Backgrounds, mise en scene, perspectives

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I hate doing them and yet its the main feature that drags my work down from looking professional. doing the Daily sketch challenges over at the outcasts forum has definitely helped with my figure work but the 30 mins time limit is combining with my own fear /reluctance/laziness to help me avoid working on my backgrounds, but now I have to find a way to incorporate this aspect into my work I cant simply shoehorn in a back ground after the fact, I have to plan it from the beginning of the work, the problem is the problem I always have... inspiration, I think uness I admit the issue openly, ill always try to gloss over it, so I'm going to consciously try to work on my backgrounds and placements and you can call me out if you think I fail in that and of course I'm always open to any tips or suggestions to help from you lot = )

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TRDLcomics's avatar
Well, I'm an architect. So you'd assume I LOVE backgrounds. To be honest, the hardest part about them is when you force the constraint of the small panel box on what is a much larger construction framework to do them right in perspective. I have always caught myself cheating on backgrounds, doing freehand, etc out of laziness because of not wanting to do all that construction. It's one thing that digital construction has REALLY helped with. Lot easier to build good framework if you do the building blocks of it digitally and then draw over that... or even do all of the background digitally.

My sequential work relies on good backgrounds quite a bit because it's set in a real world vibe... I can't get away with as much of the minimal background stuff as I could on other stuff. But even then, I actually like my work best when I do it right.

One tip: Wally Wood's infamous 22 Panels that Always Work. Sure it's more speaking to panel composition and flow, but it's a good reminder to me of when and how to use the camera to focus on certain targets and therefore eliminate unnecessary detail that would not be ultimately needed.

Another tip: draw the foreground figures, then add the word balloons FIRST, before going farther than a simple rough on the background. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to render a full perspective city scene and then have most of it gobbled up by word balloons. Allow the flow of the panel, after lettering, to dictate what detail you put in behind it.

Another tip: Darren Taylor, a member of my TRDL R3 Forum and collaborator on projects, posted a video some years back on how he uses a grid system in Photoshop to help layout his panels. His video is specifically about putting the FIGURE in perspective. I think that's the value. There are any number of video tutorials on how to layout basic one to three point perspectives for backgrounds, but I rarely see someone think through the perspective on the figure themselves in order to work out foreshortening and other compositional details. Check it out:
[link]

Final Point: A technique used extensively in architectural rendering with conventional materials is to build a 3d model and print it wireframe, then ink over that. These days, most studios go for the entirely CGI renderings for their architectural presentations but I'm from the school of practice where you want to watercolor the rendering. The technique is to build the model, then go wireframe or hidden line, print that, in the case of watercolor, in yellow ink onto the watercolor paper, and then paint over it. For the comic analogue, where building a model is especially helpful is that once you model the massing for the spaces, both inside and out, that your scenes utilize, you can then move the camera around and find the perfect shots, then save them and build your art over that. Unfortunately there are more BAD examples of this than good, as some artists have taken to inking not only modeled backgrounds but figures in Poser, which is not the direction I'm talking about. I have always intended to use this approach with my comic work but have never found the time to complete the modeling, and impatiently dove right into the art. But it's the smart play.
You can use Google Sketchup for free...