Miss Clawful's Cross-Stitch Projects

[Aridesh]

Aw, the minions are adorable! They look like little happy pills!

[Miss Clawful]

Yeah, I didn't think I'd like how they turned out so didn't bother tracking my time on the Minions.

Little happy pills.

NES Zodiac - Scorpio



PATTERN:





MATERIAL:
White Aida (14ct)

COLORS (DMC):
Black

total colors: 1

DATE/TIME:
Started stitching: October 30th 2014
Finished stitching: October 30th 2014
220 minutes = 3 hours 40 minutes

TOTAL STITCHES:
512

PROGRESS LOG:

Spoiler

10/30/2014
8:30pm-10:30pm - got scorpion done
10:30pm-12:10am - got sign and name done

NOTES:

Spoiler

Ever since the Sprite Stitch Zodiac Challenge started I'd been trying to come up with something for Scorpio, nothing satisfied me.

First I played around with the idea of a creating a manticore, kind of using both my girlfriend's sign and my own, but was more of something I wanted to draw, but as usual could never get myself to put a pencil to paper, and didn't get too far with sprites for this but did spend some time on it. One idea of a few was to have a lioness with a scorpion riding on her back, scorpion's legs wrapped about the lion's body holding on while they combat some unknown foe together, both attacking with tails, the tip of the lion's tail a lit with fire, the scorpion's frosted over.

At one point I suddenly had an idea of a scorpion with boggly eyes like a Trouter from Super Mario Bros 2 and when looking at the sprite immediately saw a scorpion in it. Idea coming into more focus when I looked at the Ostro enemy in that game too, its head looking like a scorpion tail and stinger. Added claws from Clawgrip, but then decided the boggle eyes didn't quite look right for it so used those from Hoopster instead. So during some boredom created a scorpion from a mash up of SMB2 enemies.



Next I did two scorpions from Deadly Towers holding the Scorpio sign from Solomon's Key, then I got distracted with wanting to do every zodiac signs.



Once I got back to it I had an idea of a Metal Gear themed stitch, using the scorpion enemies from that game and the cardboard box with the zodiac sign on it. I went through quite a bit of revisions for this one but still it wasn't quite what I wanted.



Next, used the stage select code for TMNT 2 to get to the stage with the robot scorpions, once I had the sprite I had an idea for it that I thought would be cool. With it firing a laser beam from its tail, the zodiac sign faintly visible in the beam of light. Eh, still not quite right.



I was thinking about how I was trying to round up every NES scorpion sprite I could find and looking at a robot scorpion from Megaman 4 which don't consist of much, just a roundish body with eyes and a tail extending out from the back of it, which somehow looks more like a vacuum cleaner to me, I occurred to me that is exactly what I could do with it. So I put together something with that theme, involving the Scorpio Vac sucking up a scorpion that is panicking to get away. Turned out really cute, and I was going to stitch it, on plastic canvas, but didnt' have enough to work with for the pattern size, plus not enough time anyway.







Okay, now what? Then suddenly I see something unusual, I flipped the whirling sprite that I had gotten from Dive Man in Megaman 4 and noticed how it looked just like the Scorpio sign. Hmm. I went back to the TMNT 2 scorpion. Since its tail is made up of a half dozen disconnected balls I thought well they could be replaced with anything, so put each of the letters from Scorpio there. Then put the Scorpio sign I just discovered, using that as the tip of the tail and stinger. Then drained all the color from the scorpion and hey, that's pretty good. Bizarre but it works, I like it.

[Aridesh]

I love the Scorpio Vac pictures! Are you still planning to stitch them in the future?

[Miss Clawful]

Yes! I wants to stitch it still. But, undecided on which version or if I still want to modify it further.

[Firehawke]

The minions are cute!!!

[Miss Clawful]

Okay, it has been a very long time since I've been here and updated, got a ton (also went back and fixed many broken image links, if you don't see a picture its because I didn't bother to reupload it to the internet).

Think I posted this somewhere, one of the challenges, enemies or something of the such:

Grumble, Grumble...



PATTERN:
70x98 pixels = 5"x7"


MATERIAL:
Tan Aida (14ct)

COLORS (DMC):
3857 - Dark Rosewood
301 - Medium Mahogany
402 - Very Light Mahogany
919 - Red Copper
963 - Ultra Very Light Dusty Rose
White

total colors: 6

DATE/TIME:
Started stitching: November ?th 2014
Finished stitching: November 15th 2014
??? minutes = ?? hours ?? minutes
(did not log in my time on this one)

STITCHES:
2145

NOTES:

Spoiler

Originally this Grumble, Grumble... project was going to be a Metroid and I actually do have a pattern for that, but it focuses more on Samus so came up with something else using the owner of those words, Goriya.

My immediate thought was to have Goriya chasing after some live food such as the hotdog enemy from Burgertime, but nah, not good enough. Ah, A restaurant! And I knew exactly where to get the background from, River City Ransom.

Next I edited Alex to look like Goriya, placing Goriya's head from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link atop his body and recoloring the body to match, then changing his clothing, arms and legs to those of Goriya.

My first thought with this was to have Goriya eating, mouth wide open like Alex and Ryan eat when they shove a whole plate of food into their mouth's in one huge bite. Funny but didn't quite go with the words. Grumble, grumble... means he's hungry, he hasn't eaten yet.

Now, I just need someone serving him a plate of food. Ah-ha, the skeleton waiter from 8 eyes, perfect! Goriya is a meat eater, at least we know he likes meat from Link's offering to him in The Legend of Zelda, so gotta find some meat. The wallmeat from Castlevania proved the best choice.

Need to replace that flower pot in the background with something else less ordinary. My first choice was a Piranha Plant, kept that in there for several edits but then it hit me that Goriya should have his trophy that he stole in Zelda II.

Now, what about his color? I started out with him being blue, stood out too much from everything else. Once I changed him to orange I kept him that color through much of my editing, but if he's the one that stole the trophy he needs to be a red Goriya for accuracy, also the hungry Goriya from the first Zelda was red too.

I almost was going to start stitching him that color but the orange one still looked better so despite not being the Goriya that was hungry or the one that stole the trophy the orange one I was better able to see his eyes and mouth and it just looked better that way.

I wanted something else in the picture, was too much blank space at the top or middle, however I chose to place the words there was an unused gap, so needed something to add some balance to this piece. Okay, idea, Goriya is going to pay for his food with the riches he's earned from his life of stealing, assuming he's got Rupies too.

Thinking... ah, he's going to dine in style, a nice fancy restaurant. What this needs is a chandelier! While Goriya tend to shy away from light, this particular color is a Plains Goriya so is more accustomed to the outdoors, even in daytime. Anyway, looked through a few games, the ones in Faxanadu were the perfect choice for this scene, fancy yet a little bit rustic.

As is, the stitch is complete, turned out very nice, yet as always I still look at it thinking, can I add more to this? Maybe more would be too cluttered though, keep it simple, to the point, Goriya is hungry and is being served some food, that's it, with a few extra things in there to liven it up a bit.

---

Another (yeah I did put these up already, but anyway, here they are in my topic):

Reaper and the Reapettes



PATTERN:
70x98 pixels = 5"x7"


MATERIAL:
Black Aida (14ct)

COLORS (DMC):
White
825 - Dark Blue
3761 - Light Sky Blue
799 - Medium Delft Blue
930 - Dark Antique Blue
550 - Very Dark Voilet
919 - Red Copper
814 - Dark Garnet
676 - Light Old Gold
301 - Medium Mahogany
951 - Tawny
415 - Pearl Gray

total colors: 12

DATE/TIME:
Started stitching: November 17th 2014
Finished stitching: November 19th 2014
??? minutes = ?? hours ?? minutes
(did not log in my time on this one)

STITCHES:
1726

NOTES:

Spoiler

The very beginning of the month, the moment I saw the new challenge at Sprite Stitch was common enemies one of my immediate half dozen or so enemies that popped into my head within moments was the Reaper and his Reapettes from Kid Icarus. But what to do with them? Hmmm...

Ah, I got it! The Reaper likes to make a bunch of noise, like really messed up awful singing, summoning his Reapettes to attack Pit. What I had in mind came clearly to my head in an instant, they are going to be a band, Reaper and the Reapettes, Grim Death!

So, I got the Tentacle band from Maniac Mansion that I had been meaning to someday possibly but probably not really ever cross-stitch and erased the Tentacles. Within short time replaced with Reapettes, one on the drums, another wielding the electric guitar, and finally one on keyboard.

I wanted the Reaper to look like he's singing, so got his crazed posed. Need a mike, Kirby's Adventure. Okay, band and singer, ready to rock!

Hmm, they need a unique name, that G.T.O. on the drum will have to be changed to something else more suitable to the Grim Reaper and death. It did not come to me right away to put the two together, my first edits were only of "Death" on the drum, but that alone didn't say a whole lot. Well, okay, it does but not what I wanted it to. That's when the name "Grim Death" hit me, then it was just a matter of making it fit and be legible.

Next, they have to be making some noise. A silent band is no good, they aren't going to get any fans that way. Lightning from Battle of Olympus blasting out of the guitar. Music note from Milon's Secret Castle from the keyboard. And seriously at this moment don't remember where I got that vibration sound wave from for the drum, but on well, it all works.

Trouble though and what held me back for a couple weeks, the Reaper's voice, how best to represent it. I searched the internet for sheet music for his crazy song but no luck. Oh well, I have another project using something like that anyway that I still have to stitch. Ah, these guys are hardcore and what better words to use than those from Q*Bert, "@!#?@!". But that's when I ran into a very severe problem, fitting it.

After much internal debate I had no choice but to drop that idea or sacrifice a nice layout just for some unnecessary but cool quote. So before I could delay this even further I started stitching.

Oh, almost forgot, the title, the font was taken from Faxanadu. I searched through a lot of different font types but liked this one best for this particular piece. As for what to say, originally it was entitled "Mr. Grim and the Reapettes" but since the Reaper in this game actually has the name of Reaper I went with that for accuracy and used Grim along with Death on the side of the big drum for the band's name.

Last one for that challenge:

What snowmen do In Summer



PATTERN:
112x140 pixels = 8"x10"


MATERIAL:
Green Aida (14ct)

COLORS (DMC):
White
402 - Very Light Mahogany
963 - Ultra Very Light Dusty Rose
3021 - Very Dark Brown Gray
301 - Medium Mahogany
3857 - Dark Rosewood
760 - Salmon
905 - Dark Parrot Green
996 - Medium Electric Blue
3846 - Light Bright Turquoise
826 - Medium Blue
3761 - Light Sky Blue
813 - Light Blue
Black

total colors: 14

DATE/TIME:
Started stitching: November 20th 2014
Finished stitching: December 2nd 2014
??? minutes = ?? hours ?? minutes
(did not log in my time on this one)

STITCHES:
2876

NOTES:

Spoiler

This snowman project started out a week and some before the common enemy challenge began on Sprite Stitch, just so happened to come at the right time and so made this pattern in progress a good choice for the challenge. This was inspired by the Disney animated movie Frozen, along with another project I'll eventually get around to stitching. I've never seen that movie, but hear good things about it and I do love one of the songs in it ("Let it go"). Seen a few clips of several of the songs and the one song ("In Summer") from the adorable, yet not so bright snowman Olaf brought an idea to my head.

I pictured what I wanted, a snowman on a lounge chair under a palm tree with a drink nearby and a warm sun above, the fluffy dude just laying back chillin', catching some summer sun rays. I searched my memory for every game that I could remember that had a snowman somewhere in it, focusing on those that had an ice/snow level then went through each gathering every snowman I could find. I already had my choice early on though, the snowman enemy from Kirby's Adventure.

So I played through Kirby, got the snowman, played enough into it to get to the cutscene with Kirby on the lounge chair, got a snapshot of that too, minus Kirby. Lay the little snowman in the chair, changing his pose a little so he can relax in it. Moved the drink to a good position.

Got the sun from Kirby's Adventure as well, what was going to be the sun before I changed it. I had started out with Mr. Bright when he's up in the sky, but once I really knew where I was going with this changed it to the Angry Sun from Super Mario Bros. 3.

I needed a tree, something tropical, but wanted it as the snowman would imagine it to be, frozen, after all he's never seen what things look like in summer, nor ever been to the tropics. My first and only thought led me to turn to the first Megaman game, Ice Man's stage, snapshot of the screen, got me a frozen palm tree. Set that behind my delusional lounging snowman. Got me a picture now.

Most of my troubles were with the text, what I wanted to say, how I wanted to phrase it. "I'll be doing whatever snow does In summer", or "I want to do what frozen things do In summer", or maybe something based on the lyrics but not quite the same wording. "I want to do what snowmen do In summer!" Yeah, I likes. I went with that, and settled on the font from Kid Icarus as it was basic and small enough to fit it all within the size I needed the pattern to be.

I started stitching, beginning with the Mr. Bright sun from Kirby's Adventure, which I'm glad I started with that because it was when I got halfway through stitching it when it hit me that the Angry Sun from SMB3 would be a better choice. Also, something else was missing from this picture. The sun is hot, angry, not at all what this snowman expected, he needed some shade, I needed an umbrella. Searching the memory banks of my head again...okay, enough searching, already got a good one as a power-up from Kirby's Adventure, but needed something more at an angle, took it from the power-up icon, changed the color, placed it in the snowman's hand. Ah, that's better.

I added some sweat, uh, melting water droplets splattering off of the snowman's head. My idea was to have a look of surprise at the unexpected heat, that it wasn't as cool as he thought it'd be (or could be drops of melting ice from the tree's leaves overhead, one falling and splashing off of his head), but then I thought...Okay, what the hell is that snowman looking at? He looks startled, like he's seeing something unpleasant before him.

I need to find a way to fit another snowman in this picture. Okay so text temporarily had to go, I'll fit it in later. This next task was going to be tough. I had a melting snowman already, this an enemy from Battletoads but he was too big, also the art style didn't quite fit plus not as much melty as just a crumpled heap. Then I remembered one I had missed, there's a snowman in the very last stage of Wizards & Warriors II: Ironsword, used my saved password to get there, snapshots taken of it.

Okay, removed hat from crumpled Battletoads snowman, placed on the few animations of the Ironsword one, decided on the most gone one. Still, something not quite right, the snow doesn't look melty, looks too cold, too solid, I needed a puddle. Took me a while to find what I was looking for but started looking towards slime enemies for this, the Babble from the Dragon Warrior games was very puddle looking, but how to use it? After fiddling around for a time with it, even as a possible choice for a melting snowman it hit me that I could stretch it horizontally and...hey, that is perfect! So I had me a melting snowman, made up of three enemies.

Now to try to fit all that text back into the picture. But making it even harder on myself I looked up NES games with the word summer in them, bam!, right in my face, Summer Carnival '92 Recca for the Famicom. That "Summer" was sprited so nicely I just had to use it as is. Will it fit? Please, please let it fit! Well now, it does, but now I can't fit all of the wording that I wanted. I messed around with it a bit, rearranged things for a while, then settled on the most necessary part, omitting the first few words "what snowmen do In Summer" I liked it.

And to think I had already stitched in the characters before even getting my wording satisfactorily together, but I knew I'd come up with something appropriate so had no worries. So, while looking upon it doesn't seem like much, a huge effort went into this composition, and was well worth seeing through.

Something interesting I just found out when looking for the name of the Kirby's Adventure snowman, Chilly, is that he don't look to me like the drawn art of him, well at least until I looked more closely. How I see his sprite is a snowman with sunglasses on (not actually wearing them over his eyes, just resting tilted up on his head, more a statement of being cool than actually needing them), he don't appear to have a hat on in the one animation frame that I used, just a round bald head of snow, but after looking at the other two frames, I don't know how I missed this detail, I guess because I was focused so much on that one which the hat wasn't shown well enough, but now know why because it is tilted back. But the art depicts Chilly having a bucket hat and what I thought were shades are actually thick eyebrows, interesting, but still look like sunglasses to me. Also he's wearing a bell which can't really be shown very well in the small sprites, I thought it simply a button.

Reminds me of the time long ago before I ever played Blaster Master and saw this one image of Jason battling a boss, Jason's super-deformed body shown from the rear to me looked like a plump car, like a cute Spy Hunter type thing (though I related it to Bump 'n Jump since that was the only overhead view driving game I had played at that time) which as funny as that seems, not having much to go by back then and that one image in this one of the only two gaming magazines I had at the time, my imagination played tricks on me. It was a common thing back then to misinterpret what a sprite looked like if you've never seen any drawn art of it, so I'm not surprised that I done it with mr. Chilly here too. I like my version better, a bald snowman with shades on.

And just for laughs, here are the original sprites of Chilly from Kirby's Adventure:



My interpretation (what my eyes immediately see them as) of those sprites before seeing artwork on him:



By the way this is the first time I have drawn anything on paper since June 2012, I don't put the pencil or pen to the paper very often, always feels so awkward. I still enjoy creating things with pixels more (less erasing, less mess), a lot more, but I couldn't share this silly vision any other way than to actually draw it.

[Miss Clawful]

I stole the baby!



PATTERN:
112x140 pixels = 8"x10"


MATERIAL:
Black Aida (14ct)

COLORS (DMC):
White
825 - Dark Blue
919 - Red Copper
905 - Dark Parrot Green
301 - Medium Mahogany
3857 - Dark Rosewood
963 - Ultra Very Light Dusty Rose
703 - Chartreuse
830 - Dark Golden Olive
760 - Salmon
745 - Light Pale Yellow

total colors: 11

DATE/TIME:
Started stitching: April 12th 2015
Finished stitching: April 25th 2015
2140 minutes = 35 hours 40 minutes

STITCHES:
3993

PROGRESS LOG:

Spoiler

4/12/2015
12:20pm-1:30pm
2:50pm-4:10pm
7:15pm-8:45pm
11:00pm-12:10am

905 - Dark Parrot Green on tree leaves done = 310 minutes

4/13/2015
1:25pm-1:55pm
2:40pm-4:40pm
7:40pm-9:40pm

3857 - Dark Rosewood on tree trunks done = 270 minutes

4/14/2015
12:40am-1:40am
12:35pm-2:05pm
2:30pm-4:10pm

301 - Medium Mahogany on tree trunks done (tree all finished) = 250 minutes

6:40pm-7:50pm

White, 919 - Red Copper, 963 - Ultra Very Light Dusty Rose on baby done (baby finished) = 70 minutes

4/18/2015
12:20am-2:45am
5:30pm-6:10pm

963 - Ultra Very Light Dusty Rose, 830 - Dark Golden Olive, 703 - Chartreuse on Link done (Link finished) = 185 minutes

4/20/2015
1:30pm-3:30pm

905 - Dark Parrot Green, 703 - Chartreuse on grass done (grass finished) = 120 minutes

3:35pm-4:15pm

760 - Salmon, 745 - Light Pale Yellow on Brownies done (Brownies finished) = 40 minutes

4:50pm-7:00pm

4/21/2015
1:50pm-3:30pm
6:15pm-6:45pm
11:10pm-11:55pm

4/22/2015
2:40pm-3:00pm
3:25pm-4:55pm

White on text box and words done = 415 minutes

11:20pm-12:00am

919 - Red Copper on corners of text box done = 40 minutes

4/24/2015
12:10am-12:50am
1:25am-1:45am
12:25pm-2:00pm

3:50pm-6:00pm

4/25/2015
12:35am-1:25am
3:00pm-4:45pm

825 - Dark Blue on words and border done (cross-stitch finished) = 440 minutes

NOTES:

Spoiler

I don't recall how I thought up to do this cross-stitch, but thinking about how Link holds everything up above his head that he finds that are of great importance, like he won a trophy, it occured to me how silly and screwed up that he does this even with a child, lifting the baby up by its legs, and it just hit me, "I stole the baby!" A fun quote taken from the awesome fantasy movie Willow spoken by one of the Brownies after having taken the baby Elora Danan from Madmartigan while he was taking a pee-pee.

So I had Link with the child held aloft and the quote, but didn't know what else to do with it, so like many ideas I sat on it for a while until a time come I could piece together more of an image. One day a couple weeks ago, wanting to get back into cross-stitching I was looking over the various ideas I had and this one amused me thinking about it again and so I pondered it some more and what I did want and needed was a backdrop, a forest background would be good. First game to come to mind was Final Fantasy, but I ended up going with the trees from Final Fantasy II.

Still was something missing. Ah! The Brownies! I snapped up the tiny sprites of them from the Willow NES game, then added in some random larges patches of grass taken from the game Magician and put it all together. What it was missing at the start was a story to complete the gag, its like, the Brownies had taken Elora Danan, but Link stole the (a) baby, perhaps from them and they're standing there like, "O-kay, its not even the right baby".

Anyway, I find it funny.

[Miss Clawful]

Jaws 7"x7"x7" triangle pattern



PATTERN:
140x140 pixels = 10"x10"


MATERIAL:
Black Aida (14ct)

COLORS (DMC):
White
747 - Very Light Peacock Blue
3810 - Dark Turquoise
930 - Dark Antique Blue
996 - Medium Electric Blue
825 - Dark Blue
796 - Dark Royal Blue
919 - Red Copper
814 - Dark Garnet
415 - Pearl Gray

total colors: 10

DATE/TIME:
Started stitching: April 29th 2015
Finished stitching: May 12th 2015
1940 minutes = 32 hours 20 minutes

STITCHES:
4158

PROGRESS LOG:

Spoiler

4/29/2015
9:15pm-12:40am

747 - Very Light Peacock Blue mostly done (just about a dozen scattered pixels left) = 205 minutes

4/30/2015
7:10pm-9:10pm

White, 415 - Pearl Gray, 796 - Dark Royal Blue done on shark = 120 minutes

5/1/2015
9:45pm-11:05pm
11:35pm-12:05am

5/2/2015
4:15pm-5:15pm
5:50pm-7:05pm
7:45pm-8:45pm

5/3/2015
12:00am-1:15am
3:25pm-4:10pm

930 - Dark Antique Blue done on shark = 445 minutes

4:30pm-5:20pm
8:05pm-9:10pm

5/4/2015
7:10pm-8:40pm
11:35pm-12:25am

5/6/2015
7:25pm-8:45pm
9:25pm-10:20pm

3810 - Dark Turquoise done on shark = 390 minutes (shark done)

[1160 minutes so far = 19 hours 20 minutes]

5/7/2015
3:15pm-5:00pm

White done on water = 105 minutes

5/8/2015
9:45pm-11:55pm

825 - Dark Blue on water = 130 minutes

5/9/2015
12:20am-2:30am

814 - Dark Garnet on triangle border done = 130 minutes

4:30pm-
6:30pm
9:20pm-10:30pm
11:30pm-12:00am

5/10/2015
2:50pm-5:00pm
9:25pm-11:25pm

5/12/2015
8:10pm-10:10pm
10:45pm-11:45pm

996 - Medium Electric Blue done on background = 650 minutes

[total time 1940 minutes = 32 hours 20 minutes]

NOTES:

Spoiler

Okay, so here's an oddity. Not strange to be stitching a cross-stitch of Jaws, afterall, from an NES game. What is though is how I came about starting it and the choice of the triangle border around the shark.

One day I was looking at how to make your own bikini top. I don't know how to sew or anything like that, my stitching is limited, so far, to just cross-stitching, not putting pieces of material together to create clothing or other items. But I was curious, so got to looking at patterns.

I came across some patterns that were for beaded bikini tops. This is exactly, well except for them being for beads, is what I was looking for. I did not use any of them, just looked over various ones until a more clear idea formed in my head. I got to looking at game sprites, cutscenes, title screens and such. Ah-hah! Jaws! The perfect choice for something on a bathing suit.

I had bought a string bikini like a month ago or so, not that I'll ever be able to wear it outside my own privacy given some anatomical issues but still wanted one, needed it to make me feel better about myself, at least for the time. Well anyway, measured the triangle of one of them, figured it to be about 7" each side, and so started working on a pattern for Jaws.

After some adjustments to the size and angle of the triangle, I simply placed that over the great white dubbed Jaws and there I had it. I had been currently working on other possible patterns to stitch as well as working on one really large one for Empire Strikes Back before starting this idea but I liked this one so much that I just had to start stitching right away.

I am so totally pleased with how it turned out, and its been a while since I've been so happy with a project. My only thing, what first started out being inspired by a bikini triangle top, well, I don't see myself cutting this thing out now, it'll be framed like all my other cross-stitch projects will soon be. Also, this triangle border, I may end up using it again for another project in the future, thinking possibly and most appropriately a Zelda piece, we'll see.

[Miss Clawful]

Little Nemo the Dream Master - Nightmares lurk in the darkness



PATTERN:
154x196 pixels = 11"x14"


MATERIAL:
Black Aida (14ct)

COLORS (DMC):
White
930 - Dark Antique Blue
333 - Very Dark Blue Violet
799 - Medium Delft Blue
3608 - Very Light Plum
963 - Ultra Very Light Dusty Rose
760 - Salmon
676 - Light Old Gold
830 - Dark Golden Olive

total colors: 9

DATE/TIME:
Started stitching: May 22nd 2015
Finished stitching: June 14th 2015
2885 minutes = 48 hours 5 minutes

STITCHES:
5490

PROGRESS LOG:

Spoiler

5/22/2015
2:15am-3:45am
4:25pm-5:45pm

5/23/2015
9:30pm-11:00pm

5/25/2015
1:40am-3:00am
3:35am-4:10am
3:20pm-4:30pm

5/26/2015
11:00pm-11:45pm

5/27/2015
1:15am-2:00am
3:30am-4:30am
6:50pm-7:45pm

5/28/2015
9:30pm-10:10pm
10:30pm-11:05pm

5/29/2015
11:35pm-12:00am

5/30/2015
12:00am-12:35am
10:20pm-10:50pm

5/31/2015
12:05am-12:50am
1:15am-2:00am
2:35am-3:30am
5:10pm-8:30pm

6/1/2015
1:35am-1:50am
2:10am-2:25am
8:50pm-10:20pm

6/2/2015
3:00pm-5:00pm
6:25pm-7:25pm

6/3/2015
10:35pm-11:35pm

6/4/2015
9:55pm-10:55pm
11:20pm-12:10am - got Nightmare King done

(total time on Nightmare King = 1630 minutes = 27 hours 10 minutes)

6/5/2015
8:00pm-9:45pm
10:40pm-11:50pm

6/7/2015
1:10am-3:10am
8:00pm-8:30pm

6/8/2015
11:30pm-12:00am

6/9/2015
12:00am-1:30am
11:55pm-1:45pm
7:20pm-8:30pm

6/11/2015
1:20am-3:30am
7:35pm-9:30pm

6/12/2015
9:20pm-11:30pm

6/13/2015
4:50pm-6:35pm

6/14/2015
7:15am-7:50am
4:45pm-5:15pm
6:10pm-7:35pm - got Nemo done

(total time on Nemo = 1255 minutes = 20 hours 55 minutes)

[total time 2885 minutes = 48 hours 5 minutes]

NOTES:

Spoiler

Having recently played and finally beaten Little Nemo the Dream Master on the NES without dying I was looking to stitch something great from this game. Okay, so I had already done stitched something for this already some couple years ago, but after seeing the cutscene image of Nemo holding the Morning Star scepter, I just had to stitch it. Still, there was something missing from this image and it dawned on me that this had to be just before his battle against the Nightmare King. I envisioned Nemo standing alone in the darkness, his only light being that emiting from the wand, illuminating just a small area around him, still darkness trying to engulf him. Then I thought to place the Nightmare King in the shadows, the perfect image for this, taking him from the background of the last stage of the game right before Nemo's battle against him. This was perfect. Gives a sense of fear, kinda like when children think of the boogieman. I started stitching right away.

[Miss Clawful]

Furball's @!#?@!



PATTERN:
84x154 pixels = 6"x12"


MATERIAL:
Green Aida (14ct)

COLORS (DMC):
black (all outlines and dark areas of characters)
white (Furball, Little Samson mouse, Q*bert quote, Nemo's mouse, Krusty's Funhouse mouse, Big Blag, Tiny Toon Adventures tin can, Duck Tales moon rat, sparks from Mouser's bomb, TMNT3 manhole cover)
317 - Pewter Gray (Little Samson mouse, Duck Tales moon rat, TMNT3 manhole cover)
415 - Pearl Gray (Mouser, TMNT3 manhole cover)
919 - Red Copper (Mappy's hat and scarf, Mouser's bomb, Big Blag, Goonies rat, Duck Tales moon rat's pupils)
402 - Very Light Mahogany (Big Blag)
951 - Tawny (Mappy)
963 - Ultra Very Light Dusty Rose (Nemo's mouse's mallet, Goonies rat)
813 - Light Blue (Furball, Nemo's mouse)
3608 - Very Light Plum (Mouser)
333 - Very Dark Blue Violet (Krusty's Funhouse mouse)
825 - Dark Blue (Big Blag)
996 - Medium Electric Blue (Big Blag)
209 - Dark Lavender (tin can)
930 - Dark Antique Blue (Bayou Billy ending image bricks)
3810 - Dark Turquoise (Bayou Billy ending image bricks)
676 - Light Old Gold (Duck Tales moon rat's tail)
3345 - Dark Hunter Green (Big Blag's hair)
702 - Kelly Green (Big Blag's hair)
830 - Dark Golden Olive (a single pixel of one of Big Blag's toe nails)

total colors: 20

DATE/TIME:
Started stitching: June 27th 2015
Finished stitching: July 8th 2015
3180 minutes = 53 hours

TOTAL STITCHES:
6010

PROGRESS LOG:

Spoiler

6/27/2015
1:55am-4:05am - Mappy done

=130 minutes

3:05pm-4:55pm
8:55pm-11:35pm - Nemo's mouse done

=270 minutes

6/28/2015
1:05am-2:40am - Krusty's Funhouse purple mouse done

=95 minutes

3:45am-4:45am
5:05am-6:25am
3:55pm-5:55pm
6:45pm-8:00pm - Mouser done

=335 minutes

8:50pm-9:50pm
10:35pm-12:00am

6/29/2015
12:00am-1:45am
2:10am-3:10am
3:30am-6:10am
6:40am-7:50am - Big Blag done

=540 minutes

8:45am-10:10am - K.O. mouse done

=85 minutes

9:25pm-12:00am

6/30/2015
12:00am-12:30am - Furball done

=185 minutes

2:45am-3:15am
3:30am-4:25am
4:45am-5:05am - @!#?@! done

=105 minutes

5:15am-6:00am
6:30am-8:45am
9:20am-1:05pm - text bubble done

=405 minutes

7/2/2015
2:45am-4:40am

7/3/2015
7:15am-8:15am
10:15pm-11:20pm - trashcan done

=240 minutes

7/4/2015
1:20am-2:40am
3:10am-5:20am - tin can and Goonies rat, and little bit of brick nearby done

=210 minutes

7/5/2015
11:40pm-2:05am - got outline of Duck Tales mouse boss done, ran into some major problems, a big stitch error that caused me to have to make some readjustments. It took me nearly twice as long as it was supposed to, so I made adjustments to the stitch time as well based on the time it took me on another project I had done a while back, a bonsai tree that had a stitch count around a dozen pixels higher than the outline on this moon rat, that one took me 2 and a half hours to complete, so using that as a basis for actual time spent stitching this rat, minus the errors and time spent correcting them. So yeah, I messed up pretty bad on this one, really screwed up when I found myself stitching the same leg over again (the rat had two left feet), then later realized that was nothing compared to a much worst mistake which placed the whole front of the rat one pixel higher than it was supposed to be as well as over a pixel too far to the left (a dachshund rat; it did seem a tad long, just took me stitching almost the whole thing before I realized it). I either had to remove almost all of it and do it all over again or go with that new placement and just tear out the little bit that I started with, that ended up being my choice option, it worked out fine.

=145 minutes - moon rat's outline

10:35am-12:10pm
12:30pm-1:40pm - manhole cover done

=165 minutes

7/6/2015
2:15am-3:20am - finished off background bricks

=65 minutes

5:45am-6:25am

7/7/2015-7/8/2015
9:50pm-12:35am - finished moon rat

=205 minutes

[total time 3180 minutes = 53 hours]

NOTES:

Spoiler

This was a project that I had started on last year back in October, inspired by the old Loonie Toons cartoons, the one with Sylvester chasing a mouse, the mouse hides, then out pops a kangaroo, and Sylvester mistakens it for a giant mouse and tries to catch it, but all through the episode it kicks his ass. At first this was just some simple sprite piece I put together for my own amusement, not really intending to do anything with it, just one of those random thoughts that came to mind. But, last month a Sprite Stitch challenge came up for animals or animal companions in video games, so thinking about participating in it, having been away from the board for a while I started thinking up some ideas. One of those was of a grandfather clock with mice playing on and around it, taking from the old nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock. Well I worked on that for some time, but also went back to the Cat 'n Mouser project to see if there was anything I could do with that too. As the month was getting closer to ending, therefore the challenge as well, still my mind not completely made up on the Hickory Dickory Dock one, still in conflict over where the mice would be and how many, plus not having a large enough sheet of green aida for it, I put that aside and put more focus on the Cat 'n Mouser one.

Originally this started out with just a cat, Furball from Tiny Toons Adventures, with his paw on a mouse's tail (this mouse from Little Samson), he'd caught himself a tasty little morsel, but then looks further ahead and sees this really big mouse (holding a bomb), larger than he is, Mouser. !@#?@! (translation: Oh, fudge! only it wasn't quite that word). Once I started working on this for the challenge I added in more mice, created a gang consisting of Mouser (Super Mario Bros. 2), Mappy (Mappy Kids), and Nemo's mouse (Little Nemo the Dream Master). After that I went through many revisions, adding to it, making changes until it was perfect, as I envisioned it. Others in the final pattern are the purple mouse (from Krusty's Funhouse), and the rat enemy (from The Goonies), Big Blag (Battletoads and Double Dragon), as well as the Moon Rat boss (Duck Tales), but along the way have tried out others, Mickey Mouse, mice enemies from a couple other games (Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Dr. Chaos), even a robot mouse (Megaman 4).

When I had started stitching for this challenge I had only 4 days left and was still working out my pattern even as I had already begun stitching. By this point I definitely wanted to participate, but knew I would not get it all finished in time, still I would try. By the 30th I got the necessary components done, Furball, K.O., Mouser, Mappy, Nemo's mouse, Krusty's mouse, and Big Blag (so glad this guy came to mind before I started stitching Mouser, changed the pattern up a little but definitely for the better), oh and the Q*Bert quote, the symbols representing foul language. I presented the piece, but continued to stitch and find the rest of what I needed to truly complete it. Location was absolutely necessary as I didn't want them just floating there against a green background. The one thing for certain, this had to be in an alley, or possibly a sewer, so started searching for the appropriate elements to create either of those scenes (had my heart set on the alleyway).

For the background I wanted to show a wall behind the characters, but only needed to hint at its existence, a few clusters of bricks sporatically placed about would be fine. I ended up using the clusters that I had taken from the Adventures of Bayou Billy (parts of an archway on the ending screen) that I was going to use for the Hickory Dickory Dock project, those worked nicely for this project as well as I couldn't find any other bricks that I was satisfied with, these were perfect. Next I needed a manhole cover, found one in TMNT3. I had wanted to use the large one from the intro of that game but it just didn't look good with this pattern, my first choice was best. I needed a trashcan though, a dumpster, garbage laying about to complete this scene. I searched through many games, every place that had city stages, anywhere I think there'd possibly be a trashcan sprite, there were plenty, but most were ugly and either too detailed, didn't look right, or too small so didn't fit in with this project. Eventually my memory kicked in and I remembered Tiny Toon Adventures had one. I was so happy to finally have my trashcan (this one looked good, perfect size and art style), and now could finally get this composition done the way I wanted it.

Oh, I did at one time try moving the location to a sewer, going through games looking for the best pipes I could find and came up with some halfway decent pattern but still wasn't what I wanted. I had also though of placing shadow behind the mice, that was kind of neat effect but was too ambitious. Anyway, that trashcan was a blessing and the pattern was soon completed, stitching done several days later. I love, love, love how this one came out, and to think, if it weren't for this challenge it would never have come about, so even though the final product wasn't completed by end of challenge, it got my creative juices flowing, bringing me back to an old project and do something more with it, much more.