There's a Graffiti Lettering Contest going on run by 
You can find more details on how to join in this post.
I started with pencil on lined paper. Not ideal but I filled up my sketchbook and haven't purchased a new one yet. My fiance was making meatball subs for lunch and I got the luxury of drawing while she was slaving away. I didn't have a direction I was heading. I put the pencil on the paper and started sketching out these weird arrow-ended letters. The actual letter forms themselves are lacking but I didn't have much space to work with. When you have a 5 letter word you have to either write really small or do some awkwardly skinny letters. I think that's what happend to me here but this is graffiti and graffiti will never be perfect. I kept what I had and went over it with pen.
After I outlined it with pen I began adding shading for the 3D effect. It was very labor intensive drawing a bunch of lines closely next to one another to add tone. As labourous as it is, it's the reason I love the look of pen and ink. I continued to do that and tried not to get lazy with my lines.
Once that was done I started blocking out shapes to color in. I was trying to think of the overall picture so I shaded in the part I was going to color to get a feel of how it would look. I left a few spots open for some decorating inside the fill.
After that it was time to outline the whole piece in black. The first black market I had was dying but luckily I found another one. I outlined it and then added the last black splash effect around the whole thing to add to the composition as a whole. From a distance it looks nice. All of the extra bits I added really make it pop.
The T to R connection is really weak but I chose to add it for the overall silhouette of the 3D letters. I'm also not a fan of the A and the R sharing the same bar either. I did that because of space issues. I am always hard on myself but I like constructive criticism so I always look for things I can improve next time.
I'm happy with this entry overall and glad I got to finish it on time. I only have a few hours now but I made the deadline. There will be a voting post soon. I will update a link to there in my post if you would like to take the time to vote for me. Thanks for reading. Hope to see YOU in the next contest.
