - President Thomas S. Monson

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