#background tutorial

I used to try and paint my backgrounds, aka no lineart straight to colours, but i always hated doing it so I ended up thinking. why dont i just treat my background like im lining+colouring a character. and now it feels way more do-able!

sketch

lineart (I've been trying out using a different more textury/pencil crayon type brush to differentiate it more from my character lineart brush and i think it looks good yay)

flat colours (here the moss/leaves are on diff layer above the trees, and I'll put more layers behind for the middle trees/back-most trees/ground etc.)

Painting! aka shading. yes I still do some painting lol cause i really love the look but for me I found it way easier to paint within the structure of a lined object

colour the lineart; for backgrounds this is usually as simple as making it dark brown, but if it stands out too much (aka is distracting from the characters/main focal point) I'll colour parts of it to make it 'disappear' more

And here's my painting process, which! also goes over how i choose colours for painting:

your lines+flat colours

choose like 3-4 colours to do shading/lighting v roughly with a textury brush, make the colours overlap

Now colour pick as you paint! This gives you a much wider range of colours than the 3-4 you chose in step 2, but its much easier than like handpicking all 17 or whatever of these subtle variations.

I don't quite know how to describe painting any more than that orz so for more painting help look into yt tutorials / do studies to observe how lighting/shading affects an object

Here's a shitty phone recording of me doing step 3 in real time:

My final stage of backgrounds/the entire piece is what i call finishing/final touches. This is for atmosphere and to make every layer feel even more like they're in the same scene.

On a few layers above of almost everything else, I'll go in with an airbrush on whatever blending mode looks nice (usually overlay n multiply) with a "lighting" colour (so in this scene its like sunlight orange-yellow), and brush over areas where light hits most. And then same with a shadow colour (and/or sometimes just a unifying colour e.g. if the background is mostly red i might airbrush a bit with a red cllr if it looks good)

textures! these are ABOVE EVERY OTHER LAYER! I got my textures from CSP assets here . I'll use em with the soft light blending mode and usually turn the opacity down to 30% or lower? to make it p subtle. I usually stick with just 1 texture but this piece i went with more lol just felt like it. I also like to add some colourful noise also at soft light blend mode. (photoshop had an effect that could just Make it but csp doesn't so tbh I made it in photoshop and then exported it and have been using that same colourful noise jpg for my projects since lol n it works. u can download my noise jpg here if u wanna use it)

Also btw it's not that backgrounds without lineart are bad, far far from it, I just didn't have whatever skill possesses those background painters lmao they look so pretty n that's why I had always tried to do the same ;w; But I've managed to figure out a way that works for me and I can still get that painted look in there! So its always good to experiment and see what process works for you C:

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QUESTION 2:

For your second question honestly I'm still kind of in the winging it stage lol; but I did make a small colour tutorial here

I will say about my Violetpaw: She is kind of purple in my design, which I chose specifically because of the 'violet' in her name. Or rather, it's a purplish grey that just looks white in comparison to the dark parts of her fur (which is also just. a really dark purple)

Colour is all about contrast and how it looks darker/lighter/more green/more red etc etc etc. next to another colour!

I try to avoid using pure white/black in my colours Especially for character designs because I think the tint of the "white/black" colours can add to the character's vibe/personality

Design floor plan.  This is a top down view of the space with all the furniture represented by simple shapes.  Usually in my head I already have a pretty good idea of what the Trying Human characters' homes and rooms will look like before I get to this point.  If you need help with that, I just do Google searches for things like ‘eclectic bedroom’ or ‘modern kitchen’.  This also helps with getting an idea for set dressings (books, pictures, lamps, room clutter, etc.)

This is FJ12 and Pigment’s apartment from Trying Human.  The first sketch was done on a scrap of paper, scanned, and tightened up in a second pass.

Model room in 3D modeler of your choice.  I use SketchUp (https://www.sketchup.com/plans-and-pricing/sketchup-free) since it’s made for this kind of thing.  There’s also a ton of free plugins and resources out there to use when modeling as well as a large concise tutorial community on YouTube and The SketchUp Essentials (http://www.thesketchupessentials.com/).  I think seeing something in 3D that you can really visually interact with helps you to decide if a room is ‘working’.

Here’s the model for their home.  I’ve only modeled the front room area because so far those are thats the only area that’s been featured.  Technically there is a hallway and stairwell model for the scenes that took place outside outside of their apartment but they’re not connected and a seperate file.  I also make the walls easy to hide so I can get my camera in there.  It’s kind of like working with a digital dollhouse.  

Tip:  Don’t bother modeling/staging anything that won’t be shown or the characters won’t interact with.  Half the time that kitchen and dining room set aren’t in the model because you just can’t really see them.  I also remove props from the background if I find it too distracting.

For example:

Rose is in the same location in both shots but in only one shot do I actually show the kitchen behind her, albeit blurred.  It’s very faded and washed out to help push that depth of field.  Rose also has the effect applied near the bottom of her body in the second panel to help force FJ12 into the foreground and put some distance between their bodies.

Here is the same depth of field effect applied to the wall, shelves and far part of the couch.

Here are some different techniques for making backgrounds ‘work’:

Blurring -  This is the quickest way to move a character forward.  I wouldn’t use this effect in this panel however as Rose is about to interact with the background element by putting her book away.

Outline - A faint outline around a character of a neutral color in the room is a nice way to bring a character forward without sacrificing the clarity of props and sets.

Rimlight - This is similar to the last one except the outline is now built into the character’s shading.

Fading/Fogging - This adds atmospheric depth by setting the background and props further back from the more richly colored and saturated foreground elements.