January Project // Super Mario World Felt Mural

My first project of 2012 is something that I've been planning on doing for probably almost a year. At least since May, because that's when I bought all the felt. It's about time I get this done! I will be making an interactive felt wall mural of a Super Mario World level.

The idea started out as an idea of what to put on my fridge. I thought of making Super Mario World characters, blocks, etc. out of foam sheets on magnets to have fun moving them around. That idea transformed into felt, since my fridge is small but I have a nice, big blank wall with lots of room for a long Super Mario World level.

The idea is that since felt will cling to felt, I can have fun moving the characters, blocks and bits around on the background without any damage. So, not only will I have a beautifully felt-recreated Super Mario World level mural on my wall, but I'll get to play with it! It's like, instead of a computer screen, it's felt and instead of a controller, you use your hands!

Now, this project will not take me an entire month of work to put together. It's only felt and glue. However, it requires a lot of planning and design before I actually get to the glue and felt. I'll have to do a lot of research (aka Google image search) of Super Mario World levels. Super Nintendo version, of course. I'm not going to recreate any specific level. What's the fun in that, when I can pick and choose backgrounds, hills, obstacles and pipes from any of the levels?

The background (sky, ground, hills) will be glued in place while the blocks, pipes, enemies, mushrooms and other collectables, and characters will be moveable. My originally planned size was 6' x 1.5', but that may change as my furniture arrangement has changed.

Stay tuned to my Twitter and Instagram this month to see my progress as I work on it. At the end of the month I'll have plenty of photos of the finished product to share on the blog, and, perhaps, a bit of a DIY and a short stop-motion animation made with it.