When my wife and I were expecting our son we decided to decorate the nursery in (you guessed it!) a Disney theme. Luckily, Disney is a huge corporation and there is a ton of stuff out there from which to choose from. I thought it would be a neat idea to paint various characters on the wall (in mural fashion) instead of doing the wallpaper routine. I used various children's books as sources for the images and, with a slew of water soluble (but permanent) paints from the local hobby store, set my plan in motion. Now I'm no Picasso and relied on the use of a "Projecta Scope" borrowed from a friend to trace images on the wall for painting. I was so impressed with this device that I went out and bought one for myself. There are various manufacturers of these projectors with varying prices, but I found that an inexpensive one that the Michael's craftstore carried worked just fine (at a cost of only $19.99).
The process was simple- pick a suitably sized image (approximately 2"x2"), place the projector on the image, and the image is magnified and projected on the wall. Then you simply move the projector back and forth until the desired size is achieved. The projector allows you to focus the image as well. Naturally, you need to find a stable platform on which to set the projector and image source (book, photo, whatever) on so that it doesn't move while you are tracing. I used a ladder and set the projector on different steps until the desired height (or close to it) was achieved.
You then trace the image (not just the outline but the whole image!)thats projected on the wall with a pencil, after which you can begin painting it. I used a variety of brushes for painting and filling and found liner brushes to be especially useful for details. The more details you paint, the better the overall appearance. I also found it helpful to work in a darkened room during the tracing step as it made the image on the wall easier to see. Water soluble paints worked best- thinning the paint was easy and cleanup was a snap. If you're interested to see the results, follow the link below!