Satoshi Matrix's Bead Sprites

[satoshi_matrix]

sheep2001 - Thanks! Mario was a lot of fun to make.

shenske - SAME here. That's why I decided to make them. The badges along with Missingno. pretty much represent my nostalgic love for Pokémon before it became too complicated for its own good.

Mick Dundee - What you're looking at are sprites I've made for over a year. It's not like I did these all at once  And the larger sprites consider of just a few more than a hundred....the portraits are each 1024 beads. The large sprites, espically X, consist of millions. I would estimate X at somewhere around 5 million beads.

Jigsaw - Sprites always exceed expectations in size. The average small sprite is 15cm x 15cm. The larger ones are exponentially larger. For instance, that X is over a meter tall. These are NOT small.

Okay time for a business post. Although it isn't my primary focus by any means, if you guys are interested in buying some sprites, then I'm interested in selling them.  I've got a few PMs people asking me how much certain ones are. So to prevent "how much for that" questions, I'll add prices next to each of my sprites from now on.

Shipping for all but the biggest of the big sprites is very cheap - almost always under $5. For those who do want to buy, I do encourage multiple purchases. Shipping charges can be absorbed together and I give slight discounts per item the more you buy. Plus, I'm always open to custom orders. I'll gladly take a look and most likely be able to accommodate your order. I accept money order and paypal. Email me your orders at satoshimatrix@hotmail.com. I'll do my best to get back to you as soon as I can.

New! I've gone back and added sale prices to all my sprites. To quickly browse them, visit my flickr page, here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/30701966@N04/. Once there, flick the descriptions and you'll see a price without shipping, in USD, at the very end.

Now, for people who look at my wares and say the prices are too high:
Considering the time and material cost, it would actually cost someone else more to simply buy the beads and make them themselves, so my rates honestly aren't unreasonable asking prices.  While I agree they might sound expensive for such items, having made and bought these sort of things from others myself, I honestly am really only breaking even at my prices. I'm not selling these for profit, I'm selling these because I genuinely feel a lot of retro gamers would be into this stuff and be the envy of your friends. I know that's what happened to me!

So thanks for the interest everyone! And if your a flickr member, please feel free to leave comments on my page!

[Mick Dundee]

The large sprites, espically X, consist of millions. I would estimate X at somewhere around 5 million beads.

HOLY CRAP! YOU REALLY DO BUY IN 55 GALLON DRUMS!!!

[UncleBob]

Those are awesomely cool.  Like, seriously.

Two questions though - well, one question, one suggestion...

1.) Where the heck do you buy the little beads?  That's a lot of 'em.

2.) When snapping pictures, you should include a shiny quarter or such to help give a sense of scale.

[satoshi_matrix]

some craft stores sell them, or online. And one my faults is that I don't include scale references.... its a habit I need to break. sorry guys!

but heres more! Hope you guys like Castlevania!


 
The prince of darkness himself, Dracula as he appears in Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse. I was intending to do his Castlevania 1 sprite, but it is uggggggggggggly! the CV3 one is vastly superior.


 
Straight out of Greek mythology, Medusa is among the bosses you will fight in the superior Japanese version of Castlevania 3, Akumajou Densetsu. In the NES version, you still fight this boss, but it was edited to be male and thus lacks the boobs. Damn you Nintendo censorship!

I color corrected this sprite from its original red to reflect the colors Medusa traditionally is associated with. Also, her soundwave attack glows in the dark.




A staple of Castlevania as sure as Dracula himself, bead-sprite Death sports his Castlevania 3 appearance here with minor recoloring and minor changes to some of the taters in his cloak to look slightly better.

Lastly, a little Metroid:


 
Run for your lives, these things are f-ing scary! When doing this sprite, I tried many different things: filling in the inner section with clear see-through beads since Metroid are transparent afterall, I tried filling in everything with black and then I decided to fill in every black pixel where it would touch a colored one. The result turned out quite good. So much work for a little NES sprite!

[satoshi_matrix]

so here's more!



Can you name any Star Trek sidescrolling shmups? If not, don't worry, there was only one - Star Trek 25th Anniversary for the Gameboy. I decided to slightly color the sprites and make them look slightly better. Very small sprites but I think they turned out well. These look great as fridge magnets provided you have a black fridge like I do!



Taking the NES Samus Aran sprite and totally revamping it's color depth, here is a custom NES Samus for ya. Credit for the custom samus sprite goes to Desgardes. Helmetless Megaman from Megaman 2 and 9.  All I can think of is brentalfloss: "Where's the man I know with balls like a rhino? Oh where? Perhaps he's there up on the roof. Let's pan straight up in search of proof! Perhaps he is there, and flaunting his hair?"



Wanting to expand my love for all things Rockman further, I've created color versions of the special bosses designed specifically for the Gameboy games.

Enhanced in color, here are the four Rockman Killers from the Gameboy Rockman World 1-4 games. From left to right: Enker, Quint, Punk and Ballade. Remaking Gameboy sprites is a ton of fun! Who knew!?



The communist family originally from Megaman 4, Ran, Kalinka and Dr. Cassock. Ran is a fan character from the very underrated and extremely funny Bob & George webcomic. Look it up, you'll be glad you did.



A Red Star army Md. Tank from Gameboy Wars 3 for the GBC. Long before Advance Wars, there was a ___ Wars game on every Nintendo platform save for the Virtual Boy and N64.




Color enhanced sprites based on the GBC Zelda games Link's Awakening, Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. Expect more in the future! Maybe.

[UncleBob]

How much for this as a bead sprite?
http://www.vgmaps.com/NewsArchives/April2005/LegendOfZelda-Link%27sAwakeningAdvance-Koholint.png

[shenske]

How much for this as a bead sprite?
http://www.vgmaps.com/NewsArchives/April2005/LegendOfZelda-Link%27sAwakeningAdvance-Koholint.png

lol, you wiseguy 

[satoshi_matrix]

That's a pretty sick map, being in the LTTP style. Know any info on it? And as for costs...I might attempt that for $5000 XD You'd probably be looking at something half the size of a football field.

more!



River City Ransom. Alex vs thug. BARF will ensue.



Bomberman sprite from Bomberman II (NES). This sprite has been color corrected and looks way better than the in-game bomberman.



Various small sprites from the Megaman classic series. from right to left, top to bottom: Eddie, Large Weapons Energy, Large Health Energy, Extra Life, Large Screw, Beat, and Large P Chip. The large screw is a slight recolor from Megaman 9, and the P Chips are exclusive to Megaman IV and V on the original GB. Beat I believe is a custom sprite, but I don't know the original source. It's a recolor I did myself, though.




I'm not a huge Mother fan, but I like the series enough that I took a request to do Ness. I ran out of peach beads so I had to use the next best thing. Boo!

[Mick Dundee]

Nice. I like the older Rpgs..... DO CHRONO TRIGGER ONES!!!!...a-hem...I mean, have you thought of making any Chrono Trigger Bead Sprites?

[UncleBob]

That's a pretty sick map, being in the LTTP style. Know any info on it? And as for costs...I might attempt that for $5000 XD You'd probably be looking at something half the size of a football field.

I actually have a small, 8"x10" version of that map printed and framed.  It was created by the founder of VGMaps.com as a project for himself and an "April Fool's" joke regarding a limited release of Link's Awakening Advance.  I've always loved the map and have wanted a poster size print of it for awhile.

[Drakul]

These are amazing!

I have a question though. are these sticky? or do you glue them together?
Because say you wanted to make a bead sprite and hang it on the wall. would you have to glue each bead to a piece of cardboard or some such?

[shenske]

Generally they are melted together using an iron. Then you flip it over to the non melted side to get what appears as the bead sprites. Correct?

[Symptoms0fMercy]

Shenskes got it. You line up the beads on these boards with a grid of little pegs to hold em in place, put some waxpaper-like sheet over them and iron em to melt em together. Except mine always melted unevenly so I used to iron both sides to hold em together. Satoshi_matrix's collection blows away anything Ive even made though.

[satoshi_matrix]

Yup, you got it. I take this hobby seriously, and I think I do a pretty decent job at it.

Well, time for some more!

 I love Kirby, you love Kirby, so here's another Kirby sprite I don't think anyone has done!



Bartender Kirby prepares your drink shaken, not stirred. This awesome portrait is a custom color enhanced portrait icon from Kirby's Adventure. Credit for the sheet goes to Drshnaps. More megaman classic next!

[UncleBob]

I liked the Kirby one when I first saw it.  How big is it?