Finding Your Bead Count Using GIMP 2.8

Hello again!

Someone from Instagram had asked me how I figure out my pricing for my sprites, and I explained that I used the bead count to calculate it. This is a little tutorial on how to get the bead count, which is actually a pixel count, for your sprites! I'll be using Earthworm Jim for this tutorial, since it's the sprite they wanted to use!

First you'll need to download and install GIMP. At the time of writing, the newest version is 2.8. You can get it here!

Once that is installed you want to open the program and get the Histogram window opened. To do so, go to Windows/Dockable Dialogs/Histogram.

Now open your image with the sprite in it. In this case we are using a sprite sheet from the SNES game Earthworm Jim. Once you have your image open, use the Rectangle Select Tool to select just the sprite you want to bead.

Once selected, we're going to cut the selection from the image. To do so go to Edit/Cut.

We need to make a new image with a transparent background now. Go to File/New and a small dialog box will open. You need to click Advanced Options to bring down a few more options. Under the Advanced Options you will see the option Fill With:. You want to click Transparency from the drop down menu.

Next we paste the sprite we cut into the new image! Simply go to Edit/Paste and it will paste the sprite we cut into the middle of our new image. If the image is too small for the sprite, adjust the image size in the New dialog window where we added the transparent background.

With the sprite in the middle of your screen (Use the Zoom tool if necessary.) you now want to use the Fuzzy Select Tool to select the background surrounding your sprite.

Delete the background by simply hitting the Delete key on your keyboard. Now you are left with just Earthworm Jim! Now with the background area still selected, we need to inverse the selection. Go to Select/Invert.

You should now have all of your sprite selected. This is where the Histogram window comes into play. Take a look at it, and in the bottom right hand side there is a section marked Pixels:. This is now telling you exactly how many pixels are in your sprite. Which is also how many beads you are going to need!

So for this example here, Earthworm Jim would have 1664 pixels/beads. To then figure out how many beads of one color you need, you want to use the Select by Color tool.

Once the tool is selected, click somewhere on the image on the color you need to know the pixel/bead count of.

Now take a look in the same place on the Histogram and it will tell you exactly how many of that color you will need.

So for Earthworm Jim's face, we'd need 21 of the lightest pink!



And there you have it! You can then crop the image if you'd like and save it for future reference.

I hope this helps! And as always, if you have any questions feel free to ask!

Speed Beading - Videos

After much fighting I'd finally gotten a set up that works for recording my beads. And so I went ahead and record a few videos of me beading my sprites! Enjoy!

Link and Zelda from Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

Elsa from Disney's Frozen

Anna from Disney's Frozen 

Fuse Bead Taping Method Tutorial - Video

I'm a terrible blogger apparently, and for that I apologize.

But I come back bearing gifts! Today I have for you a tutorial on how I tape and iron my bead sprites. I know there are a few tutorials kickin' around for this already, but I do my way slightly differently so I thought I'd share.

So here it is!

Freezer Paper Stencil Tutorial - 2 Colors!

Years ago I some how came across this (Now defunct.) site called StencilPunks.org, which taught me how to use freezer paper to make stencils to paint onto shirts. I was like, "Wow! How cool is that!" and had my mom buy me some freezer paper on our next grocery trip (Which I actually am still using. So it goes a long way.) It had a whole whack of tutorials on how to do stencils in different ways, and a bunch of stencils. The stencils them selves are being hosted on Tumblr now, which you can find here, but the tutorials seem to be long gone.

I know there a bunch of tutorials out there for one color, and it's super easy to do two colors, but not a lot of people seem to be covering it. So I thought I could show how I've done it while I make up some shirts for my bead stuff! Win win for everybody! This post is going to be mildly picture heavy, so fair warning.

Enough chit-chat, here's the tutorial.



First off, here's a little list of materials.

You will need:
- Paint of some kind. I use Liquitex Basics because it's what my local Micheal's has, and it said flexible when dry on the package. It's acrylic but fabric paint might work better. Also worth mentioning, when this paint get washed a lot it does start to look more distressed. As seen here.
- Paint brushes.  Pick a size close to the size of your stencil. Don't use a massive brush for little spots or vise versa.
- A craft knife. For cutting the stencils!
- The ever-so-important freezer paper. The brand I have is Reynolds, probably other brands out there but this box has lasted me years.
- Pins. For pinning.
- An iron. To adhere the freezer paper to your shirt! Or whatever you're stencilling on.
- Shirts or other fabric material. Denim works excellently. I have made a number of vests that have turned out much nicer then anything I've done on cotton.
- Scissors. Used to cut the paper down to a more manageable size. And my freezer paper since the box is long since destroyed.
- And of course, the stencils them selves! For stencilling!

Also not pictured but recommended:
- A cutting mat. I don't have a nice fancy one, so I use a plastic cutting board.
- A rag or spare piece of cloth. For ironing over your design without mucking up your iron.


Step two is to make your stencil patterns!

Mine was super simple to convert into a stencil because it already had crisp, clean lines and 2 very obvious colors. If you folks want me to, I can probably do a tutorial on how to make the stencils too, but for now here is a handy Instructable that shows how to make an image into a stencil.

When doing 2 colors, make sure you pick colors that are different enough from each other so you can distinguish them when they have been printed.

If you are doing a larger stencil, like I wanted for the back of my shirt, your best bet for printing it out would be to use Adobe Reader. If you're just doing a 8.5" by 11" or smaller stencil, feel free to skip ahead.

Save your image as a PDF and then open it with Adobe Reader and hit print. You'll want to set the Page and Size Handling to Poster, and I made the Overlap 0.10 inches instead of the default 0.05 inches. I found it was easier to line up when I was taping them together.

Continuing with the large stencils, once it is printed you need to make the separate pages meet. To do this, pick one side and trim the paper so there is no white border. Line it up as best as you can with the other side, and tape it in place. I find this step a bit hard to explain, so take a look at the photo below.

Perfect!

Now it doesn't matter if you were doing a small stencil or a multi-page larger stencil, you want to trim it down a bit now. Not too much, but to something a little more manageable then a full sheet of paper. You want to leave enough paper around the design to be able to pin it down.

So now we have our printed out stencil, the next step is to lay out your freezer paper. One side of the paper is shiny, like wax paper. The other is just like regular paper. (Some people have luck printing directly on the freezer paper, but from my experience the waxy side gets stuck and causes all sorts of problems in your printer. It's up to you if you want to try to print directly on the freezer paper.) You want to put the waxy side down, onto your shirt. Then take your iron, I have mine set to Wool, and just iron the paper down until it is all stuck to the shirt. Don't worry, the paper peels off without any residue left behind!

Here's what it should look like.

Next you want to pin your stencil design to the shirt. It helps if you have someone around to have the shirt on, so you can see where it will sit. If not, I just kinda eyeball it, and use a ruler to see if the edges seem straight enough. Once you are happy with the position, pin down all 4 corners.

And now the mildly tedious part. You take your trusty craft knife and start trimming out the letters! Try to be as precise as possible, and most importantly, don't loose the little dots! To be more specific, you see how the "P" has a little square in the middle of it? You need to keep that in place! Same with any other letters like "A" and "R" for example. I find the best way to do this is to cut the letter out, then lift just a corner of the letter and use the edge of your craft knife to hold it in place while you peel away the rest of the letter. If it ends up loose, do your best to keep it in place then take the tip of your iron and just flatten it back out. The iron needs to be hot still, so I usually just leave it on while I am cutting the letters out. Because I swear every one of them will lift up!

Make sure when you are cutting, you only cut the one color out right now. In the photo below you can see I just did the gray letters. Not the black.

Once you have the letters all cut out, and your little dots are secure, you want to remove the paper with the design on it. So unpin it, and set it aside. You'll need it again later in most cases. If you are doing one color then you wont need it again but multicolor things you can usually save some paper and ink by reusing a pattern. If you are doing the same thing on many shirts though, I recommend a stencil for each shirt, as going over an already cut patter on new freezer paper is a bit tricky.

Once you have removed the paper you'll see only what you've cut out! Give it a quick go over with the iron to make sure all the edges are as stuck down as they can be, and you're ready to paint!

It may take multiple layers to get the color to be just right. As you go, let each layer dry and then place a rag or cloth over top of it (Something you don't mind getting paint on, if it happens to come off a bit.) and run your iron over it. This way your iron wont get all gummed up from the paint and you can make sure the edges of your stencil are still down.

 Once your layers are done, and it's dried for a bit, you get to peel off the freezer paper! Grab a corner and peel it back. Anything left behind, just user your craft knife to get it up, like the dots.

Now if you're only doing one color, congratulations! You're done!

The thing I find with cotton products though, is the paint tends to get underneath the edges, no matter how careful I am. I believe this is because the cotton fabrics tend to move and stretch while you paint, where as denim doesn't have that effect.

If you've got more then one color, it's time to repeat the steps. Take your freezer paper again and cover the part where you've already applied the paint. Just like last time, waxy side down. The tricky part comes in making sure the second color lines up with the first. It's not so bad if your design isn't 2 colors precisely beside each other like mine. But if it is take your time in lining it up. You'll regret it later if you don't!

Once your second color is dry, and you've peeled off the freezer paper you are done!

Stand back and admire your work! Modeled by my lovely boyfriend, Steven!

Now truth be told, I dislike the colors on this. The blue is far too dark, and I'll be redoing them with a lighter shade. So a quick little tip, if have any spare material try and test the paint on it first so you know how the colors will turn out!

I will post a photo of the new shirts on here later when they are complete! Until then, have a good Sunday everyone!

Edit March 30th, 2015: Here are the "New and Improved" shirts! Both say PkmnMasterTash Creations! on the front right hand side, and then my shirt also says PkmnMasterTash along the back. They turned out much, much nicer then the first attempt color wise. So I'm very pleased now!

Welcome to my blog! Here's a little introduction.

Hello folks! Some of you may know me from around the various parts of the internets, such as Tumblr and Instagram, but for those who don't, I'm Tasha! More commonly known as PkmnMasterTash.

For the last year and a bit I've been working with fuse beads to create various pieces of art. I started with just the Perler brand of beads, but half way through my first year I then learned about a newer brand called Artkal. Between the two of them, I have 115 colors to choose from! That makes for a pretty good selection when making sprites, that's for sure.

I have to say though, I've come pretty far along in just a years time. The very first thing I made with the beads was a set of Eeveelutions for my best friend, and I recently remade them with my new sets of beads. When I made them the first time I was limited to Perler's colors alone. 

Here's a look at my first set of Eeveelutions (Please forgive me for the lame watermark-type-deal on the photo. It was taken long before I started using my cards for watermarking.)

They look pretty good! But with the new set of colors and my better ironing skills, I knew I could do better. So here are the new versions.

I am very happy with how they've turned out and how far I've really come with the bead stuff. It may not look like much, but I know the consistency of my ironing is much better now. That, and I also place beads almost twice as fast as I used to.

Another example of my beginning work would be the Halo Spartan I made for a woman I worked with. This was my second piece and as the saying goes, "Go big or go home."

Not too shabby for my 2nd ironing job, I think. I've always used the taping method (Which I learned from this video here.), but I adapted it to my own tastes. I actually made my own videos, but they are long and I couldn't get the audio right, so they are kinda annoying cause you have to read everything... I'll redo them some day. Anyway. I did this in 2 pieces and actually spliced them together before ironing. I bet you can hardly tell where they were joined eh? I did the same with Master Chief below, but he was in 3 parts.

I feel like it's worth mentioning here, if you watch that video on the taping method, one of the things I do differently is I don't punch holes in every single bead. I guess I was lazy the first time I did it, and I've never had any issues. I think that is because I don't do a full melt. So if you wanna try it with out the holes, I know some people swear you'll ruin your work, you probably can. But don't blame me if something goes wrong! Just because I've never had an issue doesn't mean your ironing style wont have issues.

I think that is a fairly nice introduction to my new blog. I hope to make regular posts here, and maybe I can get a tutorial together that doesn't suck for my version of the taping method!

Until next time, see you around folks!