@ilia_kana's post on Artfol
How do you improve your background because I'm unable to draw a good one 
Jul 7, 2021
Jul 7, 2021Comments
Honestly doing quite a lot of observational work helps a lot not rlly just to improve but you end up getting a whole archive of architectural elements you can use in the future works
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I'm not sure what kinda backgrounds you wanna do, but what I've learnt recently is:
- use a reference image.
- simplify it. Don't get caught up in details. You really want to suggest them rather than draw every single one.
- zoom OUT so the entire image is in your vision at the same time.
- Custom brushes are your friends. I usually use the hard round brush for painting, but for backgrounds i avoid it. A good set of foliage brushes will save you so much time. Haven't done much for more man made backgrounds yet, but I know there's brushes that can save you time there too.
- if you're doing buildings, you need to know 2 point perspective.
- is it far in the background? Then it should be slightly more desaturated and with less detail.
Just experiment, try new things. Don't worry about it being perfect. Something that helped me build the initial confidence was just... Painting over game screenshots I took to just learn HOW to paint a scene.
- use a reference image.
- simplify it. Don't get caught up in details. You really want to suggest them rather than draw every single one.
- zoom OUT so the entire image is in your vision at the same time.
- Custom brushes are your friends. I usually use the hard round brush for painting, but for backgrounds i avoid it. A good set of foliage brushes will save you so much time. Haven't done much for more man made backgrounds yet, but I know there's brushes that can save you time there too.
- if you're doing buildings, you need to know 2 point perspective.
- is it far in the background? Then it should be slightly more desaturated and with less detail.
Just experiment, try new things. Don't worry about it being perfect. Something that helped me build the initial confidence was just... Painting over game screenshots I took to just learn HOW to paint a scene.
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