Tips on drawing environments in comics
I’m by no means an expert on drawing comic environments, but I’ve been using a few specific methods to get them done which I’d like to share! These tips did pretty well on Twitter so I figured I might share them on Tumblr as well [example panels from my webcomic Shaderunners]:
First, if you’re drawing backgrounds while using straight lines/a ruler and you’re struggling with your environments looking stiff, FREEHAND! It makes everything looks more natural, even if it’s not technically always “accurate”. Here’s a comparison (old/recent):
In general environments look more real the more “imperfect” they are, This isn’t a hard and fast rule of course, and I’m sure there’s cases where a stiff quality is HELPFUL to your story - so I think being aware of the difference in effect is key!
Second, for environments there’s a little trick I like to use, and this kinda depends on your style and how rough the place you’re drawing is, but I like to add little marks and dirt to the walls, the floor, everything. It makes things feel more real/lived in.
Third, get SketchUp or a similar 3D modeling software. Drawing a comic is hard work and if you’re doing it alone some shortcuts will have to be taken - that is NOT to say that it’s cheating if you take them. It’s simply helpful.
A thing I never see talked about is how 3D modeling is a SKILL, not a magic hack. I had to get BETTER at creating environments in SketchUp and incorporating them into the comic organically. Here’s an example of an old background done with the help of SketchUp above a recent one:
There’s No Need To Colour Everything. See how in the first pic below I coloured (er, you know) every object on the shelves? Waste of time - if anything it takes away focus from the characters. Nowadays when things are small, faraway or unimportant I let them blend into the background.
Similarly, in crowd scenes I used to draw every single person and detail, thinking that it would look impressive. The result was spending hours on a panel readers would look at for two seconds. Plus, after all that work it didn’t actually end up looking like that big a crowd.
Compare that to crowd scenes I draw now – by no means perfect but I feel that leaving out details in the faraway figures makes the scene look fuller; it leaves room for the reader’s mind to fill in the gaps and imagine the crowd being bigger than is shown.
And uhh that’s it? Basically this advice is mostly little tips that can be helpful, rather than a guideline/rule. Environments in comics (to me at least) are an efficiency game, and I’m constantly thinking of ways to be economical when I work on them while also having fun!
Hopefully this was helpful to someone out there, and if you were intrigued by these panels you should check out my webcomic at @shaderunnerscomic!
