Monday, September 10, 2012

The Wedding Present

I know I said that my next post will about the working Taokaka claws, but I haven't gotten around to putting all the pictures together. What I do have put together are pictures of a wedding present I made for two very good friends of mine who got married.

So both friends are avid fans of Zelda and are crafty so it only be fitting that their present be of both worlds.

I don't know what the official name is of this thing I made but it is 8-bit magnets from the first Zelda on the NES put on to a metal whiteboard.

To start off with the project (sorry for not having any screenshots of the process written below), I started up Zelda and took screenshots of the game. With the all the screenshots, shot, I didn't want to just cut out pieces of the screenshots and just use that. I wanted hi-res images for printing, even though its supposed to be 8-bit, pixelated art. :p So all the squares that were printed, I re-created in Photoshop, 1024x1024. In Photoshop, I just created a 64x64 pixel pencil brush and went to the screenshots to eyedrop for the proper colors. I laid out a grid on the screenshots and on the blank canvas and recreated everything by just counting how many squares I had to paint in. Everything else was just me sitting down and cranking everything out in the same fashion.

When I finally finished re-creating everything, I re-sized all the squares to 1" x 1" and laid everything out to fit a 8.5x11 sized paper. The squares weren't printed on just regular sheets of paper, they were printed on 8.5x11 sticker sheets of paper that can be bought at any Office Depot. In fact they are Avery Labels 3383. When printed, they look like this: (Oh, I forgot to mention that I sprayed the printed sticker pages with fixative so there wouldn't be any fading.)



As for the magnet part, I found some 5" x 8" magnet sheets with sticky back from Michael's for about $2.50 a sheet.



I cut the printed sticker sheets in half and stuck them to the magnet sheets so that the two printed 8-bit squares fit on 4 magnet sheets.



When the time came to cutting everything, I didn't use scissors. I cut everything with a utility blade.



Looking back now, I think it could have been a better idea to use scissors instead, but I think a blade gave me a better edge and a better cut. Oh well, it turned out good. :p



Since I work next to a Container Store and they sell metal white boards, I bought one from there for about $30, I think, and just put all the magnets on there. Here's how it looks like when done:



Whats pictured in the picture wasn't how I laid everything out. Since I forgot to take a picture of everything before I wrapped it up, I had to take a picture of it when I saw it later and it was already played with, but you get the idea. :) And, thats, that, actually. So if you want to make a set of your own, its really not that expensive, especially if your gonna use your refrigerator as your 'white board'.

So my next post will be the WIP working Taokaka claws that I hope I'm given a chance to get another crack at and it should be up before the year is out, so do tune in later for that if your interested. If you have any questions, feel free to ask! ENJOY!

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Thursday, May 17, 2012

Xbox 360 Arcade Stick mod

Haven't updated this in awhile. Looks like the last post was around September. Whoops. :p So here's something I've recently modded.

I wanted an arcade stick for my future 360 to play the sillyness that is Cave's bullet hell shooters. Looked around on the web and they're pretty expensive, but I found a used Street Fighter one on Craigslist for $80 and just got that instead.



I didn't like the art and wanted one with custom art, so I went at it.

I unscrewed the back panel and took a picture of the wires to help me with what wires go where when I but everything back together.



The panel that has the buttons and the joystick on it is metal and the Street Fighter art thats on the metal panel is one big vinyl sticker. I removed the vinyl sticker and washed the surface down with soap and water to clean and removing and oils from the surface. When dried, I sprayed the panel a couple of times with primer then laid down a couple of layers of white paint.



I took some 220 grit sandpaper to the buttons and the joystick ball to remove the gloss coat.



After priming the buttons and the joystick ball, I put down two coats of this. :)


Yes, you see that correctly. Its spray glow-in-the-dark paint!! I found it at a Micheal's on sale. :) :)


After laying on two coats of glow-in-the-dark paint, I sealed it with clear coat, which didn't hinder the glow-in-the-darkyness. There was one button that was stubborn and the glow-in-the-dark paint kept splitting apart. I think some moisture got in somewhere and caused the splitage. Because of the new layers of paint and clear coat, it caused the buttons to scrap the sides of the button housing and the button did not pop back up. With a exacto knife I scraped down the sides of the button housing to make it bigger. All in all, I am quite pleased at how it came out. I was surprised that the switches in the buttons weren't like the switches in arcade cabinets but that makes sense since thats a lot bigger.



Took a pencil and drew on the art to the white control panel, then colored everything in with prismacolors and other markers. After I let it dry for a bit, I then sprayed two coats of clear on to seal everything in.



Put everything back together and this is the final product. :p



Picture of the glow-in-the-darkiness. This picture is the best I can do with it being dark and all, sorry.



I'm not really all that satisfied with the art, but it will have to do for now. Down the road I'm gonna properly scan in the monkey artwork, color it in photoshop and see if I can get it printed on vinyl as a decal.


Update on papercraft Link: Completed Link's tunic and chest belt. I am putting papercraft Link on hold right now to focus on a different build and will update this blog later on.




Next Blog post: Working (unfinished) retractable Taokaka claws.


See you next time!


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