Custom murals painted for a downtown OKC noodle shop
BIG BIANG THEORY
MURAL
Painting, Illustration, Procreate
Big Biang Theory is a food truck-turned-brick and mortar, now located on Film Row in Downtown Oklahoma City. This summer, when they were renovating their new space, they released a call for artists to commission for a couple murals. These pieces were done at the request of the owner; one of a noodle chef making a bowl of Biang Biang noodles, the other a dragon flying over the OKC skyline.
ABOUT
01 Consult
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02 Illustrate
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03 Sketch
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04 Paint
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01 Consult ✴ 02 Illustrate ✴ 03 Sketch ✴ 04 Paint ✴
01 CONSULT
The first time I met with the client, they had just moved into the space. There were huge stacks of restaurant gear throughout, so it was hard to get an exact feel for the space, but thankfully the owner had an idea of what they were looking for. First off, they loved the idea of a chef making the noodles, as Biang Biang noodles aren’t as common in Oklahoma. Having an painting of the chef banging the noodles would be a great way to introduce diners to the concept. For the second mural, they were more open to a variety of options, but wanted something cool. They loved the idea of a dragon, so I decided to pursue that direction.
02 ILLUSTRATE
In order to give the client a good idea of what the final product would look like, it was very important to me to illustrate a finished product in Procreate, prior to starting the painting process. This took a couple months of back and forth, making sure the art was exactly what he wanted for his restaurant. The design went through a few iterations before landing on the final products.
The client actually liked the look of the dragon and noodles so much he decided to have a shirt made with them on it as the employee uniform shirt. More on that later.
03 SKETCH
A projector is God’s gift to muralists. To get my drawings up on the wall, I projected them and traced the projection. This helped immensely and made the sketching process so much easier and helped me get to painting quicker, as we were approaching the opening deadline.
04 PAINT
The painting process took about a month, approximately 80 hours. By tracing the projection of my illustration, I was able to save tons of time on making stencils and move straight to painting. The chef and bowl of noodles were the first completed; the owner asked for a last minute tweak on the dragon with the skyline, so while I was painting the chef, I was refining the final illustration of the dragon. Once I finished the chef, I moved on to painting the dragon. When I began the skyline, I chose a mop brush paint bottle, thinking it would speed up the process. However, after finishing the skyline and starting the dragon, I wasn’t pleased with how the mediums looked next to each other, so I went back and repainted the whole skyline. While this adjustment added a couple days to the process, I’m glad I went back and redid it; I love how it ended up looking in the end.
Today, the restaurant is packed out day and night; reservations are very recommended. It’s so satisfying to see the murals alongside customers, knowing how much work went into them.
The owner asked me to design t-shirts based off the dragon mural, so I created the noodle bowl dragon design to be used on their employee t-shirts. They now give out t-shirts as prizes in raffles– I’ve even seen them around town now a couple times!
One of my favorite projects I’ve completed recently, I’m extremely proud of how these turned out.