How to design graffiti letter (digital art) in illustrator

This is a tutorial on how to make graffiti letters (digital art) in Adobe Illustrator. In this tutorial you will need to have a basic understanding of using the pen tool and using the shapes tool duplicating shapes and creating gradients.

First, you will need outline your graffiti

I'm only going to use one letter here for the purposes of this tutorial

you can either draw it on paper or create an illustrator right off the bat it's up to you if you have taken a photo as i have done it's best to lock the layer so it does not move when you're making the graffiti letters then make sure you have the fill closed and that your stroke is selected choose any color for now.

It only matters that you can see the path that you're drawing select the pen tool and make sure the weight is just right for outlining your shape when you're ready go ahead and create a letter.

If you know anything about graffiti in the paint form in real life you know that you will need to build it up in layers I do a similar thing with my digital graffiti.

there are many ways to make digital graffiti letters and is not an exact science but as long as you get the final design doesn't matter how you got there.

In my design I need the middle section cut out so we'll make the shape and then place it over the top of the letter

Using the pathfinder which you can open by heading up to window

With the white arrow tool you can edit your shape and the anchor points can clean it up

Now to have a stroke you need first to choose the fill color of your feet like this in appearance menu then you can open yours by heading up the window and appearance.

Make sure this trick is behind the field layer and then add the way you want to use
in stroke window.. make the corners my graffiti rounded

you will need to add the details in

select the same color as your stroke

Lock the layer so you cannot mess around with it.

Use the white arrow to make any edits or changes.

Make it look 3D.. to do that you need to add shadow It's quite easily but make sure the layer is unlocked.

Hold down alt and click and drag to duplicate it
Make the new shape or one color the same kind of string.

Make sure the new shape is behind by going up object arranged send to back

you can edit the shadow with the white area as before until you're satisfied.

Now you must degrading to lighten the top at the graffiti letter

unlock everything then duplicate shape layer not the shadow layer

with the new layer back in place set the field gradient

make sure this trick is turned off this layer we want to arrange the gradient so that is two Colors one of the very top and one at the very bottom

color to be invisible by putting the opacity to 0 of the top one either white or very close to white

at the basic under layer of your graffiti letters and will serve as a foundation for your entire design.

Now, we will be adding the details such as highlights and shadows

So let's continue with the artistic details.

We're going to start making highlights for this you must imagine some light coming from a specific direction how that would highlight the graffiti letter or shape

select either white or shaded very close to white in the color  palette select the pen tool and switch the color two-stroke i would imagine the light source for mine is coming from the upper left so firstly i will create a shape along the left side vertically with the pen tool.

You can adjust it with the white arrow selection tool afterwards

once you're happy with the shape highlight it and switch it from a stroke to a color feel like so we can leave it like this and that might be the look you're going for but you can add a blur effect.

Highlight the shape again and go up to affect blur Gaussian blur to the settings that apply to your design.

To add the second gradient layer.

Highlight the upper layer and then hold down out alt until you see this icon appear then click and drag to duplicate face it back over the top exactly in place to make sure the highlight we've made before is above.

The first gradient layer was quite at the top and invisible the bottom but we will flip this so it's invisible and up top and dark blue at the bottom.

You could make this in one gradient layer with the way to the top and the blue the bottom but i find it blends a lot better get separated into two gradient layers.

Imagine to see some shadow or shading so for me the light is coming from the upper left making this part under the cross-section being Emily lit doesn't matter right now what color the path is that your drawing but we want to put it in up there.

When you have the shape make sure you fill it with a gradient like this because it is a shadow I want to make the gradient background color again play around the degrees of the angle and keep one side invisible it blends nicely.

We can clean it up with the white selection to after we have the gradient set.
To speed up this tutorial i would go ahead and use the same technique of creating highlights and shading on my graffiti.

Remember you can go back and edit your work anytime we're nearly at the finishing line

You will now make a dripping paint effect select the pen tool here and highlight the shadow layer we want the pain to be the same color then with the ellipse tool make a circle shape.

They see where you want and then with the pencil create a drip shape it would be best to send the shapes to the back by highlighting them and going up object send to back.

Again i will go ahead and create all of my paint drips as you can see also outline the path with the pen tool around the shape flip the path to fill.

Then go up to object and center-back

I'm going to add a layer to the background giving the design more depth.

Let your imagination run wild but remember save your work I find a design is finished let me know what you think and how you always came out.

I really hope this tutorial helped you understanding designing your own graffiti letters be sure to leave a comment so I can know if you like this tutorial.