Here are some great-looking techniques for turning any image you want into a wall-sized mural or decal, whether it's digital or analog, an Eric Carle kangaroo or a crazed, hammer-wielding yakuza.
At his new blog Daddyhack, frequent DT contributor Eric used the "poster-size" setting on a color photocopier to copy some animals from Eric Carle's Will You Be My Friend? onto matte clear full sheet inkjet labels. Write that down: matte clear full sheet inkjet labels. Eric's got a step-by-step and some 9x normal-sized versions on the site.
Meanwhile, if the reason you went to law school in the first place was because you can't make non-standard copies to save your life, don't sweat. You can still get in on the DIY mural/decal game, thanks to Block Posters.
Block Posters is a free tool that converts any image into a tiled, ready-to-print PDF file. At this stage, you can opt for either the label sheets or good, old-fashioned paper. But whether yo
Way-Cool Wallies [daddyhack.com]
Block Posters [blockposters.com via dt reader naomi]
I did the same thing about a year and a half ago -- the difference being, I printed onto regular 8-1/2 x 11 copier paper, and glue-sticked it onto foamcore (although in retrospect, spray adhesive might have worked better to do the sticking). This is nice if you don't want to permanently stick the things to your wall. The foamcore is light enough that you can just use that blue sticky stuff to stick it to your wall (or the non-marking white stuff). If you cut the foamcore into 8-1/2 x 11 blocks, you can separate the individual picture elements out a little bit to give the full image more texture.
The joys of the inkjet printer are many -- you can also turn any white onesie (tm) into a hipster/grup fantasy by printing your che/sex pistols/evel knevel image onto an iron on, and -- well, ironing it on.
This is also great for creating life sized stand ups of people. You could have mom and dad in baby's room at all times (I'm sure there are no detrimental developmental effects to that)... I did this with some cardboard and a glue-stick. It's especially fun to do 1/4 height people. I don't know why they're so creepy.
Here's another cool poster maker that takes it a step further, it creates a raster image of whatever you upload and then tiles it to your desired finished size.
For a more abstract wall covering:
Rasterbator
ok, quick correction from a film geek. the 'hammer wielding yakuza' is taken from a Korean film called OldBoy. The main character wasn't yakuza, which are Japanese, but a victim. He was kidnapped by someone he supposedly wronged in the past, held hostage in a room for 10 years, and then one day, inexplicably set free, to fall into his tormentor's more diabolical plot.
good flick, definitely not kidworthy given the violence and incest.
[thanks, I've been trying to figure it out, surfing through screencaps of Takashi Miike movies without success... -ed.]