Do you ever wonder who is making the really big contributions to the theater? The Faithful Shushki are always ready to help, both on the stage and off. “All for One and One for All”, as we say. We honor those contributors on the Wall of Fame that is just off Stage Right of Alma Alter. (Although sometimes, we get a little behind… 🙂 ) What’s involved in putting an actor’s face on the wall? Ask the Stencil Maker!
We’ll use this example of renowned actor Plamen Momchilov.
Find a great photo (professional photos work best) with enough contrast and good lighting. Photos with a great expression work really well. The process of stencilizing takes detail away from the image, so you want to make sure that what’s left after the detail is removed is what you really want. (Plus, it helps if your subject is super-handsome like this one.)
Crop the photo and remove the background if necessary. In this case, we used the iPad application Procreate to remove the background, but you can do this in just about any photo editor by coloring over the background in a separate layer.
Separate the colors and create a vector image. This is where the stencil maker comes in handy. From your prepared image, you get clean, simplified versions of the image that you can reproduce in paint using just a few layers.
Watch the whole process to make and use the stencils
See the whole process, from image to stencil, to the complete Wall of Faces.
The Wall of Fame is a pet project of the online stencil maker Bay Stencil.
Check out these stencils of famous actors in the Bay Stencil gallery.