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Introduction to Graffiti
Intro by C3ZR ONE
This article is to help set the course for beginners that are having problems understanding how progression and letter structure works. Hundreds of kids that are new to graff come to toy blackbook forums every month and post pictures of ridiculous wildstyles they can't grasp yet. They are then critiqued by someone who tells them to "go simpler", which inevitably they reply "what do you mean by simpler?". Instead of re explaining this 1 million times, we can simply point them to this article, which will demonstrate proper letter structure, progression, and the importance of simple letters as a starting point.
Q=Why start with simple letters? I can do block letters!
Answer= No. You probably can't. At least not well.
Block letters provide an important foundation for those beginning. Why? It teaches you letter structure. Any good piecer should be able to rock a perfect block or simple letter. If you can't get the width, height, and flow down with that, how are you going to rock a wildstyle? Controlling what your pencil is doing is necessary if you want to get ill with letters, and nothing will teach you better than blocks and simples, even if you do find them boring, you still need to do them and you need to focus and do them well. Don't bust your name once and think you've got it down.
Author: Inko
Names
There aren't too many rules for choosing a name except BE ORIGINAL! The dumbest thing i see people do is take some common word and spell it properly! WTF??! To top it off they then add 'One' to the end to signify that they are the first. These people need their heads kicked in. For one, if you are choosing a word that is relatively common, and spelt properly you can be sure that there are plenty more toys out there writing that exact same thing "PureOne" FORGET IT! And what's worse? Some legend from back in the day probably had that name and rocked it with styles 100 fold what you've got in your pocket. So respect your history, if someone else has been writing your name with more style then drop it. Here's my rules of thumb for choosing a name: 1. Make up a word. 2. Misspell your word (ex: "Fawn" can be written fon, fonn, fohn, phon, phawn, etc...) 3. Don't claim to be One, Unless you are established writer you can forget about being the first.
And how could i forget lots of people get names passed on to them, but if that is you then you are likely passing over this bit.
Letter Forms
As has been said to you all time and time again Block Letters are your best friend when you begin writing. Block letters reinforce fundamental aspects of letter styles in your mind. Most people take their knowledge of letter forms for granted when they start writing, hence all those ridiculous "wild styles" which pwn us 4ll 3v3ryd4y. You've got to learn which aspects of a letter are required in order for it to be legible and proper. That's where block letters come in. Block letters ARE those fundamental pieces of letters which are needed in order for them to be legible. My advice is that you look at your keyboard, and just draw the letters over and over. over and over and over and over and over. I'm not talking like 5/6 times, i'm talking like 100/200 times. A huge thing to keep an eye on is letter proportion, make sure your vertical lines are all the same width, your horizontal lines all the same width, and your diagonal lines all the same width. Of course this rule does have lots of fluctuation once you get better, but for the time this is key, otherwise your letters will lose that legibility. And despite what you think about how insanely dope crazy illegible wildstyles are, you still need to be able to read your graffiti. Even those crazy illegible wildstyles are legible to the trained eye. Why? because they put emphasis on those bits of letters that make them legible.
Anyway once you've mastered simple font like block letters start playing with aspects of it: Try leaning them all one direction. Try making some smaller and some bigger, keep it patterned, not random. Try bending them all in the middle. Try weighting them all higher or lower using middle pieces (like the middle of an E). Try forming them into a shape. Hopefully by this time you have got a decent handstyle developed, try making your pieces include some interesting components of your handstyle lettering, my handstyle has strongly influenced my piecing style.
Stay the flip away from extensions. Extensions will come to you once you know you are a good enough writer. Eventually you will just begin to see where letters can have add-ons without compromising their shape.
3D
Not much can be said about 3d that hasn't already in this thread. There's a few different ways you can pop your letters out, 3d is one, drop shadow is another, a simple keyline/forcefield does it as well (although they compliment a 3d/drop shadowed piece even more). 3D can be done directionally, in any direction you please, or it can be done in perspectives. I don't really understand them fully, i just kind of do them. One thing i always keep in mind when doing my 3D is that i draw out my outline, stand back and say "Which way should it point?" It's all about direction because graffiti is all about flow/movement/directing the audiences eyes. So make the direction of your 3d compliment the flow/movement of your piece.
Colors
I find pretty much most people are subjective with their color choices. There are some good standards like black/white, silver/black, etc... But it all depends on what you want to do and what colors you feel like using. I find a good thing to remember is to do a light outline if I am using a dark fill, and vice versa. This way your letters don't get lost into your color. Of course there are ways around this, like using a dark fill & dark outline, but light inline. But you will learn those type of things as you progress. I usually like to contrast my 3d pretty hard color-wise with my fill, but that is just me, and just reinforces what i said about it being subjective, because some people probably think that looks ridiculous.
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