For all graffiti artists out there. Special thanks to another graffiti artist, kix, for the skylines backdrop.

(sorry about the speed of the sample, i had to lower the frame rate in order for it to display properly)

Deep thanks to everyone and the warm reception from everyone getting on DeTrayne. It really means a lot to me.

@kix: I knew you'd dig this from the first time that you shared this. Really glad you enjoy it.

I'm not entirely sure what breaks the Fontstructor. Coincidentally, the first iteration of DeTrayne was probably one of the first fontstructions to break the Save function due to the number of bricks used back in May of last year. Fortunately, Meek was able to salvage most of it, but I eventually reconstructed the whole thing for 2x scale. Meek is the first one I go to w/ any problems (unfortunately for Meek).

@guentersen: Thank you for the inspiration. The peace sign was actually the last addition to the train.

@afrojet: Thanks. It certainly felt that it took as long as your average doctoral thesis.

@SquarePeg: "Style Wars" was a pivotal film for me. I can't say enough praise about it. I also have to give respect to Tony Silver, the director of the film who passed away last year. I'll have to check out "Bomb It." A really good SF graf documentary is "Piece By Piece."

@Em42: This is as complex as it gets for me in terms of the number of bricks used. There are over one hundred total. (I know that probably makes you uneasy ;-) There is probably an expectation for me to put out more complex creations such as this, but I think I'll have to release some small simple ones just to balance things out.

@emepar7: The sample was easily and quickly done in Adobe After Effects using only letters in the font for the animation. The $, %, ^, &, * glyphs contain the doors opening and closing. The train movement is one line of text scrolling from right to left with the sold black train used as the background gradient fill. And kix's skylines adorns the background. The animation is output as an animated gif, but I think there may be a 1 MB file size limitation to post on the discussion boards here.

Thanks, patricknas & Loman.

@Handfratze: Thanks for the comment and suggestion. Sorry for the delay.

DETRAYNE KEYS

A Subway car plain
B Top-2-Bottom Bubble Right
C Geneus Graf
D Top-2-Bottom Bubble Left
E Middle Bubbles
F R.I.P. Dondi
G R.I.P. Dream

space half length underline track
, heart
@ bubble cloud pattern
underline empty track

* Full Doors Open
# Bottom Clouds
$ Full Doors Closed
% Doors Opening 25%
^ Doors Open 50%
& Doors Open 75%

( Bottom Clouds Right
) Bottom Clouds Left
+ Blank Car
- half length underline track

: Peace sign
; Open Window Subway car
less Left side train destroyed
= Mid train destroyed
greater Right side train destroyed
[ Full Car Cloud wave left
\ Full Cloud car
] Full Car Cloud wave right
` Full Car Silhouette
{ Paint Drips Right
| Full Car Paint Drips
} Paint Drips Left

Last month, the City of Oakland officially proclaimed February 17th, 2010, "DREAM DAY" in honor of graffiti king Mike "Dream" Francisco. I can't remember a time when a big city paid such homage to a graffiti artist. That was a groundbreaking event. I was deeply upset to have missed the celebration this year. Sadly, the event was also to benefit Dream's son, who recently lost his mother to breast cancer. Peace to Akil and his extended family.

Lots of belated responses.
@jinx. Thanks. BTW, I wanted to show some respect back to one of the youngest prolific fontstructors on here.
@gferreira. Thanks for twice the blessings.
@ssaamm. One of the things that inspired DeTrayne was the original FontStruct Preview widget. This was when it scrolled from right to left, instead of up and down as it is now. The creation date of the original DeTrayne is dated April 18th, 2008, before Funk King graced us with his presence. It was completed on May 7th, 2008, but the train crashed at the last save and was rendered unusable. Bricks were transposed all over the place, and although Meek was able to salvage the fontstruction, it was reverted to an earlier version that didn't include the final letters. Many glyphs still contained mixed bricks and it took a long time to get it back to its original form. Since I knew it would take a lot of work already, I decided to upscale the filters. If you've ever tried to scale a large fontstuction from 1:1 to 2:2, you know how arduous a task it can be. This is probably why I use 2:2 filters 90% of the time - it alleviates that process.
@funk_king. Always a constant inspiration from your creativity and unstoppability. While DeTrayne was being repaired, I did notice the similarity in some of the vehicular fonstructions that you released along the way, most notably in Wagon Train, Cart Before the Horse, and Add Van.
@cocobarracuda. Thanks. I hope that my work inspires you to draw out the genius in yourself.
@p2pnut. Thank you, kind sir. And that's not just showing respect to my elder, but for one of the most respectful fontstructors out there.
@Frodo7. Merci beaucoup!
@neurone error. For me, SEEN will always be king of the world. BLADE has always been respected as a pioneer of top-to-bottom whole car pieces. KOOR I'm not as familiar with, but at first glance seems to have a good balance between artistry and calligraphy. I tend to be a purist in the old school sense, valuing structural foundations of letterforms in both wild style and readable pieces. In talking with some other old school graff heads, I was in agreement in acknowledging there are a lot of really great abstract illustrators now, but their letterforms are severely lacking. But all new styles reveal the expansive and unexpected directions of this transformative art form.