@hopitty_hop_hop's post on Artfol
Hi all! Does anyone have any advice when it comes to drawing backgrounds? I’ve always struggled with working on backgrounds for my drawings; I always feel like when I try to draw one they don’t really fit, if that makes sense?Apr 16, 2021
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Re: environments fitting with the character, try to get out of the mentality of thinking them as separate things. Like, it’s not just slapping on a background on a character that’s doing a pose, it’s creating a whole scene all at once, which may also include elements in front of the character, elements that the character is interacting with, etc..
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•Sometimes I like to think of places where a character would interact with their environment and HOW they would interact with it! It helps give context to both them and their surroundings.
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•Start with copying paintings you really like, and creating a board/file of paintings you really like. Artstation has a super good selection that's helped me find artists whose art helped me on my assignments!
Also, perspective isn't as scary as you think once you analyze photos and artwork that have them and find their vanishing points. Clip Studio Paint has this SUPER cool feature where you can lay down more than one perspective point ruler and when you're drawing it automatically snaps how you draw to the line!!!
Also, perspective isn't as scary as you think once you analyze photos and artwork that have them and find their vanishing points. Clip Studio Paint has this SUPER cool feature where you can lay down more than one perspective point ruler and when you're drawing it automatically snaps how you draw to the line!!!
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•If you want to really get into it, you could take some time doing drawing studies of the environment around you until environmental drawing becomes more intuitive and feels less like just a background. Another thing to try is drawing the general shape of the space first and then adding the main subjects so they fit better
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•I know how I got pretty good at drawing backgrounds was just focusing on them and not drawing any characters in the scenes until I was comfortable with how they looked. And like the others say references really help and can inspire you a lot, at least in my case they do! So try starting off looking up really simple scenery photos and drawing them and do it everyday or so and keep getting a bit more intense as you go and start adding characters into it :) I also recommend tutorial videos of course.
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•I think your approach depends on what kind of backgrounds you're trying to do! But lots of references are a good start, and character size relation to objects helps to ground your background to match whatever characters you're putting in it! If you have specific questions in terms of perspective etc I'd be happy to help, as I do BGs for a living aha.
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•Find a couple cool images and repaint them, it will help with figuring out composition. There are also a lot of super helpful brush packs for making drawing settings easier. I forgot the name of the artist but they made this amazing cityscape brush pack and I use it all the time
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•Sometimes is learning how to blend in your character with the bacground what has helped me is watch outher artists that mainly draw backgrounds sometimes you may learn a trick or two but also having reference and practicing soly backgrounds would help.
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•for me it helps to draw a really rough version and blur it out! you get what you need and theres more focus on the subjects!
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•Ok, as someone who struggles with this a lot i can recommend references and less lineart. It does work for me to use less lines and makes everything more delicate and smooth. I also try to use different techniques to see what suits me the most. Most importantly, just draw as much you can bc practice makes it so easier
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i saw something on tiktok where they built their background in minecraft, and then screenshotted it and drew the line work from that reference :) i guess it works for simpler backgrounds ! i also struggle with backgrounds so i feel you
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