Preserved Topic: Tagging tutorials

I've read thread after thread of people here wanting to create some kinda new tutorial for their website. How about a tutorial on how to Tag with Photoshop's Airbrush. For those that have no idea what tagging is...maybe you could provide an explanation and some examples?

I would love to learn how to Tag! My bosses house could use some new paint.

u gotta practice... go to some graff sites like www.hifiart.com(san fran based) or www.graffiti.org (realy nice site) check out that stuff and try to duplicate it on paper. after you get the feel for it, experement and make ur own styles, then grab a can!!
i dont know how u would do it in photoshop.. i ushly make a sketch and put it in photoshop and add color or somethin.
just a sec.. lemmie dig up some old ones so i can post em

alright.. heres one.. i just scanned it cuz i lost all my other ones that were on my comp alredy
so its not edited in photoshop or anything..yet

says APE if u dont see it

Tagging on a puter is just wack :P You gotta practice, get some butcher paper and about 20 cans of white, and some colored cans, then just spray spray spray. I hate tagging, its lame, its usually hideous, its not pretty, no one appreciates it but you and the rest of your "gang." People think graffiti is easy or something, its a lot like scratching in that regard, and other urban arts, a lot of people are just jumping into it without your basic skills, for scratching you have to be a consumate mixer first, and with graffiti or tagging you have to be a consumate artist first. At least if you want to do it well.

Its all about etching, make a silk screen of a nifty design, then throw it up on a big plate glass window, and then squeegee glass etching cream in it. It will leave a permanent etch, and only option to get rid of it is removal of the window. Lots better then tagging shit, and you can do super complex designs, but only need 5 minutes to put it up.

So on a final note, writing isn't done on a computer, you won't learn any real life skills, except maybe which forms look good and which look wack, but it won't help you actually write. all you got to do is go out and find something flat and hit that shit.

I see the P and the E but I'm having some difficulty reading the A....

i know that tag up there is pritty crappy (its a older one) but, optic it sounds like ur talking about those wak gangster taggers.. of corse that stuff sucks! but man.. the real writers out there, thats not ugly at all bro.
havent seen any good etchings down here (just the gangsters with clay etching pens or whatever who do it for the vandalism not the art) got any real pics?

ah I wasn't talking about you rider, i probably didn't convey my thoughts articulatly there, I love graffiti, i'm down with a couple writers, i just don't like it when people think its something you can just jump into or get up on your computer. I'm not really a big fan of wildstyle stuff either, since i think graffiti should be more accesable to the general population, and wildstyle is usually only legible if you are a writer. Your ape looks pretty fresh though rider. I'll throw up some etchings at mcdonalds or something and take some pictures, i use a more tech style though, so i don't know if writers would be into it. and i broke my silk screen so all i got is a super small 10x16 screen or something small like that.

So basically, i'm all about big pieces...

i used to sniff aresol fumes and then i started to lose bladder control... scratching has a lot less health risks.

you can't write a tutorial on how to do graff, 'nuff said.
http://www.graffiti.org/sins/main.html -- their web site has fallen into a little bit of disrepair, but they've got a few guys on that crew that rock the abstract stuff i love so much.

cheers.mikey.milker

http://www.graffiti.org/sins/directory/artists/poesia/concrete/poesia02.jpg

Thats pretty crazy, i went around a lot of europe looking at a lot of insane pieces, but i think thats the piece of graf that most touches my soul.

coo optic, i wanna check some of that etching, i dont think ive ever seen it the way ur talking...
and about mine up there i was just sayin i dont realy like it myself
but yeah, cant wait tell u get those pics up

OK, I guess this is as good time as any to bring back my old sig.
Don't worry, it isn't a regular one. Too annoying and kb-heavy.





-nimraw
If you can't convince, confuse!

You going to have to wait untill i can find a supplier for glass etching stuff, i used to "borrow" from school, but that was a long time ago.

http://www.worldwidewong.com/
This is my area, it's got a bunch of my friends in it.

barry: that shit is wack.

optic: hey man, are you into espo at all?

cheers.mikey.milker

I'm not really into the graffiti community at all, I just have some writer friends that take me out and let me watch as they throw up pieces, so I don't know anyone's style or anything.

As for your question: YES! That is like the ultimate way to get up, its fucken huge, you can read it from like a mile away, it looks good, and it was probably all super fast to do, and probably pretty easy, since he(they?) using the corrugations for guidelines. It seems like he(they?) has a goal in mind(even more than getting up, or killing something) and has developed a style that is just the bomb shit in order to achieve that goal. From the links page its pretty obvious espo can bust with pretty ill characters also.

I'm down with anyone that is taking back public spaces and buildings for their own use without harming the function of said spaces/buildings.

wow, opticburn, that's awful naive. taking a public space back? so a few kids with spraycans and markers can change the aesthetics of something for themselves, and it's good? oookay....and if i decided that, say, a fountain in the middle of a big park where lots of kids liked to go should have the water replaced with urine, is that okay? doesn't harm the function. (sigh)

No, actually that doesn't maintain the same function, its fucking piss, not water.

Gee yeah I'm naive, cause I'd rather have people spray painting art work onto the walls instead of petty vandalism, or running drugs, being in gangs, or whatever. Or yeah, I'm naive because I think poor people should get the same opprotunitys for free speech as rich people(ever seen a cheap billboard?), or yeah I'm naive, because commercial signs make me fucking naseous and I choose to vocalize my support for a bit of culture(graffiti is the oldest art form in the world). Blank walls(and cities in general) have negative physcological effects on people, graffiti is a way to break that.

I think you are naive, because all you choose to see is the biased and distorted perspective the media chooses to portray. Hide behind a cynical view of the world all you want. You don't want people to throw up pieces in "your" city, help find fund or find a legal yard, legal yards are always the most heavy hit places in cities anyway.

"I don't fear evil men, I fear good men who sit back and do nothing."

...

i just spent the better part of 30 minutes writing a tirade chastising you (twitch) and explaining why graffiti can be such a great thing, as a form of expression and something that helps people pull through life...

unfortunately my rhetoric isn't strong enough to convince a blind man he can see.

all i can do is offer you something like this:

http://www.graffiti.org/osgemeos/p1/1wordgemeos1med.jpg (300k)

that's a piece from twin brothers "living" in sao paulo, a city in brazil that is a prime example of true corruption and oppression. the majority of people live in squalor, including the two brothers, but still they have the urge inside to speak out...

here is the english translation of that panel:

Once more the sun goes down... one more sunset. And one more foggy cold day..., golden sun, the breeze from the valley smells like flowers The frozen mass hides and releases itself, where patience becomes a current flow and walks gently ... Life goes on, without looking back. Everything goes on uninterruptedly. Magic is just what blind people can see ( ). Sometimes things get tough and we remain silent. But He will keep on looking at us, just like as the cycle of life never got tired of showing the immensity of the explicit arts, molded at each moment. A scene. A breeze. A shade of colour. A look. A place. Where a butterfly finds it own place... how would flying be like? Flying... sometimes we do fly, but without even noticing it. Flying... we fly over an ocean, with no place to land and we go on, tired, towards the end. Not knowing where to stop, He will always be there... and we will not worry about when and where to arrive... The eternal transition. Life will always be there on its valleys and, just slightly remembering what is past, I remember that we enjoyed looking at "people" people. We closed our eyes and listened around, and calmly we remained silent, listening to the magic of the silence, looking, with an empty look that sometimes wandered until completely blind ... We remained silent, [starts again on 3rd panel] slowly blinking our eyes and our hands fidgeting about, looking at anything, betting on the strangest moments, trying to see anything and all we could see was "looks" wandering, empty looks, blind looks ( ). Then sometimes we decided to go out and write ... as a self-reflection. Life was taking on other shapes, other colours, other smells. The cycle never ends, there are proofs all around us ... we fly, and the wind and all the elements make us company ... ( ) ... beyond those mountains another valley exists ... ( ) and beyond those clouds, up on that mountain, the ice remains intact. Forever ... the course of history will never be changed.

that's all i know...

my fault; we had different definations of graffiti. no harm.

What make's tagging so special that somebody like me can't learn or try to learn?

RE: Optic's post
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

i just don't like it when people think its something you can just jump into or get up on your computer
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

No one said you couldn't try to learn, although it will be a long hard process. The point is that there are no tutorials for tagging.

aren't there some base styles that could be tought just to get someone off the ground so to speak?

that's kinda like saying that there are so many buttons and button styles that you can't write a tutorial for them. I think that we're either dealing with lazy taggers or lousy taggers...hmmm maybe both!

I never said you couldn't or shouldn't learn.

Basically you just asked how to write or draw. No one is ever going to teach you these things, or provide a tutorial on how to do them, its like when people ask weadah how to do dank, his answer: zoom in and use the pencil tool, my answer for how to tag, pick a name, write it 5000 times on the chalkboard, a different way each time, then take the ones that look the best and write 5000 variations on each one.

Maybe you got lost in my first post, but i said it all there, tagging on a computer won't teach you anything about real tagging except for which characters look good, and even then you will still have to learn how to bust those out freehand. And practice practice practice.

"You gotta practice, get some butcher paper and about 20 cans of white, and some colored cans, then just spray spray spray."

"So on a final note, writing isn't done on a computer, you won't learn any real life skills, except maybe which forms look good and which look wack, but it won't help you actually write. all you got to do is go out and find something flat and hit that shit."

There aren't any real styles to tagging(not wildstyle), you just gotta write your tag until you find a style that looks good and reflects you. For me its abstract hardlines and corners beneath a fluid ribbon, it doesn't look like anything else, but i still consider it a tag since it is characters and possesses a recognizable style. Just get a marker or a pencil(pens don't work as well IMO) and a little notepad and evertime you get bored in school, or on the bus, or watching tv, or whatever, everytime you have a free moment, write. Its that simple, its why they are called writers, its all they do. My friend, thats all he does, he sleeps, eats, sometimes goes to parties, and then he writes. He writes at home, in the car, all night long, when we go to the store. Its flat, and he walked by it, its got his name on it. Thats how you learn to tag, you just do it. Or you could go to art school and study up on arabic characters. Bla blah blah bl-fuckity-blah.

also i think what he was trying to say about people jumping into it not realy knowing, thats what gives graff/writers a bad name, people will see some crap and call it vandalism instead of art.

Here's a really novel idea..instead of calling someone lazy or lousy when you have no merit to either statement, try GETTING OFF YOUR ASS AND GOING TO LOOK AT SOME FUCKIN' GRAFFITI.

I'd point you to the "Reality is your friend in learning" thread, but it gets old.

Break it down? Go look....keep looking.....translate that to pages, or PS.....fix it....go look again.....fix it...go look again....fix it.

Repeat this cycle until you find and develop a style of your own.

It's painting for christ's sake! "Hey where's a tutorial to show me how to start to make a Mona Lisa?"

Boudga, noone's holding you back..want to get involved?...crawl out of the desk hutch and go get involved. The net is great for information..but it's not going to fall in your fucking laps people. Get up, Get Out, Get a Clue.


Peter





ICQ:# 10237808

everybody now:

"Get up, Get out, Get a clue. Get up, Get out, Get a clue. Get up, Get out, Get a clue. Get up, Get out, Get a clue. Get up, Get out, Get a clue. Get up, Get out, Get a clue. Get up, Get out, Get a clue. Get up, Get out, Get a clue. Get up, Get out, Get a clue.........."

oohh... i would love to learn this here thang... It would be fun showin off my madd Graffite skillz... heh... i wanna tutorial now!
well, i live right between DC and Baltimore... time to take my s10 for a little drive eh DL44? haha... Still i would feel safer doing a tut than asking some gangstaz how to make graffite....

I have a question

how on earth am i suposed to learn how to do this if i cant even read what it says???????

i had to read this one many times to get it... and it is really really dag-gon simple http://www.hifiart.com/drawings/chasm/06FEBRUARY01-chasm-6.jpg

oh man.. if you're having trouble reading that, then you're really screwed.

best place to see decent graffiti without a lot of effort? well if you live on the east coast or in urban centers in the west, go sit by the freight lines one day...

there's a whole renaissance going on within the graffiti movement and it's taking place on the railways.

cheers.mikey.milker

yup yup. and at least tell me youknew it was upside down

No one can show you how to be original.

Get up, Get out, Get a Cloo. Get up, Get out, Get a Cloo. Get up, Get out, Get a Cloo. lalalala

Colonel Mustard...in the library....with a candlestick.


~merely whistles and wanders off~





ICQ:# 10237808

Eyezaer -- you must have that 'suburban white-kid' syndrome. don't worry...they're working on a cure for that

DG: the profffesor in the kitchen with a lead pipe! (but you were close)

DG you don't have to be so friggin hostile....I think it was eyezaer who said it better when he said it wouldn't be good to go ask some gangsters how to tag.... and rider's got a point saying that if you just take your paint and throw up shit on a wall it'll look like vandalism instead of art.

All I asked for was a simple tutorial to get me started with some type of style. That's generally what button tutorials do also...they get you started. Yeah I've looked at a lot of graffiti but the majoity of the graffiti I've seen are finished products.

Basically by throwing out terms like lazy and lousy I was trying to challenge someone to the task of writing a simple tute....most of the time when people come here asking how to do something you guys are pretty informative but this time you guys just fronted attitudes.

At this point I would formally like to post a challenge:

For anyone here who writes tutorials and cannot think of anything that hasn't had a tutorial yet, be unique by creating a tagging tutorial for those that want to start. Many of the points brought out in this thread could be mentioned in the tutorial. If you do tag, you could for instance show a picture of something you tagged and write a brief and succinct tutorial on what it took to create it. (materials, time, the name of your style, etc...) I know it can be done!



[This message has been edited by Boudga (edited 02-13-2001).]

Yes...teach someone to paint with my personal style that I took however long to develop, by showing photographs of the evidence of a crime, then take credit for it, all so that the aforementioned someone can try to copy it on his 'puter and put on a webpage to call his own, because one tutorial on style isn't going to teach him anything other than one style.

Yeah..that sounds like a great idea. Can I order a swift kick in the head with that...or perhaps a guidebook to locate my ass and my elbow?

You're effectively asking, or rather. "challenging", ~cough~ someone to let you peel the work they've practiced years to do so that you don't have to drive by the local seven eleven to look at what's going on.

Here's the best help I can give you.

Design some letterforms (those would be letter....in shapes..also known as forms).....now put on a bottom layer...then a next one of shadows, then a next one of highligts, then sharpen it with whatever you use to make crisper edges....then keep going.

If that doesn't do it....you don't need a tutorial.....you need a clue.

CLOO!

P3T3R

eat some pears DG

Blow me, and get your own line to use at least, goof.

Was that direct enough, or do you need a tutorial?

~done~

yeah whatever dude...I think I'll practice tagging your cell to start out with



[This message has been edited by Boudga (edited 02-13-2001).]

yeah well... it took some time to figure out it was upsidedown...

But, Hey, i was looking at the different kinds and i dont think there is a way to just teach it.

each different person has his own style. very different from the rest. So you cant make a tutorial on just one kind... here ya go...

1) draw your letters.(optional)
2) add depth (optional)
3) add shadows (optional)
4) repeat....(optional)