There was a crash from a space shutter. It landed on a whole new world – The world of the Imagins. With robot buddies, you set out to explore this uncharted world and met cute alien-like creatures that becomes your friends and adventure buddy.

This is the write up on how this rock climbing mural is conceived and delivered.

This is the latest venture by our client 5T3M to build an ‘edutainment’ theme park in Starling Mall. They have a feature wall for children rock climbing wall and we are to deliver a rock climbing mural for them. No one know how or what is to be painted on the rock climbing wall. The Caveman team is suppose to deliver the artwork design and deliver the rock climbing mural to our client.

The wall is 10m (L) x 5m (H).

Working with a consultant, their request is simple:

• Realism
• Alien-like environment
• Out-of-this-world
• To include every Imagins (creature) into the wall
• Colourful
• For picture taking
• Wall climbing will be climbed from left to right

Every mural in their artwork design phase has to go through a series of checklist such as:

• environment colours
• source of lighting
• artwork design objective

Since the wall climbing mural will be indoors at Starling Mall, and with a space of 15,000 sqft, their ceilings are not plastered or covered but simply painted black. Also, to accommodate an outer space environment, most walls are covered in black paint too.

Which we discovered our criteria to an even narrowed direction – A space-like environment (This is because a white wall among the black environment will spoil the flow). After further discussions working closely with the consultant, we decided to go with floating asteroids/rocks as inspired in the movie ‘Avatar’ because rocks floats in space. We will then be adding a living breathing space above our asteroids with alien-like floras and faunas.

The consultant also provided us with environment samples of their ideal environment.

Very quickly we came up with a sketch of the artwork.

We decided to go with a massive world kind of environment due to its massive wall size. Once it was approved, we proceeded to colouring using the same colouring theme.

However, with only days left everyone decided that the artwork direction isn’t coherent to the final vision of the wall climbing mural.

So collectively we decided to scrap the artwork and start from scratch but this time, to design from up-close on each asteriods.

Quickly the design team came up with the sketches as SOP.

There are 5 Imagin characters in this world. Imagins are the main characters of the world of the Imagins. Think, Mickey Mouse and friends in Disneyland.

Due to copywrite issues we will not be showing the original artworks of each characters. We decide to design the Imagins first and place them around the wall as below.

This is Collab! He is a blue dinosaur-like Imagin among the 5 Imagin characters

Left to Right – Cytink, Chipyl, Ceretos

Conni – The blue cat-monkey Imagin

 

Once all characters are designed and produced, it was time to work on the environment of the artwork.

Now that we have all placing of asteroids, floral and faunas, we realize the environment is too small. So all artworks are enlarged. With a black background and auroras behind, now things are looking like they are floating in space already.

We decided that the mural shouldn’t be just an artwork or painting. Therefore we wanted to allow the children to interact with the mural. We proposed a mini game into the wall where children while climbing the wall, will be tasked to collect ‘alien-fruits’ along their journey across the wall. Our designers came up with the following concepts.

Alien-like fruits said to contain magical abilities once consumed.

 

Among all fruits, the banana shaped fruit has been selected to be included by the team and the consultant. A total of 7 ‘bananas’ were added into the artwork.

All the ‘bananas’ will now form a trail for the children to climb across the wall climbing murals. Do note that this wall is 5m high. A child have to ascent and descent to reach the fruits in a certain area while they are climbing across the wall climbing mural.

The final artwork is now complete and ready to superimposed on the physical wall already. We shall not need to go into the details of the progress, however basic tools like scaffolding (5m high), compressors are all used in the process.

Our consultant require we add more florals in the artwork so we added them spontaneously

And after 1 week of effort, we have finally complete the artwork. The artwork is so massive, we are not able to contain the whole wall in a single image.

Here is the up close of some of the elements we have added into the artwork. (The holes on the wall are actually holes to install wall climbing holds.)

Take note of the details of the rocks, wings, shadow, shading and grass we added into the artwork. our goal was to deliver realism

 

Take note on our source of lighting from spotlight that delivers the shadows to the Imagins. The tree stump and blue rock’s texture with reflection and shading. The grass and floral reflecting the light of the environment. The tree stump’s shadow falling on the tip of the rock on the top with wines circulating the tree stump. This is the level of detail we added into the wall climbing mural.

Notice how light falls on all elements of the wall. reflecting light all around. Even the yellow rock has a texture, shade and shadow. All red round objects are painted to shine according to the light source.

The red rock next to the maroon Imagin reflects light according to it’s texture. The hardest part of painting the leaves are to imagine and capture the light source, which determines the shade, shadow and reflection of light on each individual leaf.

We combined rich colour tones to give life to the Imagins. The ‘banana’ in this image is actually glowing in real life if you notice because we use a special reflective paint to glow the banana. We notice the spotlight may be too strong here. The colour tone looks a lot better on site.

The alien-like flora we added the last minute. Hope you can appreciate the details we added into this segment alone.

Right view – This is as far as we can take the photo from.

Paranomic View – Unable to capture top part of the wall

Estimated Total Hours Clocked In: 120 hours

 

Summaries, Lessons and Takeaways for your mural projects.

Never compromise

One thing we learnt from the consultant we are working with is to never compromise in order to achieve something great. It was frustrating at first but looking back, the consultant was right, and he was able to allow us to deliver beyond our best work possible. Do not be afraid to say no, because even to us, we do not want to waste time producing something people do not like by the end of the day. Our time is limited, and we also want to produce the best work that we can be proud of.

Have a clear vision

The success of the mural is not only due to the artistic capability of an artist but the crystal clear vision of the end product. It is very easy for an artist to stray away because they are clouded in their senses. Combine with the artist’s instinct, this synergy will be able to fuse a product beyond reality. If you do not have a clear vision, you will never be able to say no, or direct the journey into the right goal. Be the captain of your own ship, know what you want, and have a clear vision.

Lighting, shadow and toning do matter

The make and break of a mural minimally is the ability of the artist to deliver not only paint on walls but envisioning the lighting that creates the shadow and toning. This is the defining element of what constitute a good mural. Without all this, a mural will look flat and fake. Dimensions also play an important part in murals as it gives depth (nearer objects are bigger and darker, further objects are smaller and brighter) for example. Reflections are essential to give life to objects as well. Ask for lightings.

Have a purpose

your artwork is not just a vase of flowers. It should serve a definite purpose. Is it an environmental enhancer? A marketing objective? photo taking is the basic essence as bread is a staple. Is your mural to engage with the audience? For the wall climbing mural, we wanted to make the wall climbing journey more engaging for the children, at the same time to maximize the climbing space of the wall. Without a trail, the climbers will just proceed from left to right, ignoring the lower or upper space of the wall making it less challenging. Therefore as a solution, we included the ‘bananas’ that forms a trail on the wall(to climb up and down). Like art, and many great art, they should convey a powerful strong message to its audience. Stand for something, have a purpose.

 

This is one of the biggest masterpiece as delivered by the Caveman Team. We are proud of every single stroke of it. We hope this article will be able to give more insights and allow you to ambitiously deliver your own artworks and project.

 

Interested to build a climbing wall as well? We are affiliated with the wall climbing specialist who built the wall in Starling Mall. Just contact us.

This wall climbing mural can be found at the 5T3M edutainment centre at Starling Mall.

Thank you for reading through our article. We hope we can work on your future projects together as well.

 

 

For any inquiries do contact our representing person below:

Han

0166850069

kumpenghan@gmail.com