Backgrounds are HARD, and let's be honest - most of us want to focus on the figure.
But backgrounds help tell the story of our characters, and they shouldn't be neglected. That doesn't mean we have to start by drawing huge, hyper-detailed scenes for our characters from scratch.
👇A thread.
But backgrounds help tell the story of our characters, and they shouldn't be neglected. That doesn't mean we have to start by drawing huge, hyper-detailed scenes for our characters from scratch.
👇A thread.
Comments
Please don't.
Do the hard thing, learn perspective, yes it's boring but you need to learn it to do better work, which will also help your character's poses.
Hand memory is a real thing.
I'll say this, most art courses will teach Perspective in the first semester and it's for good reason.
Even if you trace things you need to understand it, to integrate the traced and non traced elements.
Not learning a fundie will affect your work.
I do littke by little draw backgrounds as a way to get into routine.
Atm is mosaic-like, next where I am is flat-like
- establish floorplan of locations
- use proper perspective setup (vanishing points)
- perbuild your location in something like Sims(personally hoping for paralives real hard)
- non-lined bg if the character blends in too much
- thumbnailing/zoom out, check composition
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I always recommend Chelsea’s book. It is real user friendly.
Create a new image. Paste your stock image. Create a new layer on top.
Now, draw your figure standing in the stock image and think about problem-solving these elements:
To fit your figure into the scene, match its perspective to the background. Check the angles of the head, shoulders, hips, knees, and feet—do they align with the vanishing points?
Light makes or breaks a scene. To blend your character naturally, match the light source's direction and apply it consistently. Don’t forget to add shadows they’d cast!
Do you have a figure who lives in freezing climates but is wearing a bikini? This will feel off to the viewer unless you have obvious sound reasoning in the image. Make sure their design fits the world you're sticking them in.
At a minimum, start by simply analyzing backgrounds. This will help a ton!
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For some of my drawings I personally wanna go for a minimalist, more abstract approach for my backgrounds.