Joker

Not interested, but good on him for doing his thing and making big bucks from it...

@enteruncreativename- Sorry I spaced getting back to you. So you've definitely got your own thing going on with the faceted angles and unconventional shadowing, and normally I would tell you to smooth things out and straighten things up, but because I'm all about straight lines and angles (fucking abstract Graffiti art...) I'm interested to see this one play out. I've made a few edits to your posted image below - For the most part it was fine but I did open up some of the thinner sections and eliminated the defining line in the B (not needed) to give the overall piece a better read. Also, because with this style the O and D will naturally feel/look similar it's important to distinguish the two from one another so there's no confusion. Make the O feel more "round" while the D has a definitive cuts are the top right and bottom right. Let me know if those edits make sense and how else I can help. The one-liner throwie isn't bad, but it could definitely use some tightening up. Kinda hard to show an example using a mouse so when I'm home and can work it out on my tablet, I'll share those thoughts.

@Limeliciouz- Forgot tot say that I really like that last sketch you posted. The soft, rounded feel of that one is really nice. With a two or three-color fade and some breaks over top of that would look really nice. Something I noticed in one of your previous sketches but failed to bring up, and something you've probably already tried, is using that serif at the end of the leg of the L as a connection point for a lowercase i. It could help fill in the dead space between the L and M, and eliminate the overlapping. Example below...

@GONE.FTS- No one can ever tell you that you don’t do themes. Damn. Most of what you posted has some potential. Needs help, but has potential. Kinda the same thing I’ve been saying to Ray and Lime... keep your line weights consistent. That will help tremendously. Also, you’ve got a couple different styles going on and I think you should pick one to concentrate on, nail it, then move to the next. I think you could also benefit from the single letter sketch exercise I mentioned a few posts back. Just practice the letter G over and over again, keeping the line weight consistent throughout the letter. Same with the O, N, and E. I don’t got themes, just letters and characters...

@Limeliciouz- In a couple of those new sketches you’re overlapping the letters too much, hiding them. Let the letters breathe, give ‘me a little bit of elbow room.

@Ray40- Stay in school. Be present. Get good grades. See my edits below... The R looks great. Just move it slightly to the right so it overlaps the A a little, and tightens up the empty space between the two letters. The line weight on the Y is much thicker than the other letters. Slim it out and try not to curl up that descending bar.

Cute ankle. I don't know why, but all I see is Banco by Roger Excoffon...

Nice one, @Ray40- definitely keep going. I like the outlined ones the most. As for the Y, try a leg like the one I drew at the bottom of the page. Don't curl up that descender...

Uhhh... it's got me drawing on the regular, again. It's not my own name, but still. It's a good feeling to flex that side of my brain after sitting in front of a computer all day. I feel like I'm participating in something bigger than my own self-promotion, and I love it.

@Ray40- What I meant was to practice single letters. I was just saying R as an example. You should practice all three of your letters over and over. Just draw that letter R I gave you over and over. Not how you interpret it, but how I drew it for you. Same with the A and Y. Once you get them down so it's almost exactly the same as my drawing - then we can start playing off that and adding your own style to it. Make sense? Once we get each letter looking the same as what I've given you then we'll put them altogether as a piece. And take your time... this isn't a race. For reference - I still do this allllllll the time. I call them "Letter Studies". I'll draw a K and get it really dialed in. Sometimes it's something I'll later incorporate into a full piece but most of the time I just do letter studies just to sharpen my skills with that letter or explore different ideas.

Downtime while Vray renders...

@Ray40- Like I mentioned to Lime, Graffiti is frustrating. Every writer goes through this period. For some it takes years and for some it just clicks. Honestly, the only thing that will help you get better is practice. Lots of practice. Like, lots of practice. You're young so you've got plenty of time to get all this under control and start progressing. You know, @Limeliciouzhad an interesting perspective about using some of these alphabet prints that writers have been doing lately as inspiration for letters. Click that link and a style in there you really like, something simple, and copy it. Line for line, just copy it. I mean... when you look at the letter you drew and the letter you're copying - they should look the same. Or you can just fill your sketchbook with pages and pages of one letter sketches. Just draw the letter R I gave you over and over and over. Focus on keeping your bars the same weight, don't worry about fill-ins, stars, any of that shit. Just practice. I've been doing Graffiti since 1985 and I still practice...

The "likes" thing is interesting, for sure. Killing yourself over them... I'm not going to touch that one. It does remind me (a little bit) of an article I read that talked about kids and video games, and how the stimulus they get from playing them is essentially equivalent to the stimulus adults get from having sex. They were trying to explain to parents why their kids freak the fuck out when they take their games away from them as punishment, basically asking them to imagine how their emotions would fly if someone were to stop them from having sex right in the middle of the action. It was an interesting article that had a bunch of studies and showed brain wave reactions between adults doing their thing and kids doing theirs. Anyway... The biggest thing that has been driving my desire to leave IG is ads, to be honest. In the last few months I've found myself opening up the app, starting to scroll and immediately start scrolling faster and faster not even caring what I'm missing because I just want to scroll pass the ads. And now that they're every third or fourth post it has become fucking ridiculous. Actually the more I type and think about it... I'm just going to delete the app from my phone and see what happens. I know my account won't die so it'll be a nice experiment to see what happens with it.

Is there any real truth behind people being addicted to "likes" on Instagram? On YouTube, everything I am subscribed to is either bike racing related or design/architecture related, and yet somehow my "Recommended" feed is all political stuff from the likes of Brian Tyler Cohen, Sam Seder, et al. Or it's some guy who looks like he would shoot up every mall in town but seems to be a pretty intelligent guy, just standing in his garage and talks about everything with a somewhat unbiased point of view... somewhat. How did these videos appear in my feed to begin with and how do I get rid of them? I'd rather get recommends on more cycling and design videos. I deal with enough political shit when I leave my house.

@Ray40– draw these letters as I’ve drawn them, outline them in black, that’s it. Do it four or five times on one sheet. No fill in, no stars, no nothing... just black outline.

@Ray40

What do you mean by nothing adds up? I want to know what you see. I second what @misteravensaid about copying. I’ve given this outline to you as a learning tool, use it as you need to. Any writer whose had a mentor will tell you this is a common practice. You’re not copying, you’re learning. The more outlines I give you the more you learn. At a certain point it becomes difficult to tell you how something works without showing you, which is why I gave you the sketch. If that’s not the direction you want to go just tell me and I’ll think of something else. Personally I think you made the sketch a little better. The weight of the letters seem a little thicker, which I like, and the whole piece seems more readable, which I like.

1980...

To piggy-back on @misteraven BMX post... Bob Haro's drawings were awesome.

Bode characters always add that finishing touch...

@Limeliciouz- sorry for all the sketch lines but I wanted to do this super quick without over-thinking it. I took your last posted sketch as inspiration and redrew it with how I saw the letters working together. This is kinda what my mentor did for me a few times and it really helped me understand how my letters could come together, so hopefully it helps you. I first drew the M and E, then the L and I, and then put them together so I could see the whole piece and how it come together. Sorry the right side of the E gets cut off.

Are you looking for feedback or just contributing?

@misteraven- that is fucked up. Why... why would a pen be an issue? Why would a book with what the untrained eye would consider scribbles on the cover be an issue?I don't understand.

I didn't take your reply as rude, but more frustration... and rightly so. Being a Graffiti writer is frustrating, even when you're at the tip of your game, it's frustrating. So, no, I wasn't offended by the post. But let me see if I can help answer some questions... After Basics After you are comfortable with the basics (which I think you are) is when you start messing around with how letters interact with one another, scale, adding arrows... bits... doo-dads, and the like. The letters stay fairly simple, still, but you start to teach yourself those little bits of style that set the piece apart from a straight block letter. Personally, I believe you're at this point so that's a separate conversation. How do you structure a piece Not all pieces require a solid structure, but most benefit from it. There's plenty to argue that none of my pieces in the last ten years have structure, but I had a solid understanding of how to structure a piece before I started doing abstract Graffiti. A showstopper piece 99% of the time is going to have some solid structure to it, and by structure, I mean the overall piece looks like it was thought out from left to right. This doesn't always mean that the left mirrors the right, but for clarity I'm going to use a piece like that as an example: Overall this piece has a solid arched-like structure. The right side of the A and the left side of the M are practically vertical which gives the overall structure of the piece a solid foundation. Think of it like building a home... kinda - the A and M are the support beams that give a solid foundation to hold the S, U, and E. I'm not saying all pieces need to mirror left to right, I'm saying that your piece will benefit if you consider the overall piece structure instead of letter by letter. Does that help explain what I mean by structure? If not, let me know and I'll try to explain further. Building letters that work well with one another Let's use the same piece to explain this one, too. So if you look at the A and M you'll notice how they both have the same overall build, just mirrored. Visually this allows the overall piece to read really well. Even the arrows coming off the sides are similar to one another, not the same... similar, and both have bits coming off the longer bar. This relates to those two letters reading well with one another even though they're not right next to each other. Let's go to the S... the left side of this letter nestles in really well with the right side of the A. It's technically not vertical on the left side, but it is made to feel as though it is by the subtle intersections between the A and S. The bottom of the letter holds the same arc the one next to it started off with, creating structure (see what I did, there?). On to the E... this letter has many of the same line weights and angles as the S, just a mirror reflection of it. Even though the top rounded bit is the same shape as the S (not a mirror of it, but the same) it still works because the bottom of the letter holds that same arc as the final letter, grounding the letter, while the rest of the letter has similar angles to the S. It kicks back into the S creating a natural home for the U, which fits into that area perfectly. It's like the writer planned it that way 😉 Basically, you want the overall structure to look/feel solid, but you also want letters that nestle perfectly into one another. Overlapping is the tried and true method for doing this, but usually when first starting out most writers don't play around with how their letters are interacting with one another... they're just overlapping because that's what they see. So play around with drawing just single letters and drawing two of your letters together - like the L and I, then the I and M, and so on. Don't worry about the others, just focus on how one interacts with the other and different ways they come together. Keep it simple, not block letters, but simple Graffiti style. I think you know you're further along than I'm making out, but I'm hoping to get you to understand your letters really well before moving on to next steps. You know... I've told this story a lot but it might help me get my point across on why sketching is so important - In the early 90s I had moved to the Bay Area and eventually was being mentored by Raevyn TWS. If you don't know who he is, look him up... or just open Spraycan Art. Anyway, he and I had been meeting once a week for about six months and trying to work out new ideas, different ways of bringing letters together, different styles... just constantly sketching ideas that never saw the light of day. Some of those studies made it into my blackbook as full pieces all colored in like a blackbook should be. Anyway, there was this big event in the city where Phase2 and Schmidlap were giving a talk and writers form all over the Bay would be there. I showed up with Raevyn and we ran into his crew mate Crayone... another heavy hitter from the area. Raevyn was talking me up telling Crayone about my work and how excited he was about the stuff I was doing, so Crayone started to flip through the pages of my blackbook. About five pages in he slammed the book shut and said "Looks just like your stuff, Rae". I was absolutely crushed. I had worked for six months non-stop to come up with some new shit, something that was mine, and a person whom I hold in high regard just told me my work is all stolen from Raevyn. Initially I wanted to quit and focus on skateboarding, but Rae told me not to worry about what Crayone said and to keep going. I spent every-fucking-day sketching, perfecting every letter, every connection option, everything. Eventually I found my own style, my own groove, and it put me on the path to the writer I became. So while I was crushed at the time by what Crayone said - he said exactly what I needed to hear. I think he knew I needed to hear it. I've never talked to him since that moment but when I do get the chance to I will let him know that I'm forever grateful for his honesty. So stay frustrated but let that inspire you to push through.

Instagram has been great for business, and by that I mean reaching folks who enjoy my canvas work and want to own a piece of my art. I've been able to share new available work to thousands of people and quickly sell them, and I've had folks reach out to me through direct message for commission pieces. Closing out my Instagram account, which I definitely want to do, is probably going to kill all that. That's partly okay as I'm more than likely retiring from canvas work except for when the moment to create grabs me, and I still have my personal website so I can go back to updating that more often instead of updating my Instagram feed. The problem is making the leap. I can't decide if I'm shooting myself in the foot or if I'm making more time in my life, or if I'm going to end up filling that spare time with 12oz. @misteraven- I'd be interested to know if Instagram has helped increase sales in the 12oz shop, or if the general increase in forum traffic has increased sales. With all the chatter about social media - do you plan to keep your Insta account or close it out altogether? Just looking for outside thoughts about this from a business perspective... I guess.