PixelBlock Art

Lazy Artists Will Love This Plastic Bead Printer That Automates Your Arts and Crafts ( Gizmodo ) This is amazing!

Wait, what's the plural of Samus?  Samus'?  Samuses?  Samuii? Whooooooooo boy has it been a while.  I think there were digital cobwebs and dust on these authoring tools I had to clear off.  Hey there! It's been a while.  I've been busy with Real Life Stuff™. Still employed by a certain fruit-themed technology company (we're very small I doubt you've ever heard of us) but in a new position that doesn't give me a ton  of time to work on PixelBlock stuff, but I'm thinking real hard about getting back into the biz. Anyway. I had an itch to scratch, so I did the things and am writing this post.  Back when I first started doing this, I had priced out the cost of PixelBlocks vs. LEGO, for a few reasons: LEGO obviously will survive us all.  Our great great great great cyber-grandoffspring will be playing with LEGO that will still fit on bricks centuries old.  PixelBlocks... might be dead any day now if they aren't already, but...

Spider-Man , originally uploaded by dash16 . Slow day at work.

Chinese Flag , originally uploaded by dash16 . This was a request from a coworker. Nearly used all of my red, and I had to scale down the design a couple times to complete it. The proportions aren't quite where I want them, but to give the stars any detail (other than single dots) it will have to do.

Heart , originally uploaded by dash16 . This was to be my first commissioned piece, a wedding coordinator contacted me and wanted a cake topper for a couple. I'm a victim of my own thoroughness; the bride apparently followed the instructions on my blog for my process and made her own! I made this last year, I'm taking it apart today to cannibalize the colors I need for my next piece.

Light Yellow, Dark Blue , originally uploaded by dash16 . The final two colors from the pixelblocks color palette, Light Yellow and Dark Blue, have been notably missing from my collection. Today a generous coworker donated a set that contained every single color, including these two. I'm going to start making pieces again, starting with a request from this coworker. Look for it soon.

1955-2011

Golden Axe , originally uploaded by dash16 .

Mossy Cobblestone , originally uploaded by dash16 .

Cakelie , originally uploaded by dash16 . The cake is not a lie… in Minecraft.

Diamond Pickaxe , originally uploaded by dash16 . When you absolutely must tunnel through 8 miles of solid rock as fast as possible, trust none other than the one and only Diamond Pickaxe™.

Iron Sword , originally uploaded by dash16 . It's dangerous out there. You'd better take this with you.

Creeper , originally uploaded by dash16 . It's been far too long since I've uploaded anything here. I just haven't been inspired to make anything, and when lately when I did get inspiration I find I don't have the blocks I need. I have every pixelblock color except light yellow and dark blue, and the pixelblocks company is seemingly going dark. Their website has slowly lost features (Digital Stained Glass, then the store where you could order individual colors) and currently just displays a "coming soon". I'm hoping this just means they are scaling back their web presence to focus on other things, but I fear the worst. Anyway, I've been playing a $#&! ton of Minecraft lately, and since the game is very retro in graphics the art assets are perfect to translate to pixelblocks art. It's a bit tough considering it uses 3D models, and my works are mostly 2D, but I've made it work. To kick off this set, I've started with the i...

I was going through my blog settings and noticed I had setup the contact email to go to an address I don't check often, my MobileMe account @mac.com. Some of the messages sent to it were forwarded to my primary email account @gmail.com, but after reviewing my junk mail folders for my MobileMe account I see that some messages that have been sent to me over the past couple years went unanswered. For that I apologize; I typically respond to emails sent to me as some of my followers may know. If you've reached out to me in the past and found my lack of answer displeasing, by all means don't hesitate to try and contact me again. I've fixed the glitch.

Kratos , originally uploaded by dash16 . And now for my pièce de résistance. My buddy who is a huge God of War fan requested Kratos. I searched around for a sprite and found one on a DeviantArt page from someone claiming to be an artist on the cell phone God of War Game. Turns out it converts really well to my PixelBlocks palette, but I ran out of light grey and grey building it! I had to add some more white to some areas, I don't think you'll really be able to tell. I am really happy with how it turned out, I plan on keeping this one for some time.

Ninja Gaiden , originally uploaded by dash16 . Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden. Yet another request. I'm happy with how this one turned out.

Battletoad , originally uploaded by dash16 . Another co-worker request. I chose Rash from Battletoads. I picked a cool pose, but unfortunately it wasn't able to stand up on its own in the real world. Way too top heavy, didn't balance and the leg was very skinny so it was floppy too. I stood it up against my iMac and another monitor, snapped the picture, then took him apart for parts.

Fire Mario , originally uploaded by dash16 . It's been a while since I made any creations, and a co-worker suggested I make the fire suit Mario from the NES Super Mario Bros. Skin tone is pink instead of a light tan; having a limited color palette has this effect. Overall I don't think the piece suffered for it.

RROD , originally uploaded by dash16 . RROD FTL.

Minish Link , originally uploaded by dash16 . Link, from the Gameboy Advance Title, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Slow day at work allowed me the time to do this between calls.