That Time I made a “Mural”

The biggest commission I have ever done was a “wrap” for a skating rink here in Great Falls MT.  Before moving here to Montana I had made stuff like this all the time as a graphic designer at Shadow Graphics in Orlando FL. But this was my first time doing it through my personal business. I have never had any experience painting murals so when I was requested to bid on this, I approached it like I was doing one of the designs at the old job.  I knew with how big this was, I would need to design it in vector. So I started my design just trying to figure out the rough sketch on my computer in my favorite drawing software. Then I inked it in that software and saved out the outlines. From there I took them over to Adobe Illustrator and converted them to vector and began coloring the art bit by bit in Illustrator. I admit I don’t know if I would want to do that again. I sent the design to Shadow Graphics in Orlando and had them print it up and ship it back for me.  I started the install around 5 PM Saturday night and worked all night with no sleep till about 10 am.  I was stunned at how sore I felt at the end of it and I just stood back and looked at it absolutely dumbfounded at how well it turned out.  The design truly was once of a kind and getting in the caricature of my client Janine Hieb was the cherry on top. We also designed the wall so she could put the TV and electronics right back where they were originally. So this is one of my big wins here in Great Falls. Though I admit, I am not sure when I would want to do this again. LOL! Totally worth it… But I am glad I didn’t realize how big a process it would actually be by myself instead of by a team of installers like we had in Orlando. I am pretty sure this took around 4-6 months to complete. Wow.