Sprite Stitch Board!

I have been playing around w/Perler Beads for awhile now, but I'm looking into making larger projects. I've not found a really good way to take images and create patterns. Is there step by step instructions on how to do this? I was able to do it once in Paint and create a large Piplup (Pokemon) for my nephew. Thanks!

I don't know how else to do it besides in Paint. You can make your project as large as you want with Paint. You just gotta guess on the colors.

I was using Paint in XP and Paint in Win 7 (what I have now) is a little different. When I did the grid in XP it worked nicely - each square = 1 bead. It doesn't work as well in Win 7. Any ideas for settings?

Sounds kinda lame but I use Windows Photo Viewer (the default program you use when you doubleclick on a pic) and just zoon in all the way. It ends up being 1:1 scale with a sprite. Then I can count off how many beads are in a line (i.e. {___________} is like 4 beads) and just go from there! I make some pretty big sprites and I just do it this way.

I know there's free programs and stuff you can use to make a grid or print out, but I'm too lazy to do it that way lol

I use KGChart for cross stitch patterns, it should be useful for pearler beads as well. Sprites are patterns already, but KGC does ok at everything else (with a bit of tidying). The colour range may be different, but hopefully not too much of an issue

Hi PMcOuntry
I also "just" use Paint and MS Photo viewer like others have said.
I don't understand this though

PMcOuntry wrote:I was using Paint in XP and Paint in Win 7 (what I have now) is a little different. When I did the grid in XP it worked nicely - each square = 1 bead. It doesn't work as well in Win 7. Any ideas for settings?

It's no difference between Paint in XP and Paint in Win7 when you zoom in. A pixel is a pixel.
What matters when you zoom in to see each pixel is what format the image is in.
If it is a .gif, .bmp, .png and such or a .jpg
But I guess you know that already.
And how large the image is. If it's 1920*1080 pixels and a color depth with let's say 16-bit I guess you are doomed to resize it if you don't wanna end up in the Guinness book of world records for the largest perler bead creation

There is a free program called perler, a simle java-prog that a swedish guy made.
Its really good, you should try it out

Thanks for the suggestion, I will check it out!

I usually use GIMP to create and edit patterns as well as enlarge them. It's a free cheaper version of photoshop. You can create a perler bead pallete and use layers to move additional parts of a picture around without screwing up the main piece. Save all pixel works as .png. Jpg will mess them up.

http://www.gimp.org/

This tutorial from the pixelgasm forums explains how to make sprites from images. It can be time consuming and there's really no way around it.

http://www.pixelgasm-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2520

I love GIMP! I can import screen shots, change the size, and select "show grid" for instant pixels. And because my color pallet is limited, I can change the range of colors on a project to combine the colors that are really close. Like reducing a gradient shading from 6 blues to 4 without losing the intention of the sprite. (It's really easy: I open the program, show the sprite to my husband and say "Fix It!" and zap-pow and it's done.)