Make your own sprite coasters
by Zack Stern 
{ Jan 3rd 2007 at 2:25PM }
Crafty gamers -- or gamey crafters -- take note of these homemade NES coasters. The Wiicast used iron-on Perler beads and a pegboard to build these sprightly squares. The simple process yields strong results, scoring high -- eight rings -- on our just-made-up phone-it-in scale. Of course, the project works best on retro sprites that end up being about the same size as a typical glass. Go too old-school, and the coasters will be suited only for shot glasses. Or adapt the technique to a modern screenshot to craft the coolest doormat in your apartment building.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Vince @ Jan 3rd 2007 3:24PM
i made some of these for a school project last year (not coasters). here are the pics.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/sage2050/100_0039.jpg
a friend of mine made a cool Super Mario World scene and put them on his wall.
ackmondual @ Jan 3rd 2007 2:35PM
with all the wonderful crap sold on Ebay, I'm sure one could find it there and save the time from such a seemingly time consuming DIY project and still get the goods. Ppl have sold DIY tshirts with iron on vid game pictures on them.
If I didn't already have a bunch of coasters I swiped from various bars, I'd spring for these.
32_Footsteps @ Jan 3rd 2007 2:39PM
Oh, man, the doormat suggestion is perfect. The only question I have is this: what's a better River City Ransom quote for it, "*BARF!*" or "This blows my day."?
Fernando Rocker @ Jan 3rd 2007 2:45PM
Just wondering if anyone knows if Nintendo will release an update in the future to support 720P video output (like how the XBox 360 now supports 1080P when before it only supported 1080i).
It seems a shame that the Wii's 480P resolution is less than the mainstream HDTVs that are now coming out, which tend to support 720P and above. I am happy with my Wii on my regular TV, but I can imagine there will be a lot of unhappy people who buy HDTVs with a native resolution of 720P and above, who will witness upscaling effects, who will not be happy. This may force an update to support 720P. What do other people think?
I mean... the first XBOX can display 720p and 1080i... and the Wii is more powerful than the first Xbox...
crono141 @ Jan 3rd 2007 3:54PM
Comes down to video ram, Fernando. The original Xbox has more physical ram, I think, than the Wii does. I think we figured out that its theoretically possible to output a 720p resolution on the wii, but not very likely.
And why are we talking about this on a coaster thread?
JodyAnthony @ Jan 3rd 2007 2:52PM
Fernando Rocker A++++++ Trolling would read again!!
pseudogrey @ Jan 3rd 2007 3:35PM
Are there any 14x14 sprite templates out there to go by? My wife and I need new coasters and I'd love to make some of these. Does anyone know where to find some good pictures of sprites? Google Image Search perhaps? Thanks
Bluecore @ Jan 3rd 2007 3:56PM
pseudogrey -
Lots of sprites to be found here:
http://www.videogamesprites.net/
Just save and enlarge to your heart's content. The image quality won't degrade, since they're GIFs.
Tony @ Jan 3rd 2007 4:43PM
I've been doing this for a while as a hobby and I know several other people out there do as well... a few of which do make a decent amount of extra money off of it.
It's fun when the product is finished, but it should be stressed that it's a lot more work than it looks like. Perler Beads are tiny and it's easy to knock them off of the peg board.
You could theoretically do something big (like a doormat), but you're limited by peg board sizes. There are some sold that can link into eachother to form one larger unit, but for the most part they're pretty tiny.
I've always wanted to try doing the entire original NES Zelda overworld map, but god only knows how long that would take me. Even just entire screenshots (which I think would be fun with more iconic games, like Super Mario Bros or something) would be a large undertaking.
Magnets and keychains are also good bets with this sort of stuff.
Colin @ Jan 3rd 2007 7:48PM
Hey Fernando, despite your comment having NOTHING to do with the article, the XBox 360 update only allowed it to 'upscale' the native 720p output to 1080i or 1080p. This update was put out to make sure the 360 can output the full resolution for their HD-DVD drive (and to combat PS3 marketing), but has no effect on games, besides upscaling them, which, if you have a 1080p TV, the TV would do internally. I don't think we'll see many, if any, games supporting this resolution, as it would slow down a game (because the upscaling process takes up extra CPU cycles to work).
This is how Xbox 1 output a few games in high-def. The Wii would probably never be able to do this, and even if it could, there would have to be some sacrifice in order to get it to work.
Just use the component cables, set your Wii to progressive, and let your TV do the upscaling. If you go to buy a HDTV, bring your Wii to test out the scaling quality of the TV; unfortunately most HDTV's have terrible scaling electronics in them... So keep your regular TV otherwise.