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Aug 2023

I hate drawing backgrounds but they’re so essential to the story. :open_mouth::dash::open_mouth::dash::open_mouth::dash:

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    Aug '23
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    Aug '23
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I have a lot, and sometimes the main focus can be the background itself.

Such as the character watching the explosion, as if the background is the main focus, and when it needs to be on a town, village, or city I have to draw them.

I sometimes like to draw something fancy, though I admit this part is far from fancy with all the dead guards.

This part is on a meeting scene, where I go crazy with the backgrounds.

But when I let the character be the main focus, I love drawing the skies, stars, and clouds, especially during the night scene.

My favorite background has always been the battle scene.

And by any chance, individuals can fill backgrounds. Especially creepy ones.

These are some of the most complex backgrounds I made for my webcomic Saiwalo.

Hand drawn with ink:

Drawn digitally:

I do traditional water color environments and backgrounds with digital editing for my web comic 'Realms of the Fallen'.

WIP #1

I'll start with water color pencils and paint the piece. Next, I'll digitally crop out negative space around the objects.

WIP #2

Once I've digitally cropped out the negative space, I'll digitally add in shading / light sources and clean up the piece before adding in the watercolor painted background sky layer

Final Product

To finalize the background, I'll add in a digital light source! Backgrounds take me a long time, but I've always loved doing environmental landscape pieces!

These backgrounds are for a future chapter, but its good to get them out of the way!

For backgrounds, It's almost certainly this:

Though there are close contenders, like this one, which also took ages (and then in the actual comic a bunch of the posters are covered by a speech bubble lol :cry_02:):

I hate drawing backgrounds too sometimes lol.

I try to keep them simple but effective. I remember the kitchen background taking a while to make, so I make sure to reuse it when I can :3c

I tend to overdo my backgrounds. I can't help myself. Often my backgrounds will take longer than the main subject. Case in point: This scene with Daecon, Owen, Leander and Evander having a discussion inside Owen, Leander, and Evander's home. It's a log cabin on the shore of a lake in the mountains of Western Canada.

Here I've zoomed in on the fireplace and moose antlers to show the detail:

I also put a lot of work into the background for this one. You can see the cabin in the distance. That is Evander (the redheaded dude from the image above) in his osprey form about to ruin the day of a lake trout

So after drawing the log cabin interior I decided to never do it again. My next indoor scene was to be a nice, simple farmhouse kitchen.

Wait, did I say "simple"? Silly me...

The resizing this forum does to pics will rob it of much of the detail, but that is a brushed stainless steel double oven, and the woodgrain is detailed on the table.

So after the log cabin and farmhouse kitchen I learned my lesson, right? The next indoor scene would be a nice, plain, modern bungalow.

"Plain", he says...

Again I must zoom in to show the details. Corduroy on the couch and cushions. Pile on the carpeting. Wood grain on the table. The grilles on the cabinet doors. Even the hair on Jonathon's leg.

I started to give more thought and effort into drawing backgrounds in the latest chapters.

If I have to choose it would be two:


This one I distinctly remember taking some time to make it look perfect.
For context: The main character opened up the window, and in the side with the glass he can see the backyard (which is where the window leads to), and on the opened side he sees that it leads to his bedroom


And this one, which apart from trying to simulate a camera panning, it was complex because of the rail tracks:

Oh god its always cityscapes with me and its gonna continue to be cityscapes XD
While i could do things in a 3D software i personally don't like the look of 3D backgrounds, even if they'd make my life easier

I only draw my own backgrounds rarely for one-off shots, like this one:

My other complex backgrounds have been modelled by me on blender. I go back and make edits and additional drawings when needed.

For example, I drew the plane here for the airport scene since no way was I modelling a plane I'd only use in one shot! There were clouds and other stuff added here too.

And here are some more models that I'm pretty proud of!

Yeah I did eff my wrist at the time while pushing through. I take more breaks these days when rendering.

I have a tie:
This "witchy" looking bg from an upcoming episode (sorry, it's kinda dark):

And this one, which still traumatized me, less of a bg, but so many chickens I had to color!

Got me thinking of drawing "asset" chickens that I can copy/paste throughout scenes and not have to draw each one from scratch.

So, now finally finished. I got more confident with the contrast... I'm happy ^^

In my first chapter. the first look at Henry's shop, spent weeks looking up references and making a 3D model to make a correct perspective.

And here's one on WIP

Unfortunately the next example I don't want to show because I havent reached that part of the story yet on my qeue. so I'm gonna have to remind myself to come back to this one