Will Work for Perler Beads

Recently, I've added to my list of needle work skillz by expanding from cross stitching to crocheting and knitting. Little piles of yarn are starting to pop up in the corners of our living room as I feed this newfound habit of mine. Yet surprisingly, K is arguably the more "artsy craftsy" member of our family. A) He has a degree in computer graphics with a focus on classical art, B) he selects the colors and themes of our house decorating projects, and C) he's really into perler beads.

Do you remember playing with these things as a kid? During my last visit to see the parents, I found a dusty box of beads leftover from childhood. You basically place a bunch of colorful beads on a pegboard, cover the design with an ironing sheet, melt them together with an iron, and wa-lah! a plastic piece of art is born.

(Yes, the box also held a collection of my pet parakeet's feathers. No, I did not pluck them off.)

Well, apparently there is a growing community of beaders who have rediscovered this artform as adults and decided that perler beads are the perfect medium for making pixel art. Rather than jump on the typical Mario or Zelda bandwagon, K chose to tackle the Metroid series first.

Figure 1. Samus from Metroid II: Return of Samus (Game Boy)


Figure 2. Samus in her Varia suit from Super Metroid (SNES)

Not bad, huh? K's got some crazy huge ones that are still works in progress, so I'll post them as they come. ^_^