Initial Background

Background painting (especially digitally) is something I find very hard. Getting good brushwork and finding colours that don't look too digital is very hard for me, so I had a lot of trouble with this painting. Inititally I was going to just use flat colours and cell shade it (top left) however I didn't like the look, and instead made a thumbnail version to help me decide what colours to use (top right). I liked these colours better, however when I turned the lines off it looked awful - the brushwork was all over the place and it didn't feel like an environment, it felt more like a flat painting.

I then decided to do a greyscale painting and focus on brushwork and value without getting distracted by colour. I also moved away from the more cartoony trees to a more realistic style, and it helped me loads. From that, I then painted the colour over the greyscale version using different blending modes, resulting in the final thumbnail (bottom right). I was very pleased with how this turned out, and liked this workflow, so I used it to make the full background:

I think it turned out very well for my first proper background painting, however there's still a lot I could improve:

• The painting full screen looks a bit too flat/messy, and I think that's due to both my brushwork and the brush itself, as at large sizes it looks a bit too fuzzy
• The grass is quite flat looking
• The trees seem pasted onto the land rather than like theyre growing out of it
• The shape of the puddles aren' too attractive

I think for the rest of the backgrounds, I will try and paint directly with colour, however if I'm having particular trouble I'll go back to this workflow of using blending modes over a black and white painting.