a guide

Comet teaching how to draw backgrounds. — [Image Description: A black and white, 2 panel, vertical comic. The title is "How to Draw Backgrounds." Step 1: Pick something you'd like to draw. The first panel shows Comet pointing towards a cloudy sky. "I like to draw pictures of clouds," he says. Step 2: Draw. The second panel is Comet, pencil and paper in hand, drawing. That's it.]

13 minute comic

day 13 of working on my gentle comics habit! today's comic, a guide to drawing backgrounds...or how to draw anything really. it's a little bit of a joke, a little bit serious, a little bit "easier said than done." i've been putting off some background studies, idk what's going on in my brain that makes them feel so difficult to work on, but another part of my brain recognizes that if i don't work on them at all i'll never get better, i'll never get faster. done is better than perfect. sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something. make bad art. all these things i know, but it's still hard. i will get back to work tomorrow (not tonight...right now i'm laying my head down as i'm typing, i'm so tired, i need a counter for the word tired).

another reason for today's comic, i saw someone playing a game that used AI for the backgrounds and i'm having such a range of emotions, it's just so disappointing and makes no sense. the creators spent time developing their style to make the rest of the art for the game, they took the time to learn game development, but drawing a background is what? too much work? what's stopping you from learning to draw backgrounds the way you learned how to do everything else? you've made your game completely soulless with this one simple hack. destroying the environment because you're too afraid of to make something imperfect. ANYWAYS. i'm trying not to spend all my time mad about it, gotta keep drawing to combat the slop.

background resources

this blog is meant to be a tiny part of my bigger site and the purpose of the bigger site is to share art resources. since i'm mad about backgrounds today i'll share a couple of helpful things i've found for studying and designing:

Background Design in Small Bites by Chris Tsirgiotis - really simple tips that'll help make your bgs stand out, i always have these tips on my mind when i'm working on backgrounds

Landscapes by Beth Fuller - nature isn't perfect, no straight lines, no perfect circles, if you're scared to make something wrong, maybe try out some landscapes, you can make up whatever shapes you want. take some pictures outside and then follow this tutorial, get some studies done.

Quick Stretches Poster by tizzymcwizzy - not a background resource, but just as important, do your stretches! you can print this out for FREE?! and place it right in front of you as a constant reminder. or put it on your wall. or wherever you want. just remember to stretch.

go forth and learn something, don't give up on yourself, your art will ALWAYS be better than anything AI generates

site stuff

added some buttons and stamps to the front page~! still feels a little bare bones, but maybe once i make and add my own buttons and stamps it'll feel a little livelier ^^ i LOVE the stamps carousel on this site, when i actually work on my main site i might have to add something like that somewhere, it's just too cute. planning to work on about section stuff tomorrow. all the text stuff should be finished soon and then i'll have just graphics left~ (as far as this blog goes anyways, my site still has a looooong way to go, but i'm feeling pretty good about it now that i've worked on this a bit)

life stuff

woke up this morning and thought it was friday. it is not. did laundry. realized i could add hoopla and kanopy to my tv, signed in with my library card, now i can watch some of the movies that have been a little harder to find :) and without having to use my laptop for every single thing 👍

good night and, as always,

thanks for looking 💫