#drawing backgrounds

[mjhartwork]

made some tutorials/infographics/??? for a friend to help them with drawing backgrounds

i hope this helps Somebody

[disneyfanatic1993]

Do you mind sharing some of the images you use as references for backgrounds? I want to practice drawing them.

I actually use a lot of the backgrounds from “Tangled: The Series” for references! They’ve helped me a lot.

These are definitely great for practicing backgrounds! And if you want more background ideas from the show, kissthemgoodbye.com has screenshots from every episode.

Also, it’s good to Google images of what kind of background you’re imagining for reference, and then experiment with it. ☺️ For example, I recently wanted to draw the Northern Lights but I’ve never seen them personally. So I found different images of them, played around with some of my brushes, and voila! I think it looks pretty great. 😁

[krowfaced]

A bit of a new year’s resolution is to have a finished piece of artwork for each month so that I can both hold myself accountable and to make one of those end-of-the-year art memes like I’ve always wanted. Gonna make sure I finish this before January is up!!

[amalasdraws]

Hello Amalas! I love your artworks coz they're so detailed and you can even make clutter look beautiful. I'd like to ask: what reference do you use for the background? Do you go outside and take pictures or sketch here and there? Do you use photo books? Internet? Coz everytime i look at your artworks in a bigger screen, it makes me feel like i'm transported to the place-- like i'm a passer-by or a fellow diner watching your character a few steps or tables away from where i am.

Awww thank you!! Okay This is gonna be a bit longer It’s a mix of a lot of things and a lot of the things around me. I not only love to draw cluttered places, but I also always kinda lived in lovely cluttered places. So a lot of inspiration is just taken from the things around me, my own memories, and the things I like.

My latest pic for example is something that is created by just an idea I have of a kitchen, based on things I know and things I’ve seen. I didn’t have a specific reference here.

I mostly always start with my characters and then very roughly sketch the room I have in mind around them.

And based on this I create my perspective lines and map out the space a bit clearer. Measure my distance with the perspective lines and create my surfaces. 

And then I go into lineart. First for the surface only.

And when I have all my surfaces I only then go into my detailed clutter and add it all over time.

As said, this kitchen was fully made up and only really got shaped into form on my canvas.But I for example have a gas stove and one of those espresso cans at home, so just a quick walk into my kitchen allows me to look up certain items if I’m unsure how they look.

But there are also a couple of items by now that I have stored in my own personal mental library. When you look at my pieces closely there are a bunch of items that I have in several of them. Poles, electric cables, a certain type of window, stacked bowls and cups, soda cans, etc And those are all items that I can draw by now without any reference. And then there are some new items that I have to look up, so I mostly just do a quick google search to get an idea on how they look. For example this bedroom piece was created like the kitchen above and just based on an idea I had in mind, rooms I knew or saw somewhere and then just created out of my head. I started with a rough sketch

And then continued the same way as with the kitchen piece. But here I had some very typical late 90s items in mind, and as I could draw the bed, room, window, and some small details just out of my head, there were a couple of items I looked up on google to get the right look for them!

So I created a small library from pics I found on google and just put them on the side of my pic to have them as a ref.It doesn’t have to be a perfect ref. Just a good enough pic to give me an idea of how an item looks like.

Sometimes I have an idea of a room but want something specific and it should look more or less authentic so I go on a google search for similar places.I still like to create my own version but I look at certain structures and items that those places have and try to incorporate them into my piece

Like with this one for example. I just used some photos from google that gave me a good idea of a place like this.

Many of those items are still chosen from my mental library, but I also have some things I look up and some loose references. 

Keep in mind that I’m doing this for some time now! And I build up my mental library and how I want to draw things over time! This is not something that comes over night. It takes time! And it comes by repeating things and drawing them over and over.

I also love to take photos and when I visit new places or see something I like I take photos. One because I love to take photos, but also as a future ref. And some of those photos I use as loose refs as in the examples above. And sometimes I even pretty much just redraw them. Because I really like the structure, or want that specific look or even specific place!

For example I took this photo when I was in New York and as the Aran and Tao story takes place in New York I really wanted to create a place like this! A structure and street similar to the photo.

And as you can see especially the train structure and street look is something I used for this drawing here

So long answer short

It’s a mix of things!I have a good mental library by now, I like to draw the things I know and the things around me, and when I go for a certain city, or street look I like to work based on photos I took by myself and use them as refs.

And taking photos also helped me a lot with my background drawings. It gave me an idea of how my irl 3d street view looks on a 2d photo, an idea for lines and angles, what works and what not, and what to look for in backgrounds, what I like in city scenes, and what I want to create. Google photos can be helpful refs, but I like to use them more loosely to only give my brain a reminder again on how a certain item or space looks like. When I really redraw something or stay close to my ref I like to take my own ref photo, so all is my work.

[hueningkoi]

I'm still truckin. This is for "cowboy scenery" and I tried a lineless style because it seemed easier and it was lol thankfully 😓

[xephia]

[casual-artist]

A quick background (like ~2 hours) that I made during/after watching the Julia Drawfee background drawclass. Based on my own office! There's more I would change and add but I got tired tbh

[toothlespoggers]

Y’all I figured out how to draw backgrounds and now Im gonna show u how (these drawings are wip but I thought I’d show the process)

Bonus

Hope this helps, it’s so much easier to draw backgrounds and worlds if you block out the perspective and how everything works so you can build ontop of that.

[lemonandlime22]

Draw a background they said, it'll be fun and easy that said...

"They" is me at 3am yesterday

[emerald-dragonflame]

"Draw a background," I said, "It'll be fun," I said. "You've got a 3D sketch, it'll be fiiiine," I said...

It is not, in fact, fine...

[notfunkypicasso]

Just experimenting with drawing scenes/backgrounds n stuff

[interdreamensional]

🍂🐙💀 October mood is my favourite. It was off for me this year. I started this art much earlier and finished quite recently, and I like its mood.

[disneyfanatic1993]

Hiii, Liz :D! Hope you don't mind me asking, but how did you learn to do detailed backgrounds? I want to learn for the images in my fic, but since I'm drawing on phone, it's quite a struggle LOL Do you have any tips? 👀 Any is fine!

Oooh I remember the days of drawing on my phone… The struggle is real. 🥴

Honestly, I’m still learning a lot about drawing backgrounds. Detailed ones are not something I tend to enjoy doing. 😅 I use a loooot of references. The most fun part is playing around with the different brushes, and figuring out which ones I like best for what (for example, there are a lot of neat ways to create cool-looking trees and plants with different brushes 😁). I always like to add a bit of texture to things, too. Gives them little more dimension. Oh, and shading! It’s amazing how one little stroke of a shadow can go a long way. ☺️

[krowfaced]

Backgrounds are something I really want to improve on, so I’m pushing myself to do so. Also, been tracking my daily habits and moods, to hold myself accountable to draw more and find patterns as to why I’m not.

[plantsonplutoart]

People like to say using a forest as a setting is a way to avoid drawing hard perspective (and that can be true) but the problem with that is that you still have to draw a forest… in perspective.

Yeah ofc there’s just less hard straight lines you have to calculate because it’s an organic landscape but sometimes that sucks. Creating visual interest is hard in the woods because it’s just trees and rocks, and oh look more trees.

[hueningkoi]

There. I did it. I drew my room. I'm tired. I'm gonna go lay down in that bed over there. Bye 👋