Dragon Warrior monsters cross stitch 37: Red Dragon

Dragon Warrior monsters: Red Dragon

Red Dragon – Dragon Warrior monsters – 37/40

There are two dragons found in the Dragonlord’s castle: this Red Dragon and a Blue Dragon who we’ll be seeing very soon. When I was a child I liked to imagine the two of them sleeping at either side of the Dragonlord’s throne as personal pets and bodyguards. This wasn’t supported by the game mechanics—these dragons appear as randomly as every other random monster—nor story. I just like the idea of it.

Can you tell that there are two different shades of orange-red used in this dragon? It’s tough. The eyes, tongue, and fireball are stitched in a slightly darker color. At least, I hope they are. It was difficult to keep track. I really do love the Dragon art for this game though. There’s a lot of personality crammed into such a limited resolution.

Colors used (DMC)

  • 310 – Black
  • 647 – Medium Beaver Gray
  • 946 – Medium Burnt Orange
  • 947 – Burnt Orange
  • 3842 – Dark Wedgwood
  • 3846 – Light Bright Turquoise
  • BLANC – White

Comments on this project

I just wanted to say I love these.

I adored this game. I’d read the article about it in Nintendo Power so many times one of the pages finally fell out of the magazine.

I got the game for Christmas, but couldn’t play it because we were at my grandmother’s house and the NES was at home. So for 5 hours, I read the manual over and over again.

My father was kind enough not to force the bedtime issue when we got home that night. I think that may have been the first time I ever stayed up until 2 AM playing a video game. (It sure as hell wasn’t the last.)

Anyway, I guess there isn’t any real point to this, but I just wanted to say, these are awesome, I’m so glad you’re doing them, and I’m a bit jealous the thought never occurred to me :)

VSC @ Fri Dec 5, 02:38 PM

Well, the thought occurred to you now anyway. You could always beat me to making a Bunicorn before me.

(Yeah, the usually call him a Spiked Hare or Al-Mi’raj now, but he was called Bunicorn in the GBC version of Dragon Warrior III and I like Bunicorn the best for obvious reasons.)

I thought about making him when I had the idea to do Dragon Warrior stuff, but if I’m going to take on a big scale project I’d prefer it not to be suicidally so. Every game since the first one has an escalating number of monsters.

Benjamin @ Fri Dec 5, 09:59 PM

So now I’ve found the perfect project to make for my old school gaming husband as he recovers from his recent back surgery! YES!! My only question is, how do you manage to sketch out a pattern for these things? Do you just stare at the screen for hours on end with the TV on mute? T__T

Beth @ Tue Dec 16, 10:56 AM

You’re not as far off as you might think. When I came up with the idea I used a cross stitch web app—now sadly deceased—to identify the DMC colors I would need to stitch these monsters. I had already downloaded GIF or PNG sprite sheets for all of them. As they are all relatively simple, I didn’t see the need to waste 40 to 80 sheets of paper with printouts, nor go through the (relatively small) hassle of generating PDFs.

So, when I go to stitch one of these I open the image file in my image viewer—I use Preview as I have a MacBook but there are probably PC equivalents—and zoom in roughly 1000% so I can clearly see every pixel. Then I just refer back to my notebook screen every so often.

In going about it this way I save money on printer ink and paper. I also have the ability to count pixels using the select tool in Preview.

Benjamin @ Tue Dec 16, 11:41 AM

Sweet deal! Last night, we found this site, which made things a whole lot easier: http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/nes/dw1/monsters.shtml

So now this should get the ball rolling! Thanks!

Beth @ Wed Dec 17, 12:08 PM

Oh yeah, that site is amazing! I downloaded a ton of sprites from there. It’s the one of few sites that have all of the Super Famicom Dragon Quest monsters.

Benjamin @ Wed Dec 17, 12:31 PM
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