Super Smash Mural
DRAWING MURAL MAKING
Though a graphic designer by trade, I have a background in fine arts—so I love indulging in physical media every chance I get. In 2016 I was commissioned to draw a large, 8-foot by 12-foot mural on-site at Super Smash Con, an annual indie Nintendo convention and Super Smash Bros. tournament held over a 4-day weekend each year in Northern Virginia.
BACKGROUND
After gaining some small-time fame for award-winning murals at local community chalk art competitions, I was commissioned by the organizers of this annual Nintendo fan convention to draw Super Smash Bros. video game cover art, during convention hours while attendees watched on, as part of their 2016 event programming. The 8’ x 12’ mural took approximately 40 hours to complete.
A diverse audience of thousands of fans descended on Chantilly, Virginia for the four-day event this weekend…As fun as it is to watch Smash Bros. tournaments on a livestream, nothing compares to the electricity of a live crowd.
—Kyle Orland, Sr. Gaming Editor, Ars Technica
APPROACH
I sketched three concepts to pitch to the organizers, who landed on this one: a combination of the cover art from that year’s new edition of Super Smash Bros. with a dusty, gradated backdrop based on an iconic poster for Star Wars: A New Hope. This design approach conveyed that the convention celebrates a variety of fandoms beyond the Nintendo universe, and on a practical level allowed for some creative leeway where characters overlapped and saved me time (and hand-cramping) from drawing an overly complicated background.
In the days leading up to the event, I used a grid method to hand-transfer the design to three large panels of hardboard, prepping the canvas with outlines of the event logo (not designed by me) and characters so I could jump right into the more entertaining color work in front of an audience. Having the underlying white outlines visible from the start gave attendees something to be excited about each time they stopped by to check out my progress on Mario and see if I’d started on Link yet.
RECEPTION
Attendees frequently stopped by to take a break from the raucous festivities and watch the mural develop. By the time it was finished, after 40 total hours of drawing, the mural had become a popular visual summary of the event on social media posts and gaming blogs; Ars Technica placed a shot of the mural in its early stages as the cover photo for its “visual tour” of the con.
PROCESS AND DETAIL
