8BitFire

We live in a pretty great digital age and we have access to a ton of amazing tools that artists in past generations couldn’t even dream of, but a lot of people look at a cool trick and only learn half of the process of using it.

Here’s the missing part of this tutorial:

How do you populate your backgrounds?

Well, here’s the answer:

If the focus is the environment, you must show a person in relation to that environment.

The examples above are great because they show how to use the software itself, but each one just kind of “plops” the character in front of their finished product with no regard of the person’s relation to their environment.

How do you fix this?

Well, here’s the simplest solution:

This is a popular trick used by professional storyboard and comic artists alike when they’re quickly planning compositions. It’s simple and it requires you to do some planning before you sit down to crank out that polished, final version of your work, but it will be the difference between a background and an environment.

From Blacksad (artist: Juanjo Guarnido)

From Hellboy (Mike Mignola)

Even if your draftsmanship isn’t that great (like mine), people can be more immersed in the story you tell if you just make it feel like there is a world that exists completely separate from the one in which they currently reside – not just making a backdrop the characters stand in front of.

I’m a 3d artist and have been exploring the possibilities of using 3d as reference for 2d poses. I want to add a couple of tips and things!

Sketchup is very useful for environment references, and I assume it’s reasonably easy to learn. If you’re interested in going above and beyond, I highly recommend learning a proper 3d modeling program to help with art, especially because you can very easily populate a scene or location with characters!

Using 3ds Max I can pretty quickly construct an environment for reference. But going beyond that, I can also pose a pretty simple ‘CAT’ armature (known in 3d as a rig) straight into the scene, which can be totally customized, from various limbs, tails, wings, whatever, to proportions, and also can be modeled onto and expanded upon (for an example, you could 3d sculpt a head reference for your character and then attach it to the CAT rig, so you have a reference for complex face angles!)

The armature can also be posed incredibly easily. I know programs exist for stuff like this - Manga Studio, Design Doll - but posing characters in these programs is always an exercise in frustration and very fiddly imo. A simple 3d rig is impossibly easy to pose.

By creating an environment and dropping my character rig into it, I have an excellent point of reference when it comes to drawing the scene!

Not only that, but I can also view the scene from whatever angle I could ever want or need, including the character and their pose/position relative to the environment.

We can even quickly and easily expand this scene to include more characters!

I saw this post on my dash (with commentary, dw) and there was one thing that I didn’t see addressed in the comment chain that I really feel needs to be

Once an artist creates a work, they own the copyright

None of this “I paid for the art. It is mine.” bullshit, unless the artist actually sells you the copyright (something which has to be stated and never assumed, and something you would have to pay extra for) you can not claim ownership over the piece, even if you paid for it.

And yes, this means you can not alter the work in any way, you can not use it for banners/advertisements/etc., you can not print it, you can not sell copies unless agreed upon with the artist

and artists are also protected under moral rights

meaning that the artist has the right of attribution (the right to be identified and named as the creator of their work), the right against false attribution, and the right of integrity. (Source)

TO EXPAND ON THIS:

Copyright actually is control over the following:

Reproduction 

Distribution 

Derivative Work 

Performance 

Public Display

You do not have to give/sell the entire copyright to your work. 

You can, for example, license someone to publicly display the work. That would permit them to exclusively use the content with limitations. You can also non-exclusively license others to use your content, which would be a broader “You can do X with my work” statement.

Transfer of copyright ownership has to be in writing. 

This does not mean “I asked you to draw X for me and I paid for it so I claim ownership of everything this image is and all rights to it.” It means “the artist explicitly wrote that they’re transferring copyright ownership to me.”

And in case you were wondering when, exactly, copyright attaches, copyright attaches the moment the expression of the idea is fixed in a tangible form. That means I could draw a fast scribble on a piece of paper and I’d own copyrights to it. This also applies to digital mediums.

Of course, it’s best to register copyrights through (if you’re in the US) the US Copyright Office, but copyright applies even without registration.

EXCEPTIONS…

…to copyright laws include employer-employee relationships and “work for hire” agreements, but only when signed before the work is created. 

BEFORE you do any work for a client, definitely create a contract in which you claim that “[You] reserve the right to reproduce the work for promotional and online portfolio purposes” if you want to be able to use the work as promotion for yourself. Here’s a wikihow on how to create a freelance contract.

Copyright laws are in place to protect creators.