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[GUIDE] Paint, Spraycans And Streetart - A guide on how to implement graffiti into your roleplay.


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Paint, Spraycans And Streetart

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A guide on how to implement graffiti into your roleplay.

 

A quick introduction:
Hey there!
So you found this guide. Maybe you’ve been intentionally looking for it. Maybe you just stumbled across it while browsing the shadow realms of the guide section in the forums. Fact is, that here you have the opportunity to learn or understand how to implement everything revolving graffiti into your roleplay. You don’t necessarily need to detail everything down so it becomes perfect, but it’s always good to at least somewhat know what you are doing.

So, whether you use this guide as a guideline or a piece of inspiration, I will try to make it as easy to understand as possible.
Feel free to revisit this guide if you have time to learn and understand what I am about to write.

 

I will go into a lot of detail, that you can use yourself when role playing around graffiti.

 

 

When to use graffiti in your roleplay:
First of all, you need a narrow idea on when you even want to implement it into your roleplay. Placement of detailed elements or character defining aspects like art is quite important. This is not supposed to limit you when you should use this kind of roleplay, but just give you a vague idea when it would make sense. It basically always comes down to your character, at the end of the day. Why does your character create street art? To combat stress? To impress others? To express themselves? The why is an important question, when choosing to use street art as an element in your roleplay. Then you should ask yourself how confident your character is. Is your character afraid to get caught by the police when spraying illegally? Does your character choose to only spray legally to just express themselves in their own way? Does your character want the adrenalin kick of spraying illegally? How skilled is your character in pulling off the making of the art piece under stress? Those are all important questions that you have to ask yourself and put into account when performing this sort of roleplay. The main reason why people do street art is for expressing themselves. A reason always has to overcome the basic fear of getting into legal trouble because of it. It has to actually make sense for your character. This can often tie in with your character's backstory, but hey, it’s your character, not mine.

 

 

Basic knowledge:
So, before we begin with focusing on how to actually roleplay the spraying, we need to know the basics graffiti. After all, it’s always better to know what you are doing. So, let's go then. I will mostly focus on ‘word-based’ graffitis in this section now, but keep in mind that basically anything is possible, as it’s all about artistic choices at the end of the day.


Before we talk more about what makes a graffiti a graffiti, let's talk about motives. The motive (word or sentence) that you choose for the graffiti is also rather important. What is it supposed to say? How will you use design choices to transmit a message or a feeling? Artistic choices like this are important to consider and it really comes down to your imagination and artistic-creative ability at this stage.

When talking about graffiti, something that will always come up is complexity. How complex is a graffit? What are design choices the artist made? How much work went into it? How creative is it? What kind of skill does it require?
The answer to complexity is a wide range, going from simple tags to extremely complex wildstyle pieces.
But before I clog this guide up with terms that don’t make sense to you, if you never had to do with graffiti, let me lay this down for you.
 

 

Kinds of graffiti pieces (I will put links to reference images onto the words below):
Tags - A tag is basically just ‘plain’ lines linked together to end up forming the desired word. Lines can be swung and styled however one wants and there are many possible design choices that can be used when considering a tag. Tags are most commonly used as signatures, that are planted in the corner or next to a bigger piece. Rule of thumb: It’s a tag if it doesn’t have an outline, only uses one color and consists almost entirely out of simple lines.


Throw-Ups (also https://imgur.com/HVDh7MA) - A Throw-Up is already a bit more complex. To narrow it down, a Throw-Up is anything that has letters that have a wider color variation, usually have an outline and a fill-in, are more complex and usually have a consistent and harmonic theme going between design and motive.


Wildstyle - A wildstyle has letters that are stretched in complicated ways, are broken or are connected and so on and so forth. Basically, what anyone that doesn’t know anything about graffiti would call a mess is probably a Wildstyle piece. They are differentiated from Throw-Ups by their mere complexity and design choices, ranging into a very abstract kind of graffiti.

 

 

Keep in mind that I am majorly simplifying here and mainly focusing on explaining it in general, not focusing on design and artistic choices. If you are more interested in the actual design of graffiti, besides learning how to role play around it, I recommend doing some extra research.

 

So tl:dr: When deciding to have your character spray a graffiti, keep in mind the complexity of the graffiti, the motive of the graffiti and the reason why your character is spraying in the first place.

 

Something else important you need to consider is whether or not your character decides to spray legally or illegally. To narrow it down, spraying graffiti is only legal -

1) - if the wall that is being sprayed on is explicitly legal (hall of fames).*

2) - if you own the wall yourself (your own property).

3) - or if the owner of the wall gave you permission before you began spraying.

 

*Real quick: A hall of fame is a legal zone for graffiti, designated by the city. Judging by how Venice Beach in L.A. has a hall of fame, which are a couple of walls dotted up, I suspect that it should be the same for the walls we have ingame down at the Vespucci Beach skatepark.

So, just to make it convenient: The graffiti covered walls down at the Vespucci Beach skatepark are most likely a hall of fame, that you can use for your roleplay, if your character chooses to spray legally.

(I am saying this because the IG government probably never said anything on this matter AND it is just realistic to have that spot as an IG hall of fame, as the IRL counterpart is a hall of fame itself. We won’t take permits and other things into account here, just for convenience and to make everyone's life just a bit easier.).


Most of you will probably spray illegally anyways, because it’s more appealing and ‘interesting’ to roleplay, but go ahead to use what I just said, if you want to role play spraying legally.

 

 

IC preparations before spraying:
So, preparation is always a big part when it comes to planning these sorts of things (unless you are doing something very basic). First of all, your character will most likely want to make a sketch before doing anything else. Prepare themselves on what they want to put onto a wall. Most artists have a sketchbook for this, doodling around it in their spare time. This is something you can do ICly while passive RPing.

 

Another step of the preparation is what kind of spray cans will be used. Color should be clear at this stage, as the sketch is already done. To get over this next step, I will list a few common spray can brands commonly used for street art:

(I will put [HP] for high pressure and [LP] for low pressure. Difference here is how the color ends up on the wall (Thickness of line; Amount of paint released …)) (I will also put the producer in brackets behind the brand)


- Montana Gold [LP] (Montana)
- Montana Black [HP] (Montana)
- 94er-series [LP] (MTN)
- MTN Hardcore [HP] (MTN)
- Belton Molotow [LP] (Belton)
- 600er-series [HP] (Belton)
- Beat [LP] (Colorpack)
- Clash [HP] (Colorpack)
- Low Kobra [LP] (Spraytech)
- Kobra [HP] (Spraytech)

 

There you go, pick your poison! Most inexperienced and newer artists will go with low pressure cans only at the start. Keep that in mind.


Congrats, we got that step behind us now. Let's talk about choosing a location then. The location is extremely important, as it depends whether your character wants to have their art seen or not. Whether they want a lot of attention or not. Dark alleyways or the side-walls of the LS River are a good choice for the beginning.

Account risk into this step and how much risk your character is willing to take.

 

Something else you want to keep in mind is safety, if your character cares about it:

Gloves and masks; removing the caps of the cans after spraying; not storing the cans in your characters room, because of the fumes.

 

Let's briefly talk about caps as well. A cap is basically the little “hat” a spray can has. You know, the plastic cap you press down onto when using the spray can. Caps can vary a lot. There are Standard caps, Fat caps, Soft caps, Skinny caps and so on and so forth. The names I just listed are pretty self explanatory, as the caps main feature is the distribution of paint.
An experienced artist will always take enough caps with them, as those things get clogged easily and are basically disposable. You could clean them, but it’s not really worth the effort. So keep that in mind as well.


Always take into account how much effort your character would put into preparing themselves for this kind of activity.

It depends on your character whether or not they want to use a mask or gloves, but I heavily recommend at least use something to cover their mouth and nose, because of the fumes.

 

Clothes will definitely get stained during the process of spraying, so feel free to actually have a spraying outfit slot, which consists of rather old and dirty looking clothes. It could/should include gloves.

 

Something else that is definitely something to think about is whether or not your character wants to collaborate with another artist. Not only is this common for bigger pieces, but also is role playing in a group generally a lot more fun.

I highly advise to not just play this off as something usual, as this can be something extremely fun if treated as something special, especially if role played with other players. Targeting another player group with the graffiti is also a good idea - character progression wise.

 

 

The actual act of spraying:
So, after a lot of talking, IC preparation and researching, we finally made it to this stage. Congrats. So, let's talk roleplay.
Your character will most likely want to take just enough cans with them in a backpack or a duffel bag. Keep in mind that those things can get extremely heavy, when transporting a lot in one bag.


The right time is also important and also the means of getting away afterwards. How secluded is the place? How stressful will it get?
Always account in for fear when actually spraying illegally ICly.

 

So, let’s get to the fun part already:
Right before spraying, your character will want to shake the spray can for atleast a minute. You can describe the distinctive clicking of the spray can, the stressful shaking, paranoid looking around because of the loud clicking and so on and so forth. Get creative with it.
Each can (each color, if you want to put it that way) has to be shaken individually before spraying and also almost right before using.

 

Animation suggestions I got are /anim checkbody1 /anim cleanwall and /anim aim1

This way people can see from a far that you are actually doing something.

 

When it comes to spraying the actual piece, an experienced artist will do it in this way:
- First do the fill-in, then the outline
- Work in layers, not letter by letter.
- Sketch on the wall before starting with the actual piece.
- First put down the basic piece, then add details

 

Now that we are at the point of spraying, the area will most likely begin to smell a lot like paint, so feel free to describe that. Paint fumes can easily make you dizzy, so that’s why a mask or a piece of cloth to cover the mouth and nose is recommended when role playing this. React to the paint fumes, if your character is not using anything to protect their nose or mouth with.

 

Keep in mind, that when pressing down on the cap, the paint can easily get caught by your finger and make a mess on the can, potentially clogging up the cap. You could roleplay clogging the cap on accident and then trying to unclog it, by turning the can upside down, shaking it and pressing down on the cap, but this doesn’t have a chance of working all the time. That’s why I said earlier that your character could pack more than a few caps, because clogging like this is rather common.
Clothes will most likely get stained during spraying, so you can describe that after the act of spraying or you can describe getting the clothes stained during spraying.

 

Also take into account that the can will most likely run out of paint, if used on a bigger piece. Your character can always take more cans of the same color with them, but this is part of the planning stage, which we went over earlier.

 

When done, your character will most likely want to put their signature tag in the bottom or into the corner of the finished piece. Most artists also take pictures of their finished work. (Next step will brush over creating the art in photoshop and gimp).

So, after spraying you are free to do whatever. Instinctively, a normal person would want to get out of there, because they could be easily linked with vandalizing the wall. 

 

Keep in mind to always account fear into this kind of role play. Some character will have some sort of coping mechanism with this instinctive paranoia, but that’s up for you to roleplay.

 

Feel free to throw down a description of the created street art with (/createinformationmarker) /cim [days] [description]

 

Creating the street art in photoshop or gimp:
Well, to be honest, I am not the best in photoshop. If you really want to create advanced graffitis as screenshots to share on character threads and so on, you will have to teach yourself. Maybe you already know enough about photoshop or image editing to pull this off. Luckily, I have a LINK (credit goes to @Liv) that shows how to create basic tags in gimp. For more advanced kinds of graffitis, it really depends on the piece itself on how difficult it is to pull it off in photoshop or gimp. You will have to figure that out for yourself.
I also recommend looking deeper into how to design graffiti by itself, if you are interested in actually creating it in photoshop or gimp.

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: If you really are interested in role playing about graffiti a lot, I recommend doing some research by yourself and not just using this guide as a single source. I also recommend you to do some research about the general history on graffiti and street art before actively role playing about it.

 

Edited by MomoIsHere
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