Physical pixel art

[wzl]

A couple days ago i was approached on my twitch stream by someone who just formed a stream team called dot matrix. He and his other team mates are mostly doing perlers and cross stitching, which got me curious. It's not like i've been completely oblivious of those, but it never really occured to trying it myself, which i now did, and it's really fun 
I've started with cross stitching because it is easier to get into and requires less equipment. Additionally you have more freedom with different stitching techniques and canvases. It's pretty amazing what you can do.
The downside is it takes forever.

What i found really interesting is that cross stitching dates back to egypt around 500AD, so pixel art is actually ancient 

In any case, here are the two stitches i made so far. The rabite is an original sprite i did (or remix i guess) while goku is from the GBA DragonBall Advanced Adventure game.





Have you attempted any cross stitching, perlers, or any other physical form of pixelart?

[Gil]

I used to be a perler as a kid in the early 90's (I think everyone was back then). My grandma was big into cross stitching, I should get into it. I think I have an aunt who does a lot of cross stitching too.

[wzl]

I did another piece on stream last night \o
This is fun. but it takes so insanely long. This one is around 5-6 hours.


Toasterdog, best dog!

I did another giveaway last night 

[Gil]

My sister asked me to do one of my pixel art pieces in Ministeck, anyone remember that?

[wzl]

oh yes! we used to have that in kindergarten.
That stuff is frickin expensive though ;/

[Cherno]

Perler beads are a popular medium for recreating pixel art. I wished there was a source of cheap, tiny plastic cubes for voxel-style models.

[jengy]

Hey!
PixelPiledriver told me about this post and I'm exicted to see others doing this!

I make magnets with my pixel art works.
They are super sturdy (I use heavy magnets found at craft stores) and back them with felt.
They take forever to make, though.


Fever, Weird and Chill


Kirby flying away


The mole from Dig-N-Rig!


Whoosh!


Dr. Mario


Mario 3 x Plants VS. Zombies for a friend

If anyone is interested, I can do a video demo sometime of how I put them together.

Basic Steps:

• Make your cross stitch.
• Outline the cross stitch with a 1-pixel contrasting thread (makes the pixel pop from the BG).
• Cut out a piece of felt big enough to cover the back of the cross stitch and then some.
• Hot glue gun the felt to the back side, where all the nasty threads are. This locks the threads down and gives the magnet some weight/thickness.
• Roughly cut out the cross stitch and felt. Leave lots of margin on the outside of the pixel art.
• (Hardest step) Carefully cut out the cross stitch, one pixel outside of the thread border. Be careful! Stuff can fray and you have to take your time, sometimes doing only one pixel snip at a time. This is difficult to control because of the added thickness of the glue and felt, but it's better to do it once these are attached for maximum size match with felt BG.
• Attach the magnet with glue gun.
• Optional: Apply fray-locking glue on edges to prevent the cross stitch edges from flaking off.
• You're done!

I also made a pixel art stocking for Christmas that Pixel will use year round (and where I'll hide little gifts and notes for him).

[RAV]

Jengy, I am jealous of PPD. Hey wzl, wanna be my cross-stitching girlfriend?

[jengy]

LOL.
Wanna know some cross stitching tips?

- If you use both hands (one poking through the front, the other catching the needle and poking through the back) the whole project goes twice as fast. You have to rest the hoop on your knee to get this to work. But your basically tossing the needle from hand to hand.

- Place a light either behind your project and you can see the needle through the fabric, and be able to poke the hole you're going for faster. Or place a light to your left or right, (you can use daylight for this) just enough to cast shadows across your cross stitch. When you are searching for your hole with the needle, you can more clearly see where the bump is. (Searching requires a ballpoint needle, which I mention in the next step).

- Don't use a sharp needle. Consider using a larger tapestry or ballpoint needle. Makes it so you never poke yourself and you're less likely to miss the hole you're going for and split the weave.

- Use beeswax or thread conditioner to make the thread less prone to clotting and knotting.

I can make some videos if anyone is interested, can't do it now because I'm on a bus, hehe).

Good luck!

[RAV]

Sounds great. I like this topic. Been looking at a lot of old cross-stitches from flea markets to study their technique. And that sensation of a physical feeling to pixel art is so nice. Btw, I noticed some of them making good use of mixing the half-pixel in, since only one half of the crossing double stitch is like a corner tile. It happened very often that I found surprising parallels to computed pixel art quirks. Another example is how stitching with different materials gave them sometimes either more CRT colour bleeding fuzziness or more LCD like sharpness. It's funny even they knew this difference pre compute era.

[wzl]

That is fantastic jengy!
the tips are great, though i figured them out myself except using the bees wax
I have the fabric mounted differently since i don't have a frame to work with, but using both hands is really comfortable i find.
I did use a backlight when i was experimenting with dark fabric, because that was a pain to work with otherwise. Didn't try that with a normal piece. will certainly try it next time

I do wonder though how you fix your outer borders after cutting them. can you show a closeup picture of that maybe? i'd be so afraid of the fabric falling apart

[gomi]

Nice! I just returned to the forums to get my pixel mojo back before tackling some larger mosaic pieces.

[MikePixel]

Those are so cute. I have to make one myself.
I would love a video jengy!

[Theoden]

This is awesome! You should do more.

[wzl]

Why thank you! Actually i thought the same recently. I'll probably get some more done at some point

[DigitalYerf]

Cinnamon cake

A delicious but very low resolution rendering of a fox. 19 x 16 pixels, 6 colours, 5 hours of icing:



Original picture: http://bluewater-publications.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Fierce-Fox.jpg

More pictures, and how it was done: https://flashasm.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/this-rendering-algorithm-is-incredibly-slow-aka-cinnamon-cake-pixel-art/


Hand-made antialiased text

The antialiasing value of each pixel was calculated by hand, based on how much was inside the text shapes. Approximately 64 x 32 pixels, 9 levels of antialiasing, 36 colours, 7 hours of painting:



More pictures, and how it was done: https://flashasm.wordpress.com/2014/06/08/this-rasterization-algorithm-is-incredibly-slow-but-at-least-uses-antialiasing/


Fox

320 x 220 (approx) pixels, 25 colours, 130 hours of painting. Not a great photo, to be honest:



Original: https://www.flickr.com/photos/levitateme/3735905630/

More pictures, including some close-ups: http://imgur.com/a/Yg5Lw

How it was done: This blogpost is for a different picture, but it's the same principle. https://flashasm.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/more-incredibly-slow-rendering-algorithms-cupcakes-pixel-art/


Cupcakes version 2.0

My first attempt at painting these cupcakes was disappointing, so I decided to try again. 256 x 320 pixels, 64 colours, 300 hours of mixing and painting. Original picture on the left, painting on the right:



Original picture: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wvALB7YcVwc/USasHfsD1PI/AAAAAAAALGk/cjP7Nm2eZI4/s1600/SprinkleBakes+Roy+G+Biv+Rainbow+Cupcakes.jpg

More pictures, and how it was done: https://flashasm.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/81920-pixels-of-64-colour-cupcake-goodness/

[wzl]

That is insane. mad props!
would eat the fox without second thought though

[maruki]

This is so awesome! I love to see the pixels on the screen "get real", hahaha
I'm terrible with any kind of craft, though I once tried cross-stitching when I was a kid and, man, that was painful.