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When you paint or color a character the background can help you express the character’s mood, location, or enhance the feelings they are expressing. You don’t have to be an expert painter to create a great background. All you need is some basic tools and ideas.
The Sky Background – Example: inspirewood.deviantart.com/art…
The sky background is great because it is flexible. The colors of your sky will tell the viewer what time of day it is and what the weather is like. In the example image the artist drew her hair blowing in the wind and the simple blue sky reflects that.
What you will need:
Base Color:
Choose what time a day it is and then create a background layer that fades from one color to the next. In the example the color fades from a grey-purple to a pale blue. Sunsets may be blue, yellow, and purple. Simply Google a photo of the sky to give you ideas.
Brushes:
Simple Sky – Use a soft edged brush at a very low opacity in white or pale blue.
Detailed Sky - You might try using some pre-made cloud brushes like these from our Free Brushes for Commercial Use category: fav.me/d32j5fy and ascendedarts.deviantart.com/ar… These are also used at low opacity. Experiment with mixing the clouds and adjusting the brush size
Element Brush:
In the example picture it looks like water is splashing up from the bottom of the image. This additional element helps the viewer place the character. Now we have a girl at the beach. This was done quickly with a spatter or Splatter Brush similar to these: fav.me/d33jb4x Search the web and deviant art to find a wide variety of them.
Other elements may include rain, lighting, and birds. There are great brushes for all of these if you do not want to paint them yourself.
Effects:
Add a little interest to your sky by trying different layers styles. One trick is to make a new layer over your sky layers and fill it in with a variety of light colors like yellows, pinks, greens. Then try some layer effects like Overlay or Soft Light. Experiment with this and it will bring out some of your colors and make your background pop.
A Few Other Ideas:
1) Clouds are not all white. Some are grey, orange, pink, ect. Try out different colors.
2) To add distance make large clouds at the top of your background and smaller ones as you get toward the center of your image.
3) Unless you want to use a very strong light source when you paint your character you can skip painting a sun or bright spot. The sky is very large and the sun only shows up in a very small area.
4) Don’t make your clouds to busy or bright. Remember that the main focus of the image is the character. Try to keep it that way.
Other Examples of a Simple Sky Background from our Gallery Artists:
Jungle hottie breakdown web-head-uk.deviantart.com/art…;
Tentacles progression jwwebb.deviantart.com/art/Tent…;
Rif - Side by Side tabu09.deviantart.com/art/Rif-…
Oz - Side by side tabu09.deviantart.com/art/Oz-S…
The Sky Background – Example: inspirewood.deviantart.com/art…
The sky background is great because it is flexible. The colors of your sky will tell the viewer what time of day it is and what the weather is like. In the example image the artist drew her hair blowing in the wind and the simple blue sky reflects that.
What you will need:
Base Color:
Choose what time a day it is and then create a background layer that fades from one color to the next. In the example the color fades from a grey-purple to a pale blue. Sunsets may be blue, yellow, and purple. Simply Google a photo of the sky to give you ideas.
Brushes:
Simple Sky – Use a soft edged brush at a very low opacity in white or pale blue.
Detailed Sky - You might try using some pre-made cloud brushes like these from our Free Brushes for Commercial Use category: fav.me/d32j5fy and ascendedarts.deviantart.com/ar… These are also used at low opacity. Experiment with mixing the clouds and adjusting the brush size
Element Brush:
In the example picture it looks like water is splashing up from the bottom of the image. This additional element helps the viewer place the character. Now we have a girl at the beach. This was done quickly with a spatter or Splatter Brush similar to these: fav.me/d33jb4x Search the web and deviant art to find a wide variety of them.
Other elements may include rain, lighting, and birds. There are great brushes for all of these if you do not want to paint them yourself.
Effects:
Add a little interest to your sky by trying different layers styles. One trick is to make a new layer over your sky layers and fill it in with a variety of light colors like yellows, pinks, greens. Then try some layer effects like Overlay or Soft Light. Experiment with this and it will bring out some of your colors and make your background pop.
A Few Other Ideas:
1) Clouds are not all white. Some are grey, orange, pink, ect. Try out different colors.
2) To add distance make large clouds at the top of your background and smaller ones as you get toward the center of your image.
3) Unless you want to use a very strong light source when you paint your character you can skip painting a sun or bright spot. The sky is very large and the sun only shows up in a very small area.
4) Don’t make your clouds to busy or bright. Remember that the main focus of the image is the character. Try to keep it that way.
Other Examples of a Simple Sky Background from our Gallery Artists:
Jungle hottie breakdown web-head-uk.deviantart.com/art…;
Tentacles progression jwwebb.deviantart.com/art/Tent…;
Rif - Side by Side tabu09.deviantart.com/art/Rif-…
Oz - Side by side tabu09.deviantart.com/art/Oz-S…
A Submission Rule Reminder
We have been getting some very beautifully painted submissions lately that had to be turned down because they were not side-by-sides or a collection of shots showing the art in progress. I know it's hard to keep all the different groups and their rules straight when you are trying to get your work seen, so here is a quick reminder of what we accept.
1) What can I submit?
Art should be a side-by-side view of your sketch or line art and your finished piece. Just have a look in our galleries for examples of this. If you have several shots of your progress from start to finish please combine them and submit them to the correct folder!
Why onl
FREEZE-FRAME YOUR LIFE Contest
Here is another fun contest from our affiliate #TheDigitalPainter:
1'st place gets $50 cash! But you have to have paypal! Or we will give you points. You also get a series of features from us and an interview.
2'nd place 12 month premium membership and a feature of course.
3'rd place 3 month premium membership, and a feature.
“In our freeze-frame your life contest we want you to... exactly, freeze a frame in your life and paint that. You can choose any scene of your life but we expect it to be something that really happens/happened and you have to be in it. Yes people this is about painting yourselves. We will be looking for the no
Coloring and Line Art Contest: Reinvented Fairyt
Maniac-Goose (http://manic-goose.deviantart.com/) is holding a contest!
Check out the pages below for more information.
Information Page: http://fav.me/n159242
Contest Page: http://manic-goose.deviantart.com/journal/26692119/
Time line:
August 22: Early start of the line art contest
August 22: Start voting for my lines to be used in the contest
August 29: Results of the voting for my lines posted
September 5: Official start of the line art contest, with updates
September 30: Last day to submit to the line art contest
October 1: Start of line art contest popular vote
October 8: Last day to vote on Line Art
October 16: Line art contest resu
Basic Background Idea 2: Walls
You don’t always need an intricate background or painted scene to showcase your painting or coloring. Another great idea to fill in that boring white space behind your character is a wall. These can be as varied as you want them to be, but the most successful ones include a few common elements.
Simplicity:
Backgrounds should not detract from the character. They are an element that enhances the scene. You wouldn’t stay interested in a book that spent pages describing a normal house and only a paragraph about the people inside it, would you?
Style:
The type of wall or panel is going to be determined by the character. How are t
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Thanks for making this journal, it's very useful! ^^