Perler Bead Pokemon

I think I have a new obsession... 

Lately I've been seeing a lot of pictures of various cartoons done with Perler beads. To be honest, I forgot all about these things until I saw the pictures! As I kept looking around, the gears in my head started to turn... I realized I wanted to make beautiful creations using these beads. So... one day on my day off, after I ran all of my errands, I went price shopping for these beads.

Turns out that in Canada, Toys-R-Us is one of the cheapest places to buy these beads. Sadly, they don't sell the square boards. So I paid an arm and a leg for the boards at Michaels. I had to go there anyway for some jewelry stuff anyway, as I'm getting impatient with my latest online order... oops. =P

 Because the beads are all assorted in buckets, John and I started the tedious task of sorting them out... by shade... in baggies. I'm really quick about it now, but damn, was it a pain in the butt at first!

I was thinking about sorting them into individual colours later, but realized upon making my first creation that sorting them by shades is actually quite useful. :3

John asked me, amid our romantic night sorting beads, "What shall you make first?" I had no clue. I had a lot of ideas, sure. He suggested that maybe I start by making one of my favourite Pokemon. So I searched the internet for my favourite Pokemon teams over the many, many years...

>.>;

...and decided on Articuno!

The problem with some of the Pokemon sprites (like Articuno) is that they are huge. Like... 80 some-odd pixel huge. My pegboards are only about 29x29 (I think that's what John counted), and I have 4 of them. After some little adjustments (shrinking and putting the image onto a grid), I got to work.

In the first night, I accomplished this:

It only took about 2 hours! That's okay, right...? But after that initial 2 hours, I was hooked. I worked on it in bits and pieces before having to leave before work and working out.

Finally, last night, I finished him! (...Or "it," because Articuno is sexless, technically...)

Ironing this badboy was the tricky part. We only had the tiny pieces of parchment provided, so next time, I think we're definitely going to buy bigger pieces. It was certainly a learning experience, but I'm happy with what I created! I think this was an ambitious first creation.

...and needless to say, I'm going to have to get more blue beads. ^^;

Any requests for other Perler bead creations? Please let me know... I could do this all day! ...if I had all day.