We went big and bold at Limitless in Swansea. It was out of this world.
We have worked with Limitless Activity Park on several occasions. Painting one of our largest and most challenging murals. Over the course of two sessions we established a space theme throughout the centre. Pushing the theme and ourselves to the limit by painting a giant photo realistic astronaut and spaceship. It looked as though he was reaching out of the wall.
Process
Once again this design was first created in the digital world, using photoshop to lay out the design. Projecting this image up onto the wall, just as we had done with the previous two rounds. Using this projection to mark up our rough sketch lines from which the rest of the mural would be completed
With the outline in place on the wall, we set about filling in the main block colours. Painting the logo on the wall using a combination of spray paint, masking tape, emulsion and brush work.
Once we had some colour down on the wall we then worked on the main shading areas for the astronaut. As well as focussing in on some of the smaller details.
Spray paint was used on the majority of the wall. With help from acrylic paint markers for some of the tiny details. After a couple of days of this we photographed the wall and took it back into photoshop. Overlaying the original digital design, and marking on any corrections that we felt were needed. Armed with this tool we then went back to the wall with fresh eyes. Attacking the problems that we’d highlighted on the computer.
This wall took us around a week to complete with it’s own set of challenges along the way. Working from the scaffold tower allowed us much less freedom than we had with the hydraulic lift. Even from the top of the scaffold we could only just reach the very top of the wall. Add to that the difficulty of painting in a photorealistic style and at such a huge scale. This wall was definitely one of the most challenging pieces we’ve ever taken on.
Limitless logo
We began this process by recreating the work digitally. Replacing the hand painted logo from the wall with the digital logo. Correcting any proportion errors that had snuck into the original mural. Expanding on the space background that had previously been painted.
Using a projector to position the image we’d made onto the wall we set about marking it up. The projector really is such a valuable tool when it comes to projects like this. Using a projector for these sort of jobs ensures that we’re able to accurately scale up the image without running into these problems. Meaning that a logo will never look off or distorted when painted.
Process
With the image marked up, all that remained was for us to fill in the logo and paint the space background. Adding the cracked wall effect to finish off. We outlined all the letters, ensuring that we had clean, straight edges around them. Everything else was done with spray paint and emulsion. UV paint was used to add highlights to certain parts of the space background.
We painted the whole thing in two days from a sky lift. This process so much quicker and easier. But it also left us with a mild sense of seasickness.
The second wall was a continuation of the space theme. We used a similar process to mark up. Designing it digitally and then projecting it up to enable us to mark it up accurately. We were able to use the sky lift again to paint most of this wall.
