Welcome to my world..: Illustration

, by Madi

Making of Mumbaikar's wall art

There are projects that pay your bills and then there are projects that remind you why you do what you do.

When Shveta first approached me to do some wall art for 'Mumbaikar's Restaurant' I was thrilled. If you have gone through my previous work, you may be familiar with a particular series -

Desi ABCD.

I think my love for India is very evident and I couldn't have asked for a more exciting project.

(Click images to enlarge)

I believe I produce my best work when there are no limitations placed on me. When I hear the golden words, "do what you do best" is when awesomeness is created!

So the brief was very simple : We want to bring the iconic/popular elements of Mumbai onto our wall. Keep the doodle style, make it fun, make it quirky.

Boom!

Here is my process from start to finish :)

I started off with a very very rough .. just to give them an idea -

Immediately VT station emerged as a favorite and it was a definite keeper.

Then when we talked about composition, we wanted more in the center and less on the sides.

Here are 2 more sketches:

We chose some elements and decided to remove some. We wanted the 2 monuments, the taxi, rickshaw, pandu. Shveta suggested the double decker, local train, Dabbawalla (specifically with a cape), Sachin and Madhuri.

Here is my revised sketch:

It was now time to get on the computer and start vectorizing all the elements. Printing on such a large scale comes with its own set of complications. And then started all the tedious labor work!

Here are some progress shots:

Then came the installation. I was super anxious to see how it it had printed and how it would look on such a large scale. All this while we had been looking at the art work on our screens .. which is a really tiny scale compared to the actual size of the artwork.

It looked amazing ! :D

But the wall (and sticker edge) could be seen on the left side of Madhuri.

So a day before the opening, we decided to extend the artwork so that it fits corner to corner. This was a very ambitious step because it meant adding more elements, getting them in sync with the existing ones, and getting them up on the wall in time for the opening.

Only way it could be done was to stay up all night and work through the yawns and sleepy eyes. I added Amitabh, bhel wala, the bai, and what I learned was supposed to be the original name of the restaurant - 'Whaaattpaav'.