I've been doing art for a long while now, over 3 years digitally now. And I've gotten alright at that (there's always more to improve on lol). But one thing I've never really gotten down is backgrounds, and I always tend to avoid them. Does anyone have any advice on like... where to start? Like, even perhaps what to start WITH? I'd really love to grow more artistically!

You can see my art here.

When it comes to backgrounds I always suggest coming up with a good composition before anything. Get your basic lines down (like what you intend to draw of course. Start with a sketch of the background and then decide what color scheme you want. Usually what I do is lay those colors under the sketch so I can get a feel for what mood and setting I tend to work with. Go with what you think looks the best and never be afraid to look at references of nature or even other artist's work to get an idea of the colors.

Another thing you can study would be how things react to color. A night scene for example can cast a blue tone on everything in the image depending on any other light sources in effect.(like a fire, or magic for example). Of course there are different colors you can use but that's a general idea. c:

I'll list you something that helped me big time when coming up with images. It's a youtuber that works for a gaming company and does concept and other artwork for League of Legends.

Atmosphere Thumbnails and composition Relative Color

Alternatively there are many tutorials on the web you can look for. I am a visual learner personally so I found the youtube vids to be way more helpful.

Hope that helped!

OH! Thank you! I didn't know there was a better place for this!

Thank you very much for the advice, I think this was very helpful and I'll absolutely check out these videos! I've been really wanting to mess with color relativity too, so this is really great! Thank you so much!

No problem :) Backgrounds can totally make or break an image. If you have an incorrect composition then people will be detached from the environment(character may not fit in for example) so I completely understand wanting to work on that!

Anyway I wish you luck and if you ever want any tips or critiques feel free to send me an smail or comment c:

I suggest also starting with environment studies! Look online for free stock photos or take photos of pretty things you want to explore. I carry around a small sketchpad to doodle in whenever I go out and I mostly draw in ink so that I don't have to worry about mistakes and just keep going.

For digital art, I usually study shapes rather than exact details first when I do my backgrounds. Depending on what I want to draw (if it's an environment study), I draw stuff like this and sometimes fine tune some details to make it look more cohesive.

If you're using Adobe Photoshop or even Paint tool SAI, customizing and dling brushes is a HUGE plus and addition to your arsenal when it comes to practicing backgrounds. Try doing some quick speedpaints to test out any brushes you might have discovered, just to practice using them.

Vesner has a really great video tutorial on how to speedpaint!

I hope some of this is also helpful!

If you tend to have issues with perspective and proportions, try using a program like Sketchup to set up backgrounds how you would like them! A free 30 day trial of sketchup is available to anyone with an email, and you can get it as many times as you like since they don't keep your email on record! You can either make your own environments, or load ones that others have made from the 3D Warehouse. If you wanted to try it out and need some pointers on how to use it, gimme a shout and I can talk you through it!

Also, I'm sure there are other programs you can use, but I really don't know them as I was taught sketchup in my college courses (I use it for Interior Design renderings). I've also heard of some comic artists using it to help them populate their backgrounds when they are stuck.