[Red]

I'm aware that the last couple of challenges came rapid-fire at you guys, and even those deadlines have passed, please feel free to continue them. Practice is practice.


Topic: Backgrounds
Suggested Deadline: 2 weeks

Suggested reading:
http://entervoid.com/index.php?topic=10652.0
http://entervoid.com/index.php?topic=12151.0

Assignment:
Draw 3 scenes with backgrounds that you personally struggle with.

What's you weakness when it comes to backgrounds? Not enough detail? Hate drawing cities, interiors, or things at a certain angle? Pick 3 scenes that you would generally avoid and do your best to tackle them!

Don't be afraid of messing up, post what you come up with for critique. Feel free to also post work in progress pics if you would like any suggestions or critique along the way.

[Puzzlething]

   I keep meaning to do this, so I'm gonna post this to put some pressure on myself to do it. I'm pretty much surrounded by tree's where I live, but I think I struggle the most with foliage. I also have some photo's of storefronts I've been meaning to draw, and there's a background/splashpanel I have all penciled out that is old as shit, but I really don't like leaving things unfinished.

    Also everyone should do this, backgrounds are the shit. Here's some awesome background dudes to get everyone excited about drawing walls and shiz.

http://imperialboyimages.tumblr.com/     -ImperialBoy- Crazy detailed amazing backgrounds, he puts a lot of time and thought into making his spaces feel lived in. It's so easy to get lost in his work, because there are so many tiny stories in this guys stuff.

http://paulmadonna.tumblr.com/   - Guy who does the comic All Over Coffee, a syndicated comic which is just this guy doing amazingly cool freehand ink illustrations of the city and presenting them with small written vignettes.

http://i-seldom-do.livejournal.com/115405.html  A collection of some of the background illustrations for the movie Tekkonkinkreet. Mindblowing city that's like an amazing combination of  Hong Kong (which is strait up the best city to draw) and a carnival.

[Red]

Oh my god those links are ridiculous.

[William_Duel]

I always forget his name, but what is the name of the artist who did incredible backgrounds but then went on to do art for Gaia Online?

EDIT: I remembered!  L0cke!
http://damaged.anime.net/comics/ride/

[Puzzlething]

   So I was checking out videos of those quick digital landscapes that look so cool, and the first 38 seconds of this video just blew me away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fggPHryIDxw

   Instead of ruling everything out the artist creates a faint 3 dimensional grid by extending enough lines from every vanishing point that it's extremely easy for him to judge angle and relative position on the fly. I've been using rulers a lot recently, but this seems like a great way to work quickly and accurately on perspective stuff while keeping your lines more organic.

Sorry if most of you are already familiar with this, I just had no idea.

[Red]

I liked this quote from the artist in one of the comments:

Whatever you learn isn't put into you by someone else. Essentially, it comes from within you, it's inherent. Practice can take you a long way if you know how to use what you learn and internalize it. I had to start somewhere myself, from scratch, not being able to paint like this. But over time, practice does make perfect. What I mean with self-taught is that I never went to school0 .I read tons of books, watched video tutorials and practiced drawing from early on. Learning is really mimicking.

[otakutaylor]

Still sort of in a "learn to color" phase I guess, since these are all mostly lineless.
But here's a few full background pictures. Though, do they really count as background if there isn't really an object in the foreground? Suppose that's why some people prefer the term environment.

[Red]

Umm sweet!!!

On the second one, really nice composition. It's not your typical city scape backdrop, there's depth and interesting elements to it. You have odd color choices though dude. The water is a deep saturated blue, and the buildings are pretty unsaturated. I use a site called colourlovers or adobe kuler at times when I'm stumped on color schemes. Or reference a photo for ideas. Also, the gradient sky looks out of place because its so smooth compared to how you rendered the buildings. I think you render things nicely its your color choices that is weakness here.

The bottom one is AWESOME. Great color choices, and very well rendered. The dimension you gave to the walkway is just great. You could try adding an ambient light source, maybe a yellow or orange to really bring it to life. Just adding something on the opposite-ish side if the color wheel can make something good into something amazing. I'm hoping we'll do a color theory/limited color palette VCU in the future.

[Puzzlething]

Messing about drawing with that freehand grid thing and a photo reference. I totally screwed up setting up the lines for the left  perspective point, I should've placed the vanishing point closer.

http://i.imgur.com/EufOP99.jpg

Prolly gonna do some more today, with more natural stuff.

[Red]

Messing about drawing with that freehand grid thing and a photo reference. I totally screwed up setting up the lines for the left  perspective point, I should've placed the vanishing point closer.


Prolly gonna do some more today, with more natural stuff.

Hot damn!

[Puzzlething]

So started in on foliage unnnnghghhghghghghg oh god. Again, photo ref and grid thingie. This one is a lot more about middle ground than the last.

http://i.imgur.com/9E4TjGP.jpg