Fun with Blocking
By Uncle Tim Heitkotter
I think a good topic for this installment of Lettering 101 would be “blocking.” Blocking is where we give we give letter some depth by creating the illusion of thickness. There are several ways to do this and some interesting by-products that are derived by blocking letters. Just about any lettering style can be “blocked.” I have covered this topic before, but not in detail.
The easiest way to block letters is to take and draw out your letters on tracing paper and then make a copy. Draw a line underneath the letters on the tracing paper, to determine how thick you want the letter to be. Putting your drawings on a light box, you can begin aligning them. Then, line the top of the letters on the copy with this new line underneath the tracing paper and move it the either left or right. Start drawing lines in the gaps to connect them, and you will see how the blocking begins to form. In some areas, you will need to “fudge” the blocking a bit, to make it work better. (See if you can find the places where I did this.) After you begin to see how the blocking works, in time, you won’t need to use the tracing paper method.
I have provided a three examples of blocking from different angles, to produce three different effects. The first (A), makes the letters look like they are reaching up and, the second (B), makes them look like they are coming down. I left the top and bottom letters intact. If you draw the letters out and erase the lines on the letters themselves (not the blocking), you can see how this creates an “invisible letter” effect, as in example(B). The third rendering (C), has the illusion of making the letters look like they are leaning back. This trick is accomplished by slanting the letters and drawing your connecting lines straight down instead of at an angle like the other two examples.
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You can see how drawing in ALL the lines gives you a reference point, on where to start the shading. Assigning a light source and highlighting the curves in the round parts and leading edges of the angular parts will give you a dramatic effect. I used a Sharpie to illustrate the proper way to do this, but you can also use soft-gray shading, stippling or cross-hatching. Experimenting with color can give you dramatic effects, too.
In the tattoo sample provided, I used negative letters with a pink and lavender jewel in the center. I took two different shades of green in the blocking, and finished it with a little orange background to pop out the green. You can see the infinite possibilities. If there is anything you would like to discuss in this column, let me know. You can email me at uncletimtattoo@msn.com
Hold your pencil light and have fun!
—Uncle Tim
