A long time ago an anon asked my thoughts about drawing backgrounds, so I finally got around to putting this together. It’s more prop-centric, but it still represents my philosophy to backgrounds.
I’ll try to do something more about drawing actual background spaces in the future! Please let me know what you think, if anything is unclear, or if you have suggestions for other tutorials you might find helpful!
Backgrounds can be really tough! I think the first hurdle in drawing backgrounds is-well, just drawing them, but also trying to understand them in a way that you can make them look inhabitable. The first tip to just getting started with backgrounds and environments is probably to simplify and break it down just as we do when drawing characters!
Here are a few posts I’ve come across that have some helpful information as well as a couple hacks that might be useful too!
“A Master post of Thomas Romain’s art tutorials” A photoset post showing a collection of tutorials that all show tips/tricks on how to draw out a simple floor plan and then make it 3D, understanding different eye levels and how that affects the perspective in a picture, how to keep characters/people proportional in a 3D environment, and more! by Thomas Romain (twitter)
“Meg Presents… (more) Perspective! (again)” A photoset post of a tutorial on perspective, helpful for giving step by step instruction and demonstrating the use of perspective. Even if you feel you have a good grasp on perspective, you may want to give it another look over. As it is the prequel post to the next suggestion. by @thundercluck-blog
“Background art 1″ An article by an artist who discusses the thought process and steps put into creating background art. It is insightful and gives interesting depth on understanding how to make background art that is interesting and have variety. By Leo De Wijs (personal website)
“A crash-course guide on perspective” A photoset post of a tutorial on how to place characters into a scene. It’s very basic and assumes for you to have a basic understanding over perspective as it uses simple grids to properly keep a character proportional no matter where they stand in a room and even at different angles! by @katamism
“BACKGROUND PAINTING TUTORIAL” A YouTube video tutorial done by a professional background artist for Disney, she speed paints a background while given tips and advice while the video plays. She works in Photoshop, but watching the video could give you some insight and inspire you on how to work on backgrounds too! by @lulusketches / Laura Price (YouTube)
Before going to post this ask, another ask came in that I felt a need to include in with this entire post. As it is pretty similar, but:
I believe the tutorials listed above should help you out, while the examples lean more towards realism, they can still very well apply to cartoony styles. It’s a matter of having a basic understanding perspective. Though you’re perfectly allowed to give backgrounds a style of your own!
Check out art created by background artists for cartoon shows, like @matthewthiebes or @stevensugar. Their background art works use perspective constantly.
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