Like the title says, I've always had trouble with my backgrounds - particularly with architecture and living spaces (i.e. MOST locations…) and frankly it's high time I did something about it.

I probably need a little help with everything, so ANY advice is appreciated (because even if it's not for me, it might be worthwhile for someone else browsing the forum) but my particular issues come in two big categories.

The first is kind of abstract. I have a hard time figuring out just what to put into backgrounds. Like, what to populate a room with to make it look lived in, or what sorts of decorations should be on a building's facade? I know that working from photos is a good place to start and I do that frequently just to try to practice, but it's not really paying off as well as I'd like it to, so I think I may be approaching it wrong. Like, I'll be drawing from a photo and think I have a good grasp on the detail only to finish the drawing and it just looks so plain and empty. And you'd think that just looking around me in my own space would give me ideas on filling a room, but somehow I still draw blanks. It feels like it's a mental thing. If anyone has any tips of advice on how to approach this, you'd be my hero.

The second is more technical. When I'm doing backgrounds digitally (one of my comics is hand drawn, the other two are digital) I can't really figure out how to do the line art right. I feel like it looks okay on the characters but in the backgrounds - again, particularly buildings - it looks really flat and lifeless. (I feel like the hand drawn backgrounds look a little better in this regard, which is why I'm specifying.) Free-handing straight lines with the tablet just came out awful, but using the line tool was too rigid and didn't look like it blended with the characters at all. Currently I'm compromising between the two - using the line tool to make guides to follow when I draw the background so it still had a bit of the hand-drawn quality - and I think it looks significantly better than either other option…but still bad. At some point trial-and-error figuring it out is just not doing it anymore. I need help.

If anyone knows of any good online videos, tutorials, or even just tips from your own experience, I'm all ears! This has been left far too long and I really need to progress it.

Not every panel needs to have a background.

Glancing through I like a lot of what you're doing with the backgrounds. I can see you are visualising a 3D space for your characters to exist in and a lot of people never trouble themselves with all that complexity! The bad news is it's a tough and ongoing challenge, but one thing I would do right away is start making the lines in the background thinner than those in the foreground. Your characters often have finer linework than appears on your backgrounds and that will tend to flatten everything out. If you give the foreground lines more weight and background less, you might find the line tool has less of a flattening effect in the background. You can even mix in some freehand lines on the smaller details to get the best of both worlds. Experiment and see what happens.

I wasn't much good at rooms and buildings until I got a job as a building inspector, drawing floor plans and and noting fixtures, finishes and so on. I'm not suggesting you do the same, but if you're having trouble visualing, get out to as many different types of places as you can and really look at your surroundings as you move through them. Imagine the lines you would need to draw and how you could add light and shade. Take notes, both sketches and written reminders of the places and details you see. Photos are a great start but they are no replacement for your 3D environment.

I noticed a panel where you drew some light fittings on a ceiling and the closest one had the screws for the cover drawn in. They were just black dots, but that instantly made me feel I was in a real place. Simple little details like that really make a difference with an environment and you don't need every single thing. A paper cup on a filing cabinet, a small crack in a wall, a few toadstools on the grass - a little goes a long way.

Ironscarf wrote:
Glancing through I like a lot of what you're doing with the backgrounds. I can see you are visualising a 3D space for your characters to exist in and a lot of people never trouble themselves with all that complexity! The bad news is it's a tough and ongoing challenge, but one thing I would do right away is start making the lines in the background thinner than those in the foreground. Your characters often have finer linework than appears on your backgrounds and that will tend to flatten everything out. If you give the foreground lines more weight and background less, you might find the line tool has less of a flattening effect in the background. You can even mix in some freehand lines on the smaller details to get the best of both worlds. Experiment and see what happens.

I wasn't much good at rooms and buildings until I got a job as a building inspector, drawing floor plans and and noting fixtures, finishes and so on. I'm not suggesting you do the same, but if you're having trouble visualing, get out to as many different types of places as you can and really look at your surroundings as you move through them. Imagine the lines you would need to draw and how you could add light and shade. Take notes, both sketches and written reminders of the places and details you see. Photos are a great start but they are no replacement for your 3D environment.

I noticed a panel where you drew some light fittings on a ceiling and the closest one had the screws for the cover drawn in. They were just black dots, but that instantly made me feel I was in a real place. Simple little details like that really make a difference with an environment and you don't need every single thing. A paper cup on a filing cabinet, a small crack in a wall, a few toadstools on the grass - a little goes a long way.

Oooh, thank you so much! There's a lot of good stuff here that's already set some wheels turning in my head. The stuff about the line thickness was particularly interesting. I actually use the same line weight for the characters and the backgrounds, but since the pen has pressure sensitivity and the lines composing the characters are much smaller they just naturally come out much finer than the backgrounds where I really have to commit to the long lines. I think you're absolutely right that the weight is part of the problem so even starting both process from the same point is probably the wrong approach. I think for the next pages I do I'll try halving the line weight for the backgrounds and just see what sorts of effect that has and then moving forward from there.

I really like your other advice as well. One of the recent locations I've used I actually did a layout for the whole building before I got to it, so I have floor plans for each level. It's not perfect, still feels kind of empty at times, but it's made it easier to place the characters there. I need to get in that type of mindset more often. I really like the idea of just studying places when I'm out and about. I think I may try getting a small notebook and just recording the things I see in it for a while. Not to have notes to reference later, but just because I feel like I remember things better when I write them down.

Thank you so much! Even if I don't get it right away, it's really given me some thoughts to chew on. I really appreciate it!

I find that just using the most prominent background colour, particularly in an action scene can be more effective than drawing the entire thing. Sometimes if I draw overly detailed backgrounds during fights it would get a bit distracting.