The 3D/perspective construction is not working. Here i made a little example with a vanishing point. Without one, imagine the vanishing point being infinitely far.

Also try to play around negative space a bit, it might help you! (the space between and around letter = empty space)

 

Thanks. Ive always struggled with 3D effects. Thanks for the diagram I will put it to good use.

 

dude you art is straight ill my brotha keep up that amazing work

 

Thanks bro I appreciate the support BW12!!

 

yeah man heres some of my work

 

bruh what is going on with those outlines

 

idk i was just trying something grungy

 

You got a pretty good basic letter structure. I would clean up the lines. For a grungy look, maybe try overlapping your serifs without losing your structure. Hope this helps

 

thanks men

 

I wish this thread could be more active, especially when you get a visual feedback from the pros. In my opinion, toys like myself would post their creation here and the heavy hitters would critique what fits, what needs work, color selection, etc.. From my perspective, practicing sketches in your blackbook on your own without critique is like flying blind. I'm not sure what I'm doing correctly or what mistakes I'm repeating. I want to improve but I'm not sure if I'm going in the right direction. Apart from seeing other graffiti pieces on the street, instagram or this forum, I do a variety of sketches in my blackbook outside of BS forum on my own time and practicing all kinds of letters, which I do see a hugh improvement when I first started.

If you were in my situation how would you go about this?

 

post up an outline and let’s see what kind of response you get. I can help with bars and letter structure

 

Here what I have so far. The word is 'Doctor'. You can see my 3d marks going down. I really like the melting effect, so in the end the letters are not going to look like as it is pictured now. What im trying to achieve or get at the next phase, is extensions, more arrows, and chips. I was thinking the letter 'D' could have a chip and/or arrow where the middle break 'T' line is.

What I'm trying to achieve is to add extensions, chips and arrows. However, I don't know what is the overall limit to not overcrowd my piece.

Also, what do you think @EBA @Theillfunkfreaka @watchawant @MIUNZ

 

Yo so this might be quite a bit but gives u an idea of what needs work and also some tips for the things you’re wanting to do

so I had a look at your prism piece from the latest battle, the things that stand out to me the most is the inconsistency in your letters shapes/ styles. Individually each letter has its own flavour but they don’t flow together. This was one of my biggest problems starting out I just did a bunch of cool individual letters then put them together. But what brings a piece to the next level is making them flow nicely. I broke down your letters to see what your bars were like and that in my opinion should be ‘YOUR’ main focus for now. you can still add style but try to keep your underlying letters kind of the same height or width. Your ‘P’, ‘R’ and ‘I’ all have a solid vertical straight bar which isn’t a bad thing but then the ‘SM’ letters are doing their own thing if you get what I mean. I drew another example beneath it to show with much more simple Letters what an be achieved. Also your letters don’t need to overlap. Another thing, and this is just my preference but if I’m doing 3d that is straight down I will only do it with letters that are on leans if you know what I mean that way the 3d doesn’t get lost with the lines of the letters them selves. So if I do a few letters that have straight vertical bars I will tend to do my 3d to either a horizon point or on a one directional angle (usually bottom right or left) like the example at the bottom right. Another thing you could try is shading your 3d or letters to give it a bit more depth. I’m unsure if you’ve done this in the past but it’s a tip nonetheless.



For the ‘DOC’ piece the letters bars are not consistent again, the heights of your bars are all different and all of the letters are different widths. The piece below it shows the letter with same heights and it looks much more uniform. Which is good when your’e doing simple pieces.
On the right i drew how I would personally finish the piece if I had to use the first 3 letters you have already drawn. Starting with your triangular kind of shape then and round shape/ keyboard letter then alternate between the styles for the remaining letters. Below that shows consistent letters with the same style but still simple.

At the bottom I included examples of what I would do with the letter D that you drew. And the ‘T’ break is what I call handle bars or a bridge because it’s what links the letter together. Not sure what everyone else calls it but thats what I was taught early on and the way that you used it is not the correct way in my opinion. If you see in my examples those are really the only way I use them but there are many different ways to do them once u understand kind of how they work or what their purpose is.
As for chips and cracks I only do chips (which I assume you mean chipped off parts of the letters) near the ends of letters and I only tend to do cracks on corners of letters coz to me it’s easier lol. For chips I just sketch the whole letter find the part I want to break off imagine slicing it then moving it up, down or sideways.
Arrows and extensions: I still struggle with these but I only tend to use them to fill negative space if my letters don’t fill the space well. In my opinion classic is a master at extensions and connections.
Arrows are kinda just extensions with a direction or point I guess. In my examples I made the whole letter an arrow since u made the letter ‘D’ shape triangular and that could be repeated with the other triangular shapes in the top right. Also for me personally I just tend to add arrows to the ends of letters like the other 2 examples.
all in all you’re not terrible but your main hindrance at this point is your letters/ bars once you take away the out line and have the main letters u can see that some letters are much more legible than others. If you work on that you will improve tenfold. It’s the main reason that people with really good handstyles and can piece fairly well even if they only do handstyles all the time. This is also my problem haha my handstyles are rubbish but my hand writing is okay so I make do lol also try different 3d directions and see how you go.
Best of luck

just my 2 cents… and a bit extra

 

Wow, it is a lot to take in and the drawings did make a great impression. I tend to go on a tangent sometimes with my letters. I guess my problem is that I don't write the letter first and outline around. I just shape the letter in one go. My jaw dropped, when you were able to knock out 5 different 'D' letters like that. Kudos to you man.

 

I used to do the same and not draw the letters first. Once you do though your piece should improve ten fold

 

Most letters have a backbone bar and a pinch point.

Before I start a letter I identify tbe backbone bar. Then I play around with how I want it … I can bend in concave, I bend it convex .. I can tilt it to lean right or tilt it to lean left. When you are doing the first letter in a word you have freedom to bend or tilt the backbone bar how ever you want but it sets up how the rest of the bar letters will be so it’s important. It the next letters following .. the way you style those backbone bars will depend on the space the letter proceeding gave/left you.

For the letter D the backbone bar is the vertical bar IMO. On the page in the left you can have that bar just straight up and down or tilt out like the last D on row 2 or tilt in like the first D on row 3. Bend it like tbe D on row 4.

Page on right shows various extensions that are really easy to slap on once you have the bar fundamentals down.
1 - simple thin tab off the end of a bar
2 - I like doing this one a lot. You just run a thin line down side of bar then have it shoot off from the bar. Here I did a loop then shot it left
3 - simple tab off end of a bar. Getting the tabs down at the end of your bars are key. This is like the first step of extensions. Tabs are huge IMO.
4 - this one is cheating IMO and I try not to do it. I call it a plate. Just an extension mimicking tbe bar
5 - I long thin tab .. I like this coming off a curvy bar also sets up the no. 2 extension well
6- like No. 2, a thin line running along side the bar then it shoots off and you do whatever crazy extension or multi extensions you want
7 - a simple thin extension that just drops straight down then kicks left or right … it’s an extension off an extension
8 - yet another thin extension but this one doesn’t run along side the main bar as much. I like to put these like under curvy bars then having it shoot a tab up

 

Man more people need to jump in this thread for tips. The backbone concept is top too. I do similar where i choose a bar of a letter that determines how the rest of the letter will be shaped. Cool to see how u go about your extensions too

 

I really appreciate you guys helping and showing me how its done properly. If there was a college course teaching the basics, I would definitely invest the time. I feel like I have to take a step back and restructure myself, but I say this in a good way. I rather catch it early on than continue making the same mistakes.

And I agree with @MIUNZ, more people need to see these tips, so they can see how each style is made behind the scenes when they enter these battles.

 

I feel you probably already know this but for those learning and wanna fuck with arrows and extensions, this is a good begginer strategy IMO.

Follow the outside shape of a letter before extending your arrow or extension, practice with simple shapes like triangle, square, circles to get the feel of it. Dont just shoot out arrows, follow the shape of the letter and then extend it.