Make a Stencil Street Art Billboard

This is where you're headed. Every shape is a flat fill made with a selection and Edit → Fill. The wall texture comes back over the top at the end, so the paint looks sprayed onto the blocks rather than pasted over them.

Open Lopsy and choose File → New. Set Width 1600 and Height 640 in pixels, pick a White background and click Create. That's a 2.5:1 ratio, close to a roadside billboard.

Click the Background row. Set the foreground color to #9D988E and choose Edit → Fill. Then choose Filter → Add Noise… and set Amount 14, Mono and Gaussian. Click Apply. This fine grain is what the concrete looks like up close.

Double-click Layer 1 and rename it Blocks. With the Rectangular Marquee, select (0, 0) to (200, 200) and fill it with #808080. Switch the foreground to #4C4942 and fill four thin selections for the mortar:

1. (0, 0), 200 × 6, the top joint
2. (0, 100), 200 × 6, the middle joint
3. (0, 0), 6 × 100, the vertical joint in the top course
4. (100, 100), 6 × 100, the vertical joint in the bottom course, offset by half a block

Select the whole 200 × 200 tile again and choose Edit → Define Pattern.

Press Cmd+D to deselect, then fill the whole Blocks layer with #808080. Choose Edit → Fill with Pattern…, pick your new pattern and set Scale 80. Leave both offsets at 0 and click Apply.

Choose Filter → Emboss… and set Angle 135, Strength 30 and Pillow Emboss, then click Apply. Open the layer's effects (✦) and set its Blend to Overlay. Mid grey disappears in Overlay, so only the light and dark edges of each block show on the concrete.

Click Add Layer and name it Grime. Choose Filter → Clouds…, set Scale 4 and apply it. Set the blend mode to Multiply and the layer's opacity to 28% for uneven, weathered patches.

Add a layer called Streaks. Pick the Brush and set Size 16, Hardness 40 and Opacity 70, with the color #3B3833. Drag eight short vertical strokes down from the top edge, 90–270 px long, at x ≈ 60, 150, 610, 830, 1090, 1240, 1450 and 1560.

Choose Filter → Motion Blur… with Angle 90 and Distance 60. Set the layer to Multiply at 40% to get soft rain stains.

Add a layer called Disc. With the Elliptical Marquee, select a 600 × 600 circle starting at (140, 30), then fill it with #FF5B1F.

A stencil holds paint back, but some always drifts past the edge. Add a layer called Overspray and choose Select → Inverse, so you can only paint outside the circle.

Pick the Spray tool and set Size 70, Density 45, Opacity 55 and Softness 60. Drag two laps around the disc, just outside its edge. Move in big steps of about 30 px, because the Spray tool skips very short drag segments. Start each lap at the bottom, where the koala will cover the denser cloud you get at pointer-down.

Deselect, click the Disc row and add Add Noise at 10, Mono, for spray-can grain.

With Overspray active, click New Group and name it Koala. Layers you add while inside the group stay inside it. Build four layers from the bottom up with the Lasso and Edit → Fill:

• Body: a wide ink trapezoid for the shoulders that runs off the bottom edge, plus a jagged bone chest patch centered at (440, 640)
• Ears: two jagged mid-grey circles about 250 px across, centered at (237, 129) and (656, 129)
• Ear Fluff: smaller jagged bone circles inside each ear
• Head: a jagged bone oval about 435 × 350 centered at (440, 289)

Click short, uneven zig-zags into the lasso edges so they read as cut fur rather than smooth vector curves.

Click the Head row, pick the Magic Wand and click inside the head. Add a layer called Shade and fill the selection with mid grey #8A8580.

Now cut the lit side out of it. Lasso a jagged diagonal region over the top of the head and press Delete. Then lasso the left cheek and delete that too. What's left is a hard-edged shadow down the right side, the classic two-tone stencil split.

Add a layer called Mask and lasso-fill it in ink. Give the top edge a V that dips between the eyes, for a scowl. Add two pointed tails flying out to the left, like a knot blowing in the wind.

Stencils need bridges, thin uncut strips that hold the stencil sheet together. Lasso two thin slivers across the mask tails and press Delete, so the orange shows through as gaps.

Add a layer called Eyes. Fill a 74 × 46 ellipse in bone at (339, 231). Then fill a 28 px ink pupil against its right side, so he's giving shifty side-eye.

Marquee around the eye, press Cmd+C then Cmd+V. Use the Move tool to drag the pasted copy 133 px to the right. Deselect and choose Layer → Merge Down to fold it back into Eyes.

Add a layer called Nose. Lasso-fill a big rounded ink shape about 115 × 130, centered at (440, 362), slightly wider at the top. Koala noses are huge. Add a small bone crescent at its upper left as a highlight, and a thin ink smirk curving up to the right below it.

Add an Arm layer and lasso-fill an ink arm that rises from the right shoulder toward (790, 380).

Add a Can layer and draw the can upright at (700, 150) from marquee fills:

• a 64 × 150 body in green #2F6F55
• a 10 px highlight stripe in #6FB893
• a bone label band
• a green ellipse for the shoulder
• an ink cap and nozzle

Select the can with a marquee and Move-drag it about 80 px to the right, then press Cmd+D. Marquee it again and hold Cmd while you drag the bottom-right handle outward to about 130%. The Cmd key keeps the proportions locked. Press Cmd+D to commit.

Marquee the can once more. Drag the round rotation handle just outside the top-right corner clockwise, about 22°, so the nozzle points at the headline. Press Cmd+D.

Extend the arm up to the can on the Arm layer. Then add a Paw layer above Can, with a jagged mid-grey blob about 90 × 80 over the lower third of the can. Fill three small ink triangles across the top of it for claws.

Click the Overspray row so the type lands outside the group. Pick the Text tool and set Stardos Stencil, Bold, Size 195.

Type KOALA first, in orange, clicking at (930, 200). Then click the Overspray row again and type ROGUE in ink, clicking at (930, 5).

Real stencil lettering is often condensed. Click ROGUE and click Rasterize Layer. Marquee tightly around the word and drag the bottom-middle handle down 28 px, about 120% taller. Press Cmd+D, then Move-drag the word so its left edge sits at x = 915 and its top at y = 36.

Repeat for KOALA, placing it at x = 915, y = 227.

Give KOALA a Drop Shadow in ink with Offset X 7, Offset Y 7, Blur 0 and Opacity 100. It looks like a second, misregistered spray pass.

Add a Drips layer above ROGUE. Set the Brush to Size 9 and Hardness 100. Drag three drips of uneven length straight down from the bottoms of the letters: 22, 72 and 46 px. Let the longest run into KOALA. Fill a small ellipse at the end of each drip for the bead of paint. Add one orange drip from KOALA that reaches the tape line.

Add a Title Overspray layer. Set the Spray to Size 34, Density 30 and Opacity 22. Drag slow horizontal passes just above and below ROGUE in ink, and just above and below KOALA in orange.

Add a Mist layer. Spray a short orange puff (Size 90, Opacity 35) from the nozzle up toward the top of the R, as if the koala is tagging the headline.

Add a Tape layer and fill a 670 × 62 rectangle at (905, 432) with #EFE3C4. For torn ends, lasso a zig-zag over each end of the strip and press Delete.

Set the Text tool to Special Elite, Size 28 and ink. Click at (978, 452) and paste STREET ART FEST · FITZROY · 3–12 OCT. Pasting is the easiest way to get the middle dots and the dash. Click Rasterize Layer, then Layer → Merge Down onto Tape.

Marquee around the tape and drag the rotation handle about 3° counter-clockwise. Press Cmd+D. Give Tape a soft Drop Shadow: Offset 2 / 3, Blur 4, Opacity 35.

Add a Cross Tape layer. Fill a 44 × 110 strip with #E6D7B3 and tear its top and bottom the same way. Rotate it about 28°, commit, and nudge it over the left end of the tape with Shift+Right. Give it the same soft shadow.

Add a Footer Bar layer. Fill a 384 × 36 ink rectangle at (918, 550), left-aligned with the tape. Spray along its top and bottom edges in ink at Size 24 and Opacity 30.

Set Special Elite, Size 22 and bone #EEE6D6. Click at (934, 557) and paste FREE ENTRY · ALL AGES · BYO CAN.

Set the Text tool to Sedgwick Ave Display, Size 96, green #2F6F55. Type rk! at (1420, 470), then click Rasterize Layer.

Marquee it and Cmd-drag the top-left handle out to about 180%. Commit, marquee again and rotate it about 12° counter-clockwise. Commit, then Move-drag it so it overlaps the lower-right corner of the tape. Taggers always hit on top of other work.

Open the tag's effects and enable Stroke. Set the color to ink and Width to 3, positioned outside. The outline makes the tag pop off the busy wall.

Click Blocks and click Duplicate Layer. Drag the copy's grip to the very top of the Layers panel and rename it Wall Texture. It keeps the Overlay blend. Set its opacity to 60%.

Now the mortar lines and block edges run through every shape. That's the single biggest step in making digital paint look sprayed onto a wall.

Choose Layer → Adjustment Layer… and click Got it. Lopsy puts adjustments on the document's root group. Click Add Adjustment → Vignette and set it to 30, then close the drawer.

With the wall texture on, mid-grey ears almost vanish into the concrete. Click the Ears layer inside the Koala group and enable Color Overlay in its effects, set to ink #141312. Solid black ears make a much stronger silhouette.

Spray paint skips over the recessed mortar joints. Pick the Eraser at Size 6 and Opacity 65. On ROGUE, drag short broken strokes along the mortar lines at y = 80 and 160. Do the same on KOALA at y = 240 and 320. Then set Size 12 and add a few diagonal scuffs to the edges of Disc.

Choose File → Quick Export PNG for the finished billboard, and File → Save Project to keep every layer editable. You now have:

• a concrete wall that's embossed, grimy and rain-streaked
• a three-tone stencil koala with bridges and overspray
• condensed stencil type with drips and a hard shadow
• paper tape, a sprayed footer bar and a graffiti tag

For another take on outdoor type, try the liquid chrome text billboard.