As mentioned in my last blog post about the Halloween Wall mural I had the pleasure of painting in 2018, I bring you the main event: the Halloween Room mural! This project entailed doing a continuous mural on all four walls to be the background of a Halloween-themed layout. The client was looking for a silhouette-style twilight mural with bright purples and blues, bordering between realistic and fantastical.
One thing that might surprise folks is that I tend to spend much more time on my base coats than I do on the final detailing of most of my murals. To get those gentle gradients and in-depth dimensions to the sky, I work in about half a dozen full or partial layers. I use different applicators and strokes to help define my horizon, distance, and cloud development.
Halloween Room: The Moon & Stars
The moon was one aspect of the mural that I wanted to put more of the realistic details into. While appearing on this mural much larger than in real life, I worked to make the craters match what we actually see from earth. Since the mural is also going to be seen by the neighborhood kids, I threw in a few hidden gems: I put a constellation on the other three walls in the star scape. Above, you can see two of them: Orion and the Big Dipper.
Halloween Room: The Swamp
The clients had several geological areas they wanted me to recreate to match their layout building and items. These areas included a harbor, a train mountain pass, flowing fields, a swamp, and cemetery leading up to Dracula’s mountain castle. Above, you’ll find the details of the swamp – one of my favorite areas of the mural.
Halloween Room: The Mountains
The mountain ranges started from the harbor and the train mountain pass (more on that below) and stretched around one of the walls until reaching the plains area that then led to the swamp. I did several layers of mountains to give the mural more depth and scope.
Halloween Room: The Harbor
The clients were planning on adding two water elements to their layout – one in the swamp, and one in the harbor area. I was able to paint these two areas of the mural to blend seamlessly with the actual water features of the layout, as seen below in the final pictures.
Halloween Room: The Reveal!
I was honored to be invited by the clients to participate in their big reveal party during the Halloween season that year. Below you will find photos of how their final installation matched up with the mural I had painted.
All in total, this project took about two weeks at roughly six or so hours a day. If you’re in the Dallas metroplex area and would like a similar project done at your house or business, please contact me here or on social media!