Scyther Pokemon Cross Stitch WIP

Since finding the sprites for all video games in the depths of the Internet (Spriter's Resource, back atcha!) I started my own cross stitch sprite.  I played Pokemon on my fuchsia GameBoy Color when I was younger, had lots of the trading cards (which are still in my room somewhere in  a neatly organized binder), and even went to the Pokemon movie as soon as it came out.  Ah, childhood!

My first sprite is Scyther, the green bug-looking Pokemon with sharp blades for hands and wings.  It was the answer to "What is your favorite Pokemon?" asked of the DBF. 

Here it is so far!

 

It was in the making of this pattern that I realized KG-Chart colors aren't exactly like the DMC colors.  There are two types of green here, but they are almost exactly the same!  If you look on the right blade, the top is the "darker" green and the middle is the "light" green.  Unfortunately, outside of bright light, they look the same.  

I have also created patterns with Gengar, Mew, and some pokeballs.  They will be posted soon!

Resources for Video Game Cross Stitch

If you want to get away from the "cutesy" style of traditional cross stitch, there are many ways to update it.  One such way is to render video game characters and scenes in cross stitch.

Sprite Stitch is both a forum and blog that lists cross stitch patterns based on video game "sprites."  There is an archive of many patterns already created, as well as a forum in which users frequently create patterns for others based on requests. 

This is a wonderful place to go to see amazing cross stitch projects!  Many people post their finished products that will just make your jaw drop.  One example is the below, a project stitched by inkdnjabd that contains all of the original pokemon.

Amazing pokemon cross stitch project by inkdnjabd on Sprite Stitch.  Click for the forum post.

Another great resource is The Spriter's Resource.  Though not specifically for cross stitchers, this is a website that has sprites from hundreds of games.  For those of you who don't know what a "sprite" is, it is a small pixel picture of a character.  This makes it super easy to translate to cross stitch because it is often pixel-for-pixel. 

For example, I looked up Pokemon and there is a picture with all the Pokemon for each game.  I took this picture and grabbed just one--scyther.  Below you can see how big it is:

 Whatever program you are using to edit the picture, there will be a way to determine the size of the image.  I wrote down the size, in pixels, and then imported the picture into KG-Stitch with those dimensions in stitches.  The colors may not always be spot on, so you may want to alter them once imported.

Another step that you have to take in KG-Stitch is to "erase" all the background stitches.  The background of the photo was imported and read as white stitches, so you must use the erase tool to remove those stitches and to get an accurate count.

I am currently stitching the outline of this pattern and will post a progress picture soon!