As I mentioned a few days ago, the Mellow Man really likes Super Mario Brothers, so I made him some Fan Art with Perler Beads.  I had so much fun that I decided to work on a few more Father’s Day gifts for him that were inspired by my Mario Brothers Pinterest Board, particularly the Perler Bead coasters.  As I mentioned with the Fan Art, I love the way that the 8 Bit, traditional Nintendo characters can come alive with the Perler Beads.  When I found some wonderful coaster collections online I knew that I needed to make my own.  The problem was the lack of patterns out there, and the way the collections didn’t have the key characters and elements that I wanted to include.  My goal was to piece together a collection of 12 Super Mario Brothers characters and elements with a case for Mellow Man for Father’s Day.  Since there were so many pieces and patterns, I am going to present all of these coasters and the case in three separate posts this week.  I’m also including downloadable patterns for each of them, in case you want to make your own.  I hope having them all on one site will save you some time that you can use for creating!

All of the coasters are made in 20 by 20 squares. To make that work, I needed to locate or modify designs that were approximately 16 Perler Beads wide and 16 Perler Beads tall– this allowed me to add the decorative borders. The first set includes Bullet Bill (the Cannonball), Boo (the Ghost), the Fire Flower power up, and the Goomba mushroom.

Bullet Bill

Here is the pattern for Bullet Bob with the number of beads in the colors needed to exactly replicate my design.  While I am providing you with my pattern, I found the original image for Bullet Bob in this coaster set, and replicated in my own design.

Boo the Ghost

Here is the pattern for Boo with the specifications for the number and colors needed to my a coaster that looks just like mine. The original design for boo without the border and background, I got from this source, and turned it into a 20 by 20 coaster.

Fire Flower

I ended up using several different sources to create my version of the fire flower. I wanted greater color variations than was available in a lot of the designs, and used my own shading. Here was the starting point design. Notice as well how many different slight variations of the Perler Bead Patterns there are– you can also see a Goomba and Boo in this collection! If you don’t like my patterns or interpretations based on the images and designs that I found, you are easily able to find other versions that might appeal to you more.  This was my final pattern with the colors and number of beads that I used.

Goomba

Here is the Goomba pattern that I made for this first set of 4 coasters.  I looked through dozens of Goomba designs to find the one that suited me best, and it was located here on Deviant Art (a great source of Geek Fan Art, by the way!)

Never fear if these four characters of the Super Mario Brothers Franchise aren’t your favorite.  I have 8 more of my favorite characters and elements coming this week.  However, I could still slip in a few extras– who is your favorite?!