Introduction:

graffiti, such a taboo issue...society frowns upon this underground art. why? because they say it defacates upon the abandoned walls that make cities so gray and bleak to begin with. it covers those beautiful billboards you see about smoking and that really nifty hotel 4 1/2 miles away. And yet you see it so rampant. You wonder and are so full of curiosity that you, too, want to try your slated hand at this mysterious underground art. so you hop on your computer after getting home from your trip to the bronx zoo (yankee's stadium people...not the bronx zoo. what were you thinking? geez.) and are inspired to 'do graffiti'. (murals by the way. tagging is just the letters, also known as 'bombs', 'throw-ups' etc. As you scourge the digital freeway known as the 'internet', squeezing as many 0's and 1's through the tiny microscopic bandwidth of a 56k connection that only connects at 28,000k a second, searching...nay...yearning to find a tutorial to aquire this skill, you find naught on the google.com search engine, you just pray and pray to the higher power(s) that one day, you too, can be given the opportunity to learn how graffiti is done.

Well...the time has come for you to fulfill that destiny. To the request of a few, (though i've seen many requests), i've put up this simple tutorial for your enjoyment. no, its not the best, i'm not the best graf artist out there. (actually...i'm only average...i don't do this as much as i used to)...but it is a step in understanding it...and probably is all you need to know to start. Well...i'm done rambling, and now its time for you to check out my little tutorial.

If you were wondering, i made this with Adobe Photoshop 6.0, a wacom graphire2 tablet, my computer

...anyways...onward to the tutorial!...

step1.

draw just skeleton of the word you will create a nice piece with. this word can be anything you want.
(note: you can find out more about graffiti letters here. i made this too, which you should practice. the blue lines show the first line you should make. the red lines show the second/third/fourth line you should make. the arrows point in the direction it should be made in.)

step 2.

draw the basic outline of what you want to make your piece to look like. this is the 'fleshing out' stage where you will flesh out the basic outline for your piece.

*note:the basic outline is mostly just bars. they aren't just one letter. lots of graf artists do this. the really good ones (no, i'm not one of them) don't have to. this will also work with 'bubble letters'.

step 3.

darken the outline of your fleshed out piece. it should look like the image on your right.

(click thumbnail to enlarge)

step 4.

now you add the 3d part of the piece. its really not as hard as it looks. start with the lines that are vertical (lines going up and down). then just make parallel lines connecting the vertical lines. if you aren't sure if there should be a 3d effect under a certain part, try it out. if it doesn't work...then remove it.

step 5.

now its time to make the outline of the whole image. pretty self explainitory. just like with inking, try using varied line widths for a more 'personality' looking piece.