In this tutorial I want to show how I created the background for my painting “Elenquilde”. This is not the only way to paint a background. It all depends on the subject and what kind of background you want. I used Adobe Photoshop 7 for this painting.
Step 1
In my case, I wanted to draw a portrait of a character of mine– Elenquilde. Since she is a dark elf, I wanted the mood of the painting to be kind of dark, but still a day scene. I looked through my stack of reference photos and found one that my father took when he was hiking in the mountains in Italy. I liked it because it was a vast space with an overcast sky which created a lonely feeling– I felt it was suitable for the character.
Step 2
When I had decided the mood I was going for, I began laying out my background, referencing my source photo. I started by blocking in fields of desaturated color using a round hard-edged brush set at medium opacity. I didn’t follow the photo exactly, I wanted the background to fit my canvas.
I also changed some of the colors. The clouds became greyer, and I made everything less saturated, to get the feeling I wanted.
Step 3
I start working from the back, so I begin with the sky. With a base to work from, I began to add in detail with a smaller brush. The clouds were too sharp, so I went over everything with a soft edged brush, set on low opacity.
Zoom in as necessary to add details, but be sure to work zoomed out as well to keep things from looking too ‘fussy’.
Step 4
After finishing the sky, I started working on the mountain. I began by defining the shape. I didn’t want a smooth, plastic look that digital works often get, so I tried to work with many colors. To make the mountain appear in the distance and three dimensional, I began with light, desaturated colors on the far side, and transitioned to darker, more saturated colors on the front side.
Having laid the basic colors, I began to refine the whole mountain. I did so using a small, sharp brush and a scribbling stroke, adding subtle highlights and shadows to create form and interest.
Step 5
It is now time for the hill in the middle ground. I decided to start with the left side and work to the right, and then downwards. I worked zoomed in, and had the reference photo available. It is important to add more detail to this area to make the hill look textured. Zoomed in, it looks like random scribbles, but zoomed out creates the effect of a highly textured hill seen from the distance. This texturing is important and prevents your work from looking flat and plastic. Of course, different objects have different textures, so experiment with different strokes to achieve the desired effect. The rocky parts are created with a “chunky” scribble, while the grass is create with a smoother line. This part of the background should be more detailed than the mountain, since it is closer to us.
After finishing the part of the hill furthest away from us I had a cliff to paint. As it is closer to us I will have to detail it a bit more, and it can’t be to smooth.
I work my way from background to foreground, adding more and more detail the closer to the foreground I get.
Again, the zoomed in view looks like random scribbles, but zoomed out it all comes together.
Step 6
Now we begin the foreground element. This hill has mostly brown and dead grass. As in the previous steps, I laid a base color first. This time I used a textured brush to give it a more earthy, random look. As I said before, it is all about textures. As I laid out the basic texture, I was careful to make it random, using areas of light and dark to suggest clumps of grass. When I had the basic texture down, I went at it with the smudge tool set at high pressure. The smudge tool can be easily misused, giving a blurry, digital look. Skillfully used, it can be used to build texture fast. Next I began to paint in some green and red tufts of grass, and a few stones to break up the space.
Zoomed in look at the grass and rocks.
Now comes the most time consuming part– painting straws of grass. I used three different sizes of brushes and light shades of straw. It’s important to add plenty of variance in the grass (the way it leans, its length, broken blades, etc.). If your grass is too perfect it will look unnatural.
Step 10
Now I take a step back, and look at the picture as a whole. I ask myself if the pieces fit together, and if anything needs refinement?
I decided the sky was a bit too blurry, so I went in with a small, soft edged brush to refine it. I also felt that the hills were too different in color, so I added more yellow in the farthest hill, and green in the nearest one. It was subtle change, but it made a difference.
Here is the finished background:
Tutorial by Elin Josefsson.
