Painting Emmet from The LEGO Movie

The first step is to choose a photo that has lots of contrast in it. 

Next, import your photo into fotoflexer.com. Click on "effects" and choose "Ink Stamp".

See how the picture turns out. You may need to choose another picture if there's not enough contrast.

The next step is to put your photo on a transparency. Project your photo onto black Bristol board, and trace everything with a white pencil crayon.

Here are a few things I learned:

1. Don't put the tape over the corners like I did. Roll up a piece of tape and stick it on the back. Some of the paper ripped off when we took the tape off. I used a Sharpie to cover those sections. 

2. Any letters or names are going to be reversed on the projector, so flip your picture before you print it. I had to use my best guess to flip the letters myself. 

3. When outlining everything in white, turn off the projector once in a while so you can see if you've missed anything. 

Have both your original photo and the overhead handy when you begin to paint. 

Use white paint to paint everything that's white on the picture. Use small brushes and a steady hand to outline thin lines. 

I needed to do two coats of paint, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I made one of his eyes too small, so I used a Sharpie to fix it.

We went to Michael's and bought a poster frame, and this is hanging above Lego City in our basement. 

That other awesome Lego painting in the background was painted by my mom & dad's friend who did a whole series of Lego paintings of 2001: A Space Odyssey.