After a little advice - designing a bedroom wall!

[Lumpsack]

Hi,

After painting a really quite cool train on our boys wall my wifes got the crafting bug...

My daughter (5, six this month) also now wants a wall painting, now this is where I come in.. I offered to come up with a design which we'll then transfer to the wall (with the help of work's projector ) - the only problem is I can't draw for ****!

The thing wants to be fairly basic as my wifes only just starting out too, so I'm thinking line tools, perhaps Illustrator - not really sure yet, maybe something like this for simplicity but with fairies and a forest, probably a spooky(ish) cottage - or a fairy glade - or maybe something like this, but with fairy lights dancing about. Not sure yet, but fairies must feature.

Anyway as always I'm not after anyone to do it for me, that would defeat my part of the project, but I would like any pointers or ideas anyone may have when doing this sort of thing as well as any great guides on where I should start to learn about using a cleaner lines.

When I've got a few ideas I'll see which one she prefers and work on that one.

Thanks in advance (and no doubt again later!)

 

[Lumpsack]

For reference I've started pinning some images together - here - currently I'm looking at a night theme but that could change if Anna doesn't like it much.

Also my wife has now mentioned she'd like it to be interactive - our son's train uses magnetic paint, has a chalk board on a carriage and has a rail for putting storage tubs in.

We're also keen to keep obvious characters out as we don't want to be doing this every year!

 

[ALB68]

If I were doing that..I would design the whole thing in Photoshop, and have it printed on wide format printer. You would have to have some high res graphics though. A printer is going to want 300 ppi (dpi) as a minimum. There are print medias that are removable so you might want to consider that. If your a novice at Ai I think I would tell you not to consider that at your skill level. However, if you plan something fairly simple and can create it as vector art your ahead of the game because you can size the thing as big as the wall without any loss in quality. I would say the graphics are going to be your biggest challenge.

 

[ibclare]

I have done this with a wall/overhead projector using photographs, then making my paintings. I think you could make your design in PS, piecing your image together using internet finds or personal photos. Then you could draw in what you want to add or make connections. I don't have enough skill to draw everything I want created, so that's my solution.

 

[Paul]

Make your design in shop save as then open in paint and print off using paints multiple print count option make say 30 x 30 prints and you will end up with one big image to place on wall and use as a tracing template.

 

[besmirched]

Illustrator would be a good program to use. Just google "fairy tale clipart".

 

[Lumpsack]

Thanks all.

I think I'll steer clear of print, but only because of the cost, whereas the projector idea is free (I know I'm cheep but anything spent on that would mean cuts somewhere else)

I can see the clip art\internet finds being a great starting point, especially as she loves the silhouette night look, like the second one I linked, so I may ditch the cottage part of it and just put in animals and fairies - she loved one I found - this one - and is looking for fairies kissing (God help me google imaging that one!)

Again, thank you all for your help - this should be a good project (although I've just been told it will involve a major room reshuffle and a new wardrobe!)