Satoshi Matrix Bead Sprites

UncleSporky · Post by **UncleSporky** » Mon May 09, 2011 3:26 am

SatoshiMatrix wrote:UncleSporky, I'm not quite sure what you mean. You mean make stop motion sprites? That would take.....considerable work

Yeah...like this!

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Mon May 09, 2011 2:54 pm

Sorry, that would take wayyyyyyy more time than I would deem it to be worth. I prefer the still sprites.

Speaking of, here's another very large project I've done.

The Change of Heart

Shown here is the Change of Heart magic card from the popular TCG Yu-Gi-Oh. Although I'm not a big fan of the anime (aside from the hilarious abridged series b y that multitalented British bloke) the cardgame itself is pretty fun, and regardless, I've always liked this image.

Kind of a stand-in for women in general - one minute they're pure, beautiful sweet and kind, the next they're evil psycho-bitches! Change of Heart is serious business.

image contains over 6000 beads.

Grumskiz · Post by **Grumskiz** » Mon May 09, 2011 4:15 pm

SatoshiMatrix wrote: Kind of a stand-in for women in general - one minute they're pure, beautiful sweet and kind, the next they're evil psycho-bitches! Change of Heart is serious business.

Gotta love that quote ^^
And YGOTAS is definitively awesome! Little Kuriboh is some amazing...

It seems to me as if you only iron one side of your bead images. I think I mostly did that as well, way back when I used to use these beads.(I also remember their very distinctive smell...)
Still it's kinda hard to tell from your pictures.
Also: If you only iron one side, does it affect the stability of the bead image?
I really want to dig out my board and my beads when I come home and give this a try!

I also love the Kunio one! *BARF*

dr_sloppy · Post by **dr_sloppy** » Mon May 09, 2011 7:05 pm

I used to play around a little with this in my childhood and must say that I'm very impressed by all the good work shown here.

As most, if not all, of the motives shown in this topic is based on game sprites, I can't help but wonder if one can gain a somewhat emulator-like blur/soften effect by also applying heat to their foreground?

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Mon May 09, 2011 7:17 pm

I suppose so, one could add in "scanlines" to the sprites. I generally speaking only iron one side unless I'm specifically asked by a client to iron both.

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Tue May 10, 2011 5:04 pm

Megaman vs Mecha Joe

Some Final Fantasy IV commission work I did for a client about a year ago

Jesse and James of Team Rocket, color enhanced

Finally, Megaman 1 robot master portraits. Each portrait is 6"x6".

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm

Dracula, from Castlevania 3.

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Fri May 13, 2011 8:15 pm

I've been asked about how I choose coloring for my sprites.

I have about 170 possible bead colors. NES sprites typically work in only around 20~25 color range, making them easy to pinpoint. 16-bit colors are more difficult to match, and 32-bit sprites are near impossible. All that said, I have learned to place colors that fit best in many situations. My sprites are never color-inaccurate. When I first started to make sprites, I would work solely in the NES pallet, but as time went on I started to base the sprite coloring not on system limitations, but rather on character artwork. Here's an example of what I mean.

Here are two sprites I made of Toadman from Megaman 4.

The one on the left is a recreation of the sprite as seen on the NES, using the four colors the NES rendered the sprite in.

The sprite on the right is based on the Toadman official character artwork coloring.

I can do both, but I much prefer to make sprites based on the character art when possible.

Bregalad · Post by **Bregalad** » Sat May 14, 2011 5:19 am

The right toadman looks better to me.

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Mon May 16, 2011 2:57 pm

Indeed, thats what I think as well.

Here's an extremely large project I've cooked up from one of my favorite games of all time.

X, from Megaman X1 (SNES)

"You are X - it is a variable. It represents limitless potienal. You see, you are a new type of robot, who can think for himself. You truly are just like us humans, X.. that's why I'm afraid mankind is not yet ready to accept you. We are not yet mature. They may very well view your limitless evolutionary potential as something to be feared. The name X also carries contentions of danger. I'm sorry X...I didn't have enough time to see you enter the world. I've given you the power to think, to worry, to grow and evolve as you fight. But......it is too soon for that power to be unleashed. X, I want you to use that conscious of yours to help the people of the future. They will need someone like you to guide them. Farewell X...you are the world's one, true hope."

-T. Light, September 18 20XX.

X stands about 4 1/2 feet tall, and has well over 8000 beads. I don't remember the exact amount. this took about 3 months to complete.

Denine · Post by **Denine** » Wed May 18, 2011 5:18 am

OK....
This one is very detailed and..BIG.
I never liked X, but, wow...

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Fri May 20, 2011 3:09 am

I've finally finished my latest "big" project. When I was thinking of what to do with my surplus of green, I thought of doing a grass type Pokémon, since I haven't really make many Pokémon sprites. I also wanted the challenge of doing a really stupid-looking sprite that's laughably bad, yet complex and semi-difficult. The result was Exeggutor, from Pocket Monsters Red/Green.

You now realize the egg on the right is staring directly into your soul. Have a great day!

Having done a Pokemon sprite by *gasp* sticking to the original 4 color pallet, I gained a real appreciation for how much work Pokemon sprites are.

I took this pic on the pegboards because after making it, I thought of something else to reuse the green beads on. Having dismantled poor Exeggutor bead-by-bead, I've put them back down in a far more lovely form:

Lum Invader from Urusei Yatsura: My Dear Friends for the Sega Mega CD.

The Mega CD renders her hair blue, so I've gone ahead and recolored her hair to more closely match the coloring it should be, based on the color scheme used in Urusei Yatsura Stay with You for PCE CD. Many other small tweaks were made to make Lum look the best I could get her.

The whole project took around 20 hours to complete. Fine-tuning her bra was far more tedious than I thought it would be. Getting those tiger stripes to look much like tiger stripes was proving difficult, but I'm real happy with the finished result.

I had originally just planned to do her face, but it kind of got out of hand and just kept growing. Still, I had to stop somewhere, and where I did begs the obvious question: does the carpet match the drapes?

I guess we'll never know! ;D

So why Urusei Yatsura?

A few months back, I was chatting with a friend who has a large collection of import retro games. I mentioned to him my particular childhood love of the anime-style games on the Sega CD like Lunar: the Silver Star and Popful Mail, and he introduced to me a game called Urusei Yatsura: My Dear Friends. Only a few minutes in I was totally hooked. I wanted to know who these characters were, so I immediately started to watch the 1981 anime of the same name.

At nearly thirty years old, to say I was late to jump on the Urusei Yatsura bandwagon would be an understatement. Nevertheless, to show my application for this wonderful wonderful anime, here's my tribue to Lum Invader: best alien in all the universe.

Always more to come!

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:47 pm

update time!

Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura. Sakura flies on her magical winged dildo. Damn you magicalflute, damn you.

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:44 pm

here's another one for you guys.

Dr. Wily's famous UFO pod from Megaman 2 onwards. Wily had one in the first game too, but it looked different. This is color enhanced to make it look even better.

SatoshiMatrix · Post by **SatoshiMatrix** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 11:44 am

Well hey guys, I've just finished my super special secret project. Presenting Link from the Legend of Zelda for NES....

IN 3D!

Inspired by the totally awesome 3D Dot Game Heroes for the PS3, here's Link from the classic LoZ game from 25 years ago. He's held together with glue and is somewhat fragile, but I'm pretty happy with the overall results. I decided to take the picture out in the forest behind my house - an area perfect for Link!

Additional images I took for you guys:

This project was a lot of fun, but a lot of work even though Link is small at around 4" tall, he contains hundreds of carefully arranged beads and took almost a week to complete. I may visit the idea again sometime, maybe with Mario Megaman and others.

Anyway hope you guys like it!