Graffiti Time!

This project was pretty involved, so I'll talk about each of the steps it took to reach the final look (not for any reason, I just feel like it):

Using a Bamboo tablet in Illustrator, I started playing around with different custom brushes that would achieve a graffiti-like effect. I finally settled on a more simple, rounded brush, and began to sketch out my tag.

I decided on the name "Alpha" because of an inside joke I have with my twin. I was the first twin born, hence "Alpha", and she was the second, which led to her the nickname, "Baby-B". You need street names in a place as rough and tumble as Dorset, after all.

The tag needed some more depth and interest to it, so I picked out a slightly thicker brush and went in underneath the letters to create a shadow. I also thickened the outer lines a bit to make a some contrast between the inner and outer lines of the letters.

Next, it was time to add some color to both the space within the letters and surrounding the word itself to make the tag a bit more interesting.

The tag was still pretty bland, so I went in with a thin white brush and began to highlight certain parts of the letters. This creates more of a 3D effect, as if the letters are actually raised off of the page. I also added a translucent white line directly underneath the highlight, which took a bit of the harshness away and added some realism to it, along with a shadow directly underneath the letters in a slightly darker orange for extra depth (thank you, Mr. Molinelli). Finally, I added yet another surrounding color to the entire tag in my favorite color.

Now for the hard part. Somehow, I had to take the tag I made in Illustrator and put it on an actual wall, so that it would appear as if I had actually graffitied it. This took a lot of toying around with the opacity and perspective, which I used distort and skew to achieve. I also went in with a textured eraser at 50-60% opacity and strategically removed color from certain parts of the tag. And that's it!

This project was a lot of fun and, to be honest, quite challenging. I had a pretty rough time trying to place the tag onto the wall without completely disfiguring it in the process, but it was fun trying to figure it out all the while. I also really enjoyed going back to my roots with Illustrator, as well as working with highlight and shadow to achieve a more interesting look. I've never done anything like this before, but I'd love to do it again (legally, of course).