How I Painted a Mural in Lisbon as My Own Manga's Hype Man
As of 2026, living in Portugal, I've been spending my days grinding away at the drawing board — churning out pages for my original shonen manga "DURRUN," which I've been serializing online since January 2025.
Then one day, mid-grind, it hit me.
"If I just keep laser-focusing on making the thing… nobody's gonna read it if I don't promote it!?"
No matter how much of your soul you pour into a manga, if it never reaches the world, it's just a hobby. At this rate, both my manga and my life were headed straight for Loser Paradise. So I dug up my old skills from years of working as a street artist and decided to officially appoint myself Hype Man of DURRUN — and get back to painting murals.
And since I was at it anyway, I figured I'd properly document what had quietly become second nature to me: the experience of painting murals abroad. It might be useful for anyone interested in mural-making — and if it also gets a few more eyes on DURRUN, that's two birds, one spray can.
The Location: "Street Art Park do Lumiar" in Lisbon
I live near Porto, where there's basically no worthwhile free wall space. So I hopped on a train, rattled along for three hours, and headed to Street Art Park do Lumiar in Lisbon's Lumiar district.
Turns out, this park is actually Portugal's first public space dedicated entirely to graffiti and urban art — a project that kicked off on June 4, 2022.
Here's what it's got going for it:
- 14 massive free walls — no advance booking, no permits, nothing. Anyone from pros to total randos can show up 24/7 and go to town with spray paint or regular paint.
- Sports integration — the grounds include a pump track for skateboarding, BMX, and kick scooters.
- A living street art museum — with artists from around the world constantly painting over each other's work, you'll never see the same thing twice.
Arriving On-Site: Immediately Blindsided
First thing I noticed when I got to the park: there was an elementary school right next to the free wall.
I'd barely started painting when I could hear kids' voices drifting over. Back in Japan, a teacher would've sprinted out to tackle me to the ground. But this is Portugal. Nobody says a word. That's just what a free wall is.
By the way — since I hadn't painted in years and had lost both my confidence and my feel for it, I deliberately chose a wall on the inner side rather than somewhere prominent facing the street. As it turned out, that wall happened to be the one most visible from the school playground. The whole time I was working, kids were watching and yelling things at me in Portuguese.
Trying Out the "Doodle Grid" Technique for the First Time
Up until now, I'd always gone straight at the wall freehand — sketch first, paint after. But watching videos of artists who handle massive murals, I noticed they all start by filling the wall with circles, squares, and letters as a guide grid. That's called the "Doodle Grid" technique.
The bigger the wall, the more impossible it becomes to lay down accurate artwork purely by eye — that's basically master-level stuff. I had to give this a try.
Since the grid was going to disappear anyway, I went absolutely wild with Japanese text scribbled all over it. If you can read Japanese, feel free to decode it.
Mid-Session: An Unexpected Turn
Painting after such a long hiatus was rough going. My brushstrokes weren't clean, my pace was slipping, and I was honestly too anxious — "Am I actually going to finish this today??" — to be having much fun.
Then, class let out, and a wave of kids came cascading in. Some girls came up and started talking to me.
Internally: "Not now, please—"
But I listened, and they were desperately trying to tell me something in Portuguese.
Could it be… that these girls saw this cool Japanese dude painting cool manga on the wall and simply had to ask for a photo together?
I stopped painting, turned to face them with full sincerity, and mentally said, "Alright, alright, form a line."
They pulled out Google Translate to bridge the language gap and held up the screen.
It said:
"Can I borrow your spray can?"
…Huh?
I froze. Apparently they just wanted to spray something on the wall themselves. That's it. That's all.
I hadn't felt this particular sensation since elementary school — when a girl called out to me on the way home, I got all pumped up about it, and she said: "Can you give this letter to [so-and-so]?"
I genuinely did not expect to relive that feeling in Lisbon at this age.
The Mural, Finished
Six-plus hours later — done. Given how long it had been, I'd say it came out pretty well… but the self-critique list wrote itself: "The outer lines were too thin," "I should've brought string to get clean circles," "I should've masked a grid for the speech bubble text." Whatever. Cut yourself some slack. It's been a while.
What I painted was Soujun — the protagonist of DURRUN — in his first-ever "Fusion Form" from Chapter 1. His heart is exposed and running as an engine straight out of his chest, and in this mode he fights with insane speed, insane strength, and absolutely unhinged levels of energy. A ridiculous state to be in.
I put together a reel combining the mural-making process with the streets of Lisbon — definitely check it out. (And if you give my Instagram a follow while you're at it, I won't complain.)
View this reel on Instagram
This mural will probably be painted over the next time someone shows up with a can. But that's what a free wall is. That's what street art is.
If I get another chance to paint a DURRUN mural somewhere in Europe, I'll keep the record going right here.
And hey — go read DURRUN. Por favoooor 🙏
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