Over four years ago I made a masterpiece using Perler Beads. It was a day of the highest highs and lowest lows but from the ordeal emerged what it still one of my favourite possessions.
And yet despite using 3364 beads that day it was only a tiny fraction of the beads we had bought! Perler Beads, purchased in bulk, are cheap and I had tens of thousands remaining! And in time – now and then over the intervening years – I have used them for what they are most often used for: making physical models of game sprites!
The process is somewhat laborious to be honest, but it’s a fun diversion every year or so and the results usually look ok. Ironing them to melt the beads together is still the irritating part, since it’s difficult to get them regularly melted. Color matching can be iffy too, at least for me since I just use what I have.
The above was made using very tiny beads and the finished invader is only about 2 cm wide. As you can see I melted him thoroughly so you can’t even see the holes in the beads any more. I think he looks good!
For most of these I superglue magnets on the back and they live on our metal doors. The lower left frog was an original creation made by JK (and also uses tiny beads) and the squirrel – which is quite large – was originally made for my mum but due to fragility I haven’t brought it to Australia for fear of it breaking!
That’s a black mage from Final Fantasy. He took longer than I expected and almost fell to pieces during ironing. My heart skipped a few beats!
For a couple of years now I’ve entertained the thought of doing another large scale project, albeit not as big as The Masterpiece. But then I recall that 7-hour nightmare and reconsider 🙂
But who knows… maybe one day I’ll get to it…