How To: Lego Mural

My house is a Lego house. Not literally, but only because we haven't built our dream house yet (which will most definitely incorporate a Lego feature). Anyways, we have a lot of Lego sets and MOCs (My Own Creations). Since we eat dinner on the couch primarily, we don't have a functional need for our dining room. So I'm transforming our sad pastel old-person dining room into a Lego Gallery. Before I get the furniture and textiles, I'm painting the walls and adding a couple murals. I thought I'd take you along and provide some tips for those wanting to do something similar.

Pre-work: Choose your design. I had my friends on social media vote on my mural design, and the consensus was between options 3 & 4. Feel free to take inspiration from any of these designs! 

I plan to put a shelving unit for a Lego gallery in front of the wall, so I thought the yellow would be too distracting. Thus, I selected the gray design.

The key to this mural is that the base color is the same as the brick color and the top of the studs. So in all reality, after the base coat is up, all I'm going to paint are the highlights and the shadows. It's a negative space trick! Neat, huh?

How to Paint this Lego Mural

Step 1: Paint the base color. I actually brought to Home Depot a giant Lego block to do an exact color match (more precisely, I brought the gray Lego wall hanger). For the shadow I needed a darker gray, and I used a swatch that went well with my lighter gray color. I had white paint lying around, so planned to use that for the highlight color (later, I decided  that the white was too stark, so I mixed some of it with the wall color).

Step 2: Cut a pizza pan-shaped circle in an old Lego box. The mosaic kits are great square boxes for this purpose. I'll refer to mine as Marilynizza (you'll see why later).

Step 3: Measure Marilynizza, representing the size of the stud, and then determine relative dimensions, including room for shadows and highlights. These are rough dimensions I measured by using PowerPoint (because I'm a weird nerd and use PowerPoint for all visuals).

 

Step 4: Tape a grid on the wall. Notice it's not a perfect grid throughout. I've made room in between my "bricks", as indicated by the green tape. I started with the bottom to make sure I had my technique down, and also because I got tired of taping and wanted to dive into the painting!

Step 5: Line up the bottom and left edges of the taped square with Marilynizza.

Step 6: Trace the outside left and bottom. With paint. Specifically, a darker shade than the base coat, to create the illusion of a shadow. A smaller, artistic brush, is recommended for this.

Step 7: Slide Marilynizza over and fill in the gap with the shadow-colored paint. Just for fun, the color of the wet paint in the darker grey looks almost exactly like the dry color of the lighter grey, making an additional challenge in ensuring coverage. The good news, shadows can be a little fuzzy, so it's okay if it's a little imperfect.

 

Step 8: Remove Marilynizza and watch the paint dry. Just kidding! You have a million more studs to do, keep going! 

Pro Tip: I noticed the paint started getting on the back of Marilynizza and then transferring to the next part of the wall where I didn't want it, so I started wiping the paint off the back of her after each "stud" was complete.

Step 9: After the paint has sufficiently dried, use the other side of Marilynizza to paint the highlights of the studs. Line her up with the top and right edges of the box for the first trace in a lighter color or white, then slide her over and fill it in, just like before! 

Pro Tip: Once the tape is up, painting the crescent shapes for the stud shadows and highlights went pretty fast. For the upper ones, I needed an extra pair of hands so my love supported by holding the paint while I was up on the step ladder with my Marilynizza and paintbrush. For studs at height, definitely a good idea to have a partner to help you out! 

 

Step 10: Remove the tape for the stud sections, and put any more tape down as needed to line out the shadows of the Lego bricks. 

Step 11: Paint the shadows in the darker color. (This also goes quite quick. I was too excited so I forgot to take a picture of the tape before painting.)

Step 12: After the paint dries, remove your tape and do any touch-ups as you see necessary.

Step 12.5: Enjoy your new mural! Or, immediately cover it up with all your more intricate Lego builds! 

I am thrilled with how the mural turned out! Even with some imperfect measurements I noticed half way through the project, I think the objective of the vision was achieved. My technique was certainly inconsistent from stud to stud, repeated over 28 times on both sides, but none of those details really show when you look at the broader picture. 

Stay tuned (and subscribe) to see how the Lego Gallery room comes together. Lights, curtains, furniture, and of course, the Lego sets and MOCs, still to come! 

Next up: Lego curtains!