Sprite Stitch Board!

Hey guys,
I want to do a cross stitch for my boyfriend for Christmas and I'm having real trouble making a pattern. Unfortunately he's not into oldschool games so that doesn't make it easy, hehe. He really likes Half Life 2 so I attempted to make a pattern from a Garry's mod screenshot but in order to get any detail the pattern would have to be super huge and the colour count would have to be reduced from 3000 to something more do-able which I think would look weird.

He also loves Lord of the Rings which I think might be a bit easier to do. I tried to make a composite image of the one ring but my photoshopping skills are lacking and I still haven't got the hang of making patterns from 3D images so I'm really struggling here! (I also considered stitching a basic map from LotR but that would be hard to do accurately on a small scale) I would like it to be about 8" x 10" but a little bigger than that's okay.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what I could make for him? I know how much he loves LotR so I'm leaning towards that a bit. If anyone could give me some suggestions or even make me a pattern that would be SO AWESOME! =D

Thank you!

making a pattern from a half life screenshot, or of a full tolkien map would be too hard...youd have to go huge.

I have a couple options though...

1st - a half life symbol pattern was made earlier, but this is a small project. and maybe not too cool as a xmas gift.
http://spritestitch.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=635

2nd - I have a pattern I made from thorin's map (hobbit, not lotr), I've been meaning to get around to it, but ive been to lazy. I had planned to stitch it on brown cloth for a old map feel...

original


pattern


just some ideas...if thats no good I think picking a cool part of one of tolkiens maps and doing a small detailed version of one area would make a good pattern too!

just had another idea...

this would make a good needlepoint more than a cross stitch I think...

Mines of Moria Door

Do you have the Full pattern for the map Johloh?? I think this would make an excellent birthday present for my Dad (his birthdays late on in the year) and I never though to make anything from his favourite books before. He's read all the Tolkin books so this will be great.

That is awesome! I think it would look great in Days Gone By Fabric. http://www.silkweaver.com/fabric/aidahd.html#daysgoneby Kinda pricey, but the effect will be so cool, I think.

jelibe - no i never made a full pattern of that...

bellastitch - thats cool fabric, if youre cheap im sure you could get some brown dye and pull off something similar

may I make a map of this then??The whole map would look super awesome!

ha! dont ask me for permission!!

do look around for other images though...I dont think you want fake old map effects in your pattern...

I think I'll even stitch this up once you make the pattern! It would be a huge project on the wall, but the actual # of stitches probably wouldn't be that bad...lots of open space.

Good point on the colour, didn't think of that.
I thought that plenty of space would make it easier even though its big, would still look mightily impressive of the wall, Yeah!! My Dad would be soo chuffed!

Found a White background image, going to start work on it. O I'm excited! Must remember I've got til September to do this!!!!