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Nadia iron bead sprite complete!

Glad to have learned of Artkal beads on the r/Beadsprites subreddit! Perler is American, Hama is British, and Artkal is Chinese. Artkal provides such a broader palette of color than the other two companies do! Artkal S82 made this project possible. That and Perler Brown are the two main fleshtones for Nadia. Her hair is Perler Midnight and Pastel Blue, while her vest is Perler Cherry and Red.

The pixel artwork was taken from the Fushigi no Umi no Nadia game for the PC Engine CD.

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Hasegawa’s big 1:72 Macross Queadluun Rau model kit spotted in Yodobashi

Yesterday I went to Yodobashi Camera in Utsunomiya with my friend Lou who is visiting Japan. Here is me in the Macross section of the model department. This is the first time seeing the new Q-Rau model in-person. Wow, what a big box! I have enough Yodobashi points that I could have walked out of the store with this kit without paying for it, but unfortunately I have to buy my daughter a crappy Chromebook for her schoolwork and I will need to use those points on that instead.

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Using WaifuXL to clean up and enhance anime images

A handy website called WaifuXL uses AI or something to clean up, color-correct, upscale, and enhance anime images. Above left is a very old picture of Madoka from Kimagure Orange Road I’ve had since high school. It’s a very low-resolution picture. To the right is a 4x enhanced version, courtesy of WaifuXL. (I never use the term “waifu” and it’s pretty stupid, but this website is pretty cool.)

Linna from Bubblegum Crisis. Look how blurry and low-res the original is.

Nadia taking a shower. You can see how it clears up the dithering considerably.

Nadia taking a nap. It really sharpened up the picture.

Nadia’s wedding.

Nadia wedding dress.

Komillia from Macross 2036. The original looks blurry in comparison.

Plus it works on non-character images. Look at how it cleaned up this image of a Macross Valkyrie prepping for takeoff:

This is a nice tool. Apparently it does not work on non-anime images well.

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Rei Ayanami iron beads WIP

I’m working on an iron beads work of Rei from Evangelion with Nano Beads. She’s proving to be difficult! The source has irregularly shaped pixels. This non-uniformity is really forcing me to fudge and guess a lot, making this time consuming. I’m using 1/4 size Nano Beads rather than the full-size Perler Beads, which also makes things difficult due to their tiny size. I’ve run out of the blues and skin tones, so I’ll have to wait for my shipment from Yodobashi Camera I ordered tonight to arrive before I can proceed much further. Here is the original sprite I found on Pinterest:

At this point, I’m unsure if I want to stop at Rei’s head or go ahead and do the rest of her. Her boobs are so pretty, it’d be a shame not to.

This is the original, non-pixelized image. Someone must have run this image through a pixelization filter to get the image above.

The first one I saw was of Asuka Langley, apparently by the same artist. However this one too is not true sprites as the pixel sizes are not uniform. If you zoom in you’ll know what I mean.

Update 1, Dec. 5th. I’ve had to order the fleshtone and blue colors for her hair. They’ll arrive tomorrow.

Update 2, Dec. 6th. Last night I finished most of her hair. Her skintone should be easy. Just dump the beads and nudge them onto the pegs. I’ve decided to go ahead and do the whole image. I’ve sort of gotten used to the pixels being wonky. I’m able to improvise more and not worry so much about complete accuracy because it’s impossible anyway.

Update 3, Dec. 7th. Her face is now complete!

Update 4, Dec. 8th. I have to wait for more peg boards to arrive now before I can continue…

Update 5, Dec. 10th. Almost there… Now I’ve had to order more Gray colored Nano Beads as well as one more peg board. They’ll arrive Tuesday perhaps.

Update 6, Dec. 12th. I finished the beads! Next will be ironing. I hope it goes well. Not in the mood for that tonight.

Update 7, Dec. 16th. I finished Rei at last! Unfortunately there was a bit of a mishap on the right side where her shoulder is (and a little where her breast is), but I was able to salvage and rescue the project.

And here she is on my wall. Neat.