There has been some curiosity on how I go through and do my beadwork. I've never made a tutorial on anything before, but I thought I would try this out. I will document each and every step that goes into making one of my bead projects, from initial sprite acquisition to the finished product. I hope you enjoy this! If you have any questions, please ask.

Please forgive any poor image quality of pictures. The lighting in my room is rather poor.

First, some background information.

Beads

You can't really do beadwork without beads! I work with what are called fuse beads. They are readily available at most craft or jewelry stores, and come in a large variety of colors. There are three companies that make these beads- Perler, Hama, and PhotoPearl (sometimes called Nabbi). Depending on where you live in the world, some types are easier to get. Perler are the most common in the US, while Hama and Nabbi are more UK-based. I get my beads online, and my palette consists of colors from all three makers. Nabbi beads are a bit harder to come by, are a little more expensive, and have a different feel to them..they take a lot more heat to melt. There are standard colors, neon colors, and glow in the dark colors. For my beadwork, I use almost exclusively standard colors.

Materials you will need

You will need relatively simple supplies to make a beadsprite. I use:

Tweezers.
A standard 29x29 square interlocking pegboard. Hama and Perler both make these..the one Nabbi uses is larger and has more points of interlocking.
Beads. (duh)
Ironing paper. This is usually a small sheet of unwaxed parchment, and comes with most orders or purchases of beads. Regular parchment paper works great!
An iron. Any iron will do. If it's an iron with steam, do not have steam turned on.
Image editing software. I use Photoshop CS4 Extended.

http://i46.tinypic.com/2cxjouc.png

Acquiring your sprite

There are many ways to go about getting the sprites you need. A google image search will usually yield various sprites, but it's best to use dedicated websites for sprite artists. Two good examples are The Spriter's Resource and The Shyguy Kindgom. Browse through there and pick the sprite you want. Make sure it's somewhat small. I'm choosing a simple sprite for this tutorial, because it'll be quicker (and I'm out of white beads D:).

Re-sizing, Re-coloring, and Prepping your sprite

I'm going to assume you have no knowledge of Photoshop..I'm sure most of you DO, but this will give a detailed step by step of what I do to get a sprite ready. Once you have your sprite picked out, open it in Photoshop. It will look like this: http://i50.tinypic.com/rqwxoh.png Go to "Image" at the top, and then "Trim". Trim the sprite so you don't have a background.

We need to see what the sprite really looks like. Select the 'zoom' tool, and then "Fit Screen" at the top. The sprite will look like this: http://i49.tinypic.com/15f3fxv.png Now, each of those squares is one bead. This corresponds to one pixel. However, this sprite is double sized. We don't want that. We need to re-size the sprite. Go to "Image" and then "Image Size". You want to make sure "pixels" is selected under the Width/Height drop down menu. Enter a value that is HALF of the original values. Also, make sure "Nearest Neighbor" is selected under the bottom drop down menu. This is what it will look like: http://i47.tinypic.com/28ldpir.png

After re-sizing, you should have something that looks like this: http://i49.tinypic.com/11tobaf.png

Great, it's the right size! However, the colors aren't perfect. I've done this enough so that I can just look at the sprite and tell you what the colors are going to be. However, some people may want to manually recolor the sprite. I already have a palette of beads set up. This is a file on my computer that I made a while back. It's extremely tedious going through it, and I don't have detailed instructions on how to do it. I can help you in private if you need it.

The key to this recolor is the "Magic Wand" tool. It's highlighted in this screenshot: http://i48.tinypic.com/10yqgj9.jpg Make sure everything highlighted is the same. Click on a color you want to change. It will highlight all pixels of that color, and nothing else. Using the "Fill" tool (highlighted, with the shown settings), select a color that matches from the "Swatches" menu and click the highlighted area, like this: http://i48.tinypic.com/2la7yar.png.

Oh shit, it's not working? No worries. I overlooked this at first, but then realized what's up. The image is in "Indexed Color" mode, whatever the fuck that means. You need to change that. Refer to this screenshot: http://i50.tinypic.com/2cohgn5.png Make sure the mode is set to "RGB Color", and then refer to the steps above, working with each color. As shown in this screenshot, the colors will then change, and you have your sprite prepped and ready to go!

Beading and Ironing

This is the most time consuming part of making a bead sprite. Each pixel on your sprite is one bead. If you've resized and recolored the sprite properly, it's just a matter of putting each bead on the pegboard. This can take a LONG time, but that's just how it is.

Ugly pictures incoming. Once your sprite is beaded, it will look like this: http://i49.tinypic.com/s64ra1.png. We need to iron it. Lay the ironing paper over the sprite, like this: http://i45.tinypic.com/2s9yro3.jpg. Plug in your iron, and let it heat up. Every iron is different, but you want to use a medium-low setting. This is between "Wool" and "Silk" on my iron. On a scale of 1-10, maybe a 4.

Once your iron is heated, press it very gently into the ironing paper, over the sprite. Using very little pressure, move the iron in a slow circular pattern over every part of the sprite. Do this for about 30 seconds. You're looking for the beads to bleed through the paper a little. It should look something like this: http://i49.tinypic.com/amsdci.jpg. This is where experience comes in..once the beads look melted to the point you want, remove the iron and put something flat and heavy over the sprite. You want it to cool, so it doesn't curl up. After a few minutes of cooling, carefully remove the ironing paper from the sprite, take it off the pegboard, flip it over, and repeat the ironing process again, making sure both sides are as even as possible.

Once it's cooled, you're done! Viola, that's a bead sprite.

THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR

I've definitely learned a few things in doing all this beadwork. I'm still quite a novice in the beading community (the professional artists are really something to be in awe of), but I'm competent enough.

1) Don't make your iron too hot! This is the easiest way to fuck up a bead sprite. Too much heat will cause the dreaded 'shiny finish' on your beads. It looks awful, and it warps the sprite quite horribly.

2) Weigh and cool your sprites. After you iron the sprite on the top side, try and remove it from the pegboard, lay it on a flat surface, and put a book on top of it. This is essential to prevent the sprite from curling.

3) Certain colors of bead melt much faster than others. Perler White and Perley Grey are especially vulnerable. Nabbi beads take a lot more heat to melt than Perler and Hama beads.

4) Patience is your most valuable asset when making sprites, especially with bigger ones. Wait a good 10 minutes for a sprite to cool before moving to the other side. Make sure every bead is ironed down so you don't get any non-fusing or lifting.

5) Have a fucking good time. Seriously.


This pretty much covers every step I can think of. If anyone has any questions or comments or wants to know more, I am more than happy to answer them. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!