I often find that I struggle a lot with backgrounds, I never really know where to start or where to go, so I often do really plain or flat looking backgrounds
What's your process? How do you get started? How do you detail your backgrounds? I'm very interested to hear!
Part of it is mindset. If you think of it as purely a background, that's all it will ever be: just the shit that's behind the thing you care about.
Environments are different. Putting a character in a setting, surrounding them with stuff in three dimensions, will make a night and day difference.
Of course, that's gonna be tough if your perspective needs work. That's a prerequisite for any convincing sense of depth.
I tend to sketch characters and environment at the same time so they stay connected from the get-go. Doing one to completion before starting the other is a surefire way to make them feel disjointed.
At 12/11/23 07:23 AM, Skoops wrote: Part of it is mindset. If you think of it as purely a background, that's all it will ever be: just the shit that's behind the thing you care about.
Environments are different. Putting a character in a setting, surrounding them with stuff in three dimensions, will make a night and day difference.
Of course, that's gonna be tough if your perspective needs work. That's a prerequisite for any convincing sense of depth.
I tend to sketch characters and environment at the same time so they stay connected from the get-go. Doing one to completion before starting the other is a surefire way to make them feel disjointed.
Ooh, you're right and I agree with that, it's difficult and it's still difficult for me to do perspectives, I guess I'm having trouble with patience since I lack a lot of it but I'm really looking to make better artwork and improve
And I like that mindset, I dread when it comes to backgrounds or environments because once I'm done drawing the characters I get stuck figuring out where to put them, and it never ends up looking as good as I would've liked
In a lot of works that I admire from other people (No specifics), I really enjoy the depth and the patience that they have to go as far as they do in the environment and such
Thank you for your input! It was very informative!
For me background is part of the whole scene. I do not make characters outside of the environment while I can do environments without characters. If that makes any sense.
I have two approaches. Background is either a character or is the main focus of the image. I still struggle with dynamics and movement, but otherwise I find it fun process to build environments.
There are two things you might struggle with - separately and you ought to practice them ... separately.
Issue one : you can imagine, but cannot draw
Issue two: You lack the experience to imagine (inability to see full scene outside character)
You can practice the 'scene' building by using your phone camera and photographing objects around you and then analyzing the images. You learn quickly to see that person/object never exists in vacuum. In photography and in film the important elements are composition and framing. When you photograph random objects - try to have good composition and nice framing. Eventually you build up experience and eye to SEE the environment around your characters or objects.
I.e. simple background. Character drinks coffee - where ? When ? morning, kitchen. There, you can just have simple counter and maybe window that shows outside. Simple!
A teen character ? So they scrolling phone? somewhere in school, somewhere in public transport? Easy!
Before you can draw a background and practice drawing background, you ought to learn to see objects in environment and photography helps you learning this.
I always do a really rough and messy sketch of my characters and background together, so then I can just tweak it a bit in the refined sketch. That way the character fits nicely into the scene.
It helps a lot if I already know exactly what I want to draw the character doing and where. So then all it relies on is just my skill and patience.
I’m still quite inexperienced with backgrounds though, mostly because I don’t really enjoy drawing them that much.
Wacky characters and groovy patterns
When it comes to backgrounds I view them just as important as the character.
Depending on the lighting and color you chose it can make all the difference in the world.
But why see it as a chore when you can make it fun?
One thing I do to make drawing city backgrounds fun is to draw ridiculous bill boards with jokes on them.
Another fun thing I do is come up with parodies of real businesses like my play on McDonald’s named Mc.Eatie’s or my version of Game Stop , Game Skip.
When it comes to making backgrounds have depth it’s pretty simple. Things that are farther away tend to be less saturated and detailed than the things in the foreground draw your background in layers the farther back you go the closer everything’s color is to the sky.
There’s also unwritten rules like the rules of three and composition like placing things to set your eyes on a path, but that more advanced stuff.
Backgrounds are a pain in the ass for me. Whether it's 3d or 2d. Cause depending on what kind of environment you're trying to make. There will be a lot of shit that you need to make or draw in when making some city backgrounds for example. Sure with 3d perspective isn't much of an issue. But you still got to make all those assets and set them up.
Anyways for me I think of the camera angle for what I'm wanting to draw. Make a rough blueprint of both the environment and characters. Then I get to work on parts of the environment near the character and then some of character or the reverse depending on the situation.
I'll probably learn to develop more love for backgrounds over time. It's good to know at the very least how much effort people put into backgrounds when you see them.
