Creativity, good value and fantastic communication - all at one place! (pixel-art.co.uk)

Member Name: kingfisher111

Product:	pixel-art.co.uk
Date:	16/11/07 (284 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: well organised, fantastic products

Disadvantages: none

I've just taken up a new hobby and I have to admit I'm getting quite addicted to it. It's called pixel-art and when doing this you are able to create beautiful pictures either through ready made kits or bespoke designs. I have only discovered one place which sells everything I need for this hobby (although I guess there are probably others) and this is www.pixel-art.co.uk

I first discovered this new hobby when I visited a craft fair at Sandown Race Course in Surrey. I was drawn to one small exhibition unit mainly due to the wonderful wildlife pictures they had displayed. I was fascinated by the almost mystical look of these pictures. They looked a little like cross stitch although on closer examination I could tell that this was actually very different. There was also a very nice lady busy working away on a design so I spoke to her and asked her more about what she was doing.

The pictures are made up from hundreds of tiny little tiles called pixels. When the design is complete, it does look like a pixelated photograph but as it is a very fine design so you don't lose any of the detail. The effect is like a mini mosaic and it's lovely!

In order to complete any design there are a number of things that you need. Firstly you need a base plate, or in the case of most designs, a number of base plates. These are made up of clear plastic and each plate has 2000 pegs on which to attach the little plastic pixels. Because the base plate is clear, you place it on top of your design sheet which tells you which colour pixels to place where. For any pattern you will have a number of design sheets depending on the number of different colours needed. Each design sheet has two rectangles and each of these rectangles will be telling you where to place just four colours. Because of this you only ever work with four symbols which are a black square, a triangle, a circle and a cross. This makes it very easy to see what you have to do at any one time. Compared to some cross stitch charts which are a myriad of different symbols this is so simple.

Going back to the craft fair, I really wanted to try something so I bought a fairly straightforward penguin kits which I would make using only two templates. I was also advised to buy a self adhesive mounting board and all together these came to £15 which I thought was very good value.

When I got home it wasn't long before I got going on my kit. The first thing that it is essential to do is to sort out all the different coloured pixels. These all come in small squares each containing 240 of these small tiles. It's handy if you can find a suitably sized box to stand them up in - I ended up using one of may daughter's small shoe boxes!

When you start it does seem very fiddly but you soon get used to it and it can be quite quick! I was advised to use tweezers in order to pick up and break off all the little tiles and this is brilliant. I also use a small wooden orange stick in order to push each of the little pixels down. THis is really essential because if you tried doing it just using your fingers it would be so fiddly and take so long that you would probably just give up.

Anyway, as I was really enjoying seeing my penguin picture take form it did not take me long to complets - only about two weeks doing it for only a couple of hours in some of those evenings. I really loved the way the picture looked at the end of it and felt really pleased with myself. My only problem was when I came to attach both of the base plates to the adhesive board. There was a thin layer to peel off but I couldn't work out how to do this at all. Both me and my husband tried but we were very worried about messing it up. In the end I emailed the website and soon had a very nice response telling me what I needed to do. She also said I could phone her if I was still having trouble. I did this and she talked me through what I had to do and in the end I had success. Unfortunately I had rather ruined the board in my attempts but it was no problem sending me another one - at no extra charge which I veryt much appreciated.

There are a number of different, although mainly wildlife, kits you can order from the site ranging from one to twelve base plates. The more baseplates in a design - the better the detail it seems. The prices of these range from about eight pounds to over sixty pounds! There are also reasonable P and P costs on top.

After completing my penguin I was keen to do something else and when I looked at the site I noticed that they do bespoke kits and I thought it would be lovely to do ones of my two little girls who are both very photogenic even if I do say so myself!

In order to get a bespoke design all you need to do is to email your photos and within a few days they will send back pictures of what your picture will look like. With my photos they showed me them with two, four and six baseplates. Even though they were much more expensive, the six baseplate ones won because the detail on them was so much better. I ordered these, both costing about £40, and a few days after making my payment by Paypal I received my kits and I have been working on them quite happily ever since. One nice touch, I thought was that they even gave my pictures names!

I was concerned about how I might go about framing my pictures but you are able to order frames of the website as well which will fit the designs exactly. There are some nice choices and these are lovely quality too.

I really feel that it is impossible for me to do justice to the beauty and creativity of the pixelated designs but I suggest that you take a look at the website

www.pixel-art.co.uk

There is so much more on the website which is too much to cover here!

My experience so far has been brilliant. I have found a creative and absorbing new hobby, and suppliers who are so helpful and easy to communicate with. It's a fantastic hobby, and I hope that by writing this I have at least intrigued you to take a look!

Summary: An absorbing hobby and a good place to buy