Joker

@EkONE23- we can work on 3D at some point, but the letters look good to me! Keep working them and refining them and they'll get even better.

@EkONE23- looking good. Some thoughts below on how you could tighten it up...

He's basically saying that as you're learning the basics of letter structure, aligning each bar in the letter to vetices or a vertex is a best practice. To answer your question about the letters L and T (or X, H, K, and R) - he did point out that there are exceptions to this rule as indicated by the letters I mentioned, including the letters L and T. Your sketch shows that you understand the basics of these letters, and understand his ideas about how to connect the bars in each of those letters. Letters like R and K can get a bit tricky but if you follow the YEP example below you'll be fine. All too often, especially when starting out, folks follow the NOPE example... which is incorrect. I think I've mentioned it before but just imagine you're writing these letters with a chisel-tip pen, and it should make sense to you.

A local pub here in Portland makes their own black cherry cider that is awesome, and I’m not a fan of anything cherry flavored. Right now these two ciders have been sat-les in my fridge for the last month...

@Giant- Dude... don’t give up on that P. I like it. I had some fun with it just now and it makes me wish wrote Poker.

Mine was similar minus the “weed” part - replace that with “take lots of LSD” and we’re set. That said, I was smart but lazy in high school. I chose to skip class, skip homework, be disruptive when in class... you know, that typical annoying teen angst type shit. I ended up in what was commonly referred to as Learning Disabled classes. In there I learned how to write checks, how to balance a bank account, and other everyday life hacks. It was simple, kinda boring, but I didn’t really have to think and ultimately that’s what I was after. Sure beat having to know the difference between their, there, and they’re... and how to use them. I kid...

I never said I was right and he was wrong, I only voiced my opinion about something that seemed odd... well, to me.

Agree with the above feedback. I do like the P but I think it needs some love. Nothing really changed, just some work on how it's written. But the idea of making the O bigger on the end really helps.

Personal opinion, but hygiene, human sanitation, and germ prevention should be taught at home. It's a parent's job to teach their kids to have proper hygiene, know where to defecate/urinate, and how to prevent the spread of germs. The idea of leaving that up to teachers seems really odd to me.

Those little 18" (45cm) tall throwies are not only difficult to paint, but don't serve the reason of a throwup. Scale is important, speed is important. I know it's a waste of paint but your throwup should be as tall as that board. Color wise - try to stick to very contrasting colors for outline and fill. The bottom left is fine but the green and dark red looks muddy. Think about the majority of throwups you see out there - most of them are white fill with black outline, or black outline with white fill. High contrasting colors work best. Just do the outline, no fill, to conserve paint as you're learning.

In my opinion, one of the most innovative right now with handstyles is Soviet. Each one is a masterpiece. His Instagram feed is a flood of incredible work...

@Ray40- Your outlines are looking so much better than where you were six months ago, so good job pushing yourself. In the last few sketches you posted I really liked the two in the image posted below, but I took letters from each and put them together to show you, in your style, how you can tighten them up.

@Ray40- to put things in perspective... this was my very first piece, and believe me, It didn't get much better for quite a while after that. Takes everyone a while to get the hang of it. Don't stress on it. Take your time and it'll all come to you eventually. Just enjoy this time learning and practicing and getting used to the spraypaint. Play with different caps, fading colors, all that.

Hours/pay got cut as of Friday. Supposed to be until things pick back up as businesses get back to business. Thankful to have a decent savings but would rather not dig into it, though I suppose things like this is why I have a savings to begin with.

You're right, it does sound hypocritical, but I'm still pushing back: Using a ruler to create your outline in a blackbook, of which most people are using an 8.5"x11" format, can set you up for frustration when you take that outline to the wall. On a small sheet of paper like that teaching yourself to hit a relatively straight lines takes practice, but it's achievable. And if you can teach yourself to hit those lines in a blackbook then you can teach yourself to hit them on the wall, too. And ultimately the wall is where it counts, most. As I mentioned in the original post - using an 8' long 2x4 as a guide will help you hit those lines on the wall but then you need folks to hold that piece of wood for you, for every line. For every outline you paint? That's not sustainable. There's the option of tape but I don't think anyone would dispute the argument that tape should not be used in Graffiti writing. Murals, sure, writing Graffiti... seems iffy. And full disclosure, I've used tape before to create Graffiti. I kicked myself in the dick later for doing so. I've use tape on some of my bigger murals because the lines are sometimes 20' or longer with angles coming from two or three stories up, and while I'm decent at getting straight lines with paint, I'm no machine. I also don't consider those murals Graffiti since the content usually centers around the client for whom I'm painting the mural, and not around letters. If I do paint letters in my murals, they're secondary to the mural concept. Yeah, I know... I'd give me the side eye, too. Think of this way... you know those flat plastic templates you can buy that have several sized circles or ovals? If there was a Graffiti template with arrows and extensions, bits and doo-dads... would you use it? Not necessarily the same idea as using a ruler to create straight lines in your outline, but kinda. All that said - if folks want to use a ruler to create their outlines in a blackbook, then do it. My word is not the end-all be-all gospel of Graffiti. I'm just encouraging them not to rely on things like a ruler. If using a ruler to create a line is necessary, I would try using the ruler as a guide. Lay the ruler about a quarter inch away from where they want the line, and follow the ruler along as they draw the line. Do that a bunch and I bet they'll start to get relatively straight lines without a ruler. It's like Industrial Design or Product Design students learning their craft... they'll waste an entire sketchbook practicing drawing perfect circles and straight lines over and over. It just takes practice.

Pretty typical for me...

I use Procreate for so much... work, personal design projects, art projects, and of course - sketching Graffiti. I don't see this as cheating, I see it as progression. Sure, it's not the tools I learned with - it's not a real paper blackbook where you have to hone your skills using Design and Prismacolor markers, Gel and Posca paint pens, and Prismacolor color pencils. A tablet is a tool for the time we live in. It's a blackbook, markers, paint pens, and color pencils wrapped up in a well-designed frame. It's just another tool in your arsenal. It's progression. Think of it like caps and Euro paint - back when I started painting in 1985 there were two caps - Testors cap and Bug & Tar cap, now commonly referred to as a NY Thin and a Rusto Fat. There was also 2-3 brands of spray paint with very limited colors - maybe 20 colors each brand but not every store carried all colors. You used what you had because those were the tools in your arsenal. Then Euro paint came on the scene and brought with them a wider range of colors (over 100 per brand) and a much larger variety of caps. No one considered it cheating because they're just tools to get the job done. And now there's even more spray paint brands. That's progression. Cheating would be using your tablet to take a photo of a subway car in the station and drawing digitally over the photo to make it look like you painted the subway car. Your tablet is just another tool. Celebrate it.

@EkONE23- definitely. Any sketch, handstyle, or throwie I do in this thread for someone is always up for grabs. Stoked to see it painted.

Of course, it’s yours. It’s my attempt at a Baltimore hand... love that stuff.

@EkONE23- I meant to share this last week. A little more simple than yours but wanted to try it out. I missed adding the cool bar on the E that you did... I’ll get it next time.

*you're 😜

Not sure why the video link is dead... but here's the saved sketch.

@PheelThaPhonk- I was going to just help with the letter K since you called it out... but I got a little too into it and wrote the whole thing. Let me know if the K below helps. IMG_0230.mp4

You’ve got the right approach, and you’re right, your letter S has improved from where it once was. I think the calligraphy idea is a good one, even if just to learn the flow of letters as you suggested. Stoked to see how you progress. Keep at it! Thanks for the kind words on my personal work, and the work I’m doing in here. My goal was to give back (in my own little way) to a community that has given a lot to me by helping new writers navigate the beginnings of their “career”, and so far it’s seemed like a good way to go.