Creating Webcomics: How to Create Quick and Easy Backgrounds for Your Webcomics

1. Introduction to Quick and Easy Webcomic Backrounds: Hello and welcome to your goals on creating quick and easy backgrounds for your web comics. My name is Matthew Dewey. I'm a writer, writing instructor, and also a whip comic creator. Currently I'm working on to web comics. One is called cryptic plans and the other is called malice. Now if you're working on these comics for a while now, and often have to create so many backgrounds for different panels. And sometimes the backgrounds are so complex that it takes way too long to grade them then you would like, especially since you're going to be covering along with the background of other figure or text. Was that a month? I graded this short course to give you some pointers on creating quick and easy backgrounds that look great in web comics. In this course, I'm gonna be using a graphic display tablet and the Free Software Krita. As I feel it, has all the tools necessary for helping me create web comics. However, the methods that I'll be discussing in this course can be used in almost any drawing software and using any hard way, whether you have a display tablet or drawing with a mouse. There are two backgrounds that I'm gonna be working with in this course. And I will be providing these images to you in case you want to draw along. One background is our forest part. So that's a lot of complex foliage to work with. And the second is some background foliage, but mainly it's focusing on buildings and a street. So whether it's the chaos of nature or the structure of a town scene. You'll learn a bit about how I create these basic backgrounds that helped my figures stand out and how quickly it is to do them. I really hope you enjoyed this course and if you do, you can check out more of my product or my work underpins swiss.com. But that's it. Let's start drawing some backgrounds. 2. Setting Page Format and Finding a Reference: Hello and welcome to your course on creating easy backgrounds for your web comics. Now, in this very first lesson, I want to talk about simply establishing the format of your page. First of all, what you want your backgrounds to tell the reader, and then also finding references for you to use in your images. Now, the reason I want to talk about creating the format for the page first of all, is because by deciding how your figures will be placed and what part of the story you want to tell. You're also going to understand what is needed for your background. Now, in the interest of keeping things simple, for this main background, I'm just going to simply have a single panel for those large images that are typically used for covers. Oh, just a larger page where you want to showcase something special. You should be seeing some examples from my web comics to give you a better idea of how that works. So what we have here then is a large vertical panel to work with. So we're going to try and find an image that will best fit this panel. Now of course, you can draw your images from scratch, but what I like to do when I need a quick background is simply taking a reference image and use that as something to draw over to quickly create a background. Let's 13, my wave coming. I use to stock image starts to give me that kind of image. I use Unsplash and pixels. Of course, there are other sites where you can get your images from. It doesn't necessarily have to be a stock image because you can take whatever image you want and turn it into something that you would like for your web comic. However, when it comes to stock images, I find that they often have exactly what I need is a lot more plain when it comes to the background, a lot simpler, which will help my fingers stand out a lot better. I'll be talking about tips on that later in this course as well. So with that in mind, let's find an image that will best suit this template here in my Quito program. Now I'm going to find two images that I'll work with throughout this course. The very first one will be something that's very thoroughly Chevy and the other will be a most city scene. There'll be some buildings or some other props that all clutter up the background. So I've punched into pixels here of forest path because I feel that will give us plenty of foliage. I want to find something that isn't just trees, however, that'll give us plenty of bushels to work with. Of course, we can adjust the image as we see fit. Okay, now for the second image, I'm looking for something like a small town that'll give us some buildings to work with, but also some trees, perhaps a mountain in the background, some more details that we can add. But also I want to see if I can include a bit of sky as well, because I do want to talk about how to create sky in your backgrounds. I think that this picture here of some buildings, some trees in the background and mountain and everything will work for the second image will be able to work or something. But most straightforward structural were looking at it face on. So it's simpler to work with. And there are a lot of details in here that we can remove or add if we need to does just depend on what you want if your wave coming. Of course, for the purpose of this course, this will work just fine. The sky here is very clotted over, but as digital artist, we can simply just give a blank scar. We can include some clouds. We can make it not Tom, whatever we need. So when it comes to creating backgrounds for me, I always have at least two layers in my layer system. One for background inking, wonderful background colors. So I can do the line work first, establish what's gonna be there, and then I'll add my colors on the layer beneath it. The reason I have it on the layer beneath it is because when my colors expand, because I typically use a paint can to fill them in quickly. I don't want it to overflow onto the lines, making them thinner or just taking away details that I've included through the lawn work. With that in mind, I'll select the colors layer because when I add the image that are wonderful this page, it will then imported above the colors image. So as you can see, I have the image. Now, all I need to do is stretch it out. So that way I can have a clear indication of where everything is and I can draw over the image to quickly establish the background, I select the transform tool. I hold Shift and drag the corner. The reason I hold shift is because if I was to drag the corner, I might adjust things the wrong way and I don't wanna do that. Often that happens with some images. So as a precaution, I don't. Let that happen. So what I'm gonna do here is make the images just a bit smaller because I want to include a bit more of the building. And I think I'm going to include a bit more of this blue building here. I don't worry about the image fit in exactly with him, our borders, because I'll probably just fill that in with sky. If this is a cover image, I can possibly include the title for the web comic at the top of the image, something like that, or even down here at the street level. It does depend on what I want to stand out more when it comes to this image. But for now, I think that this will work for the buildings background. And for the second image, I'll just drag this over here. And again, adjusted the same way. Click the Transform tool while you have the image selected. Grab the corner, hold Shift. Otherwise you could stretch it or more, but just hold shift and makes it stay in shape. Now this image is a bit more interesting. I have trees that are cut off. So what I think I'm gonna do is adjusted just large enough to the point where I think I can work with the rest of it. And not too big that it stands out too much. So I think the policy works just fine. I think I'll just actually centered. I can finish off the trees. I can just guess and extrapolate how the tree would flow upwards. And the same goes with a path. My background images are not gonna be as detailed as the images I've selected obviously. So with that done, I now have the two example images to work with. And of course, when it comes to smaller panels, you will adjust to image for that. But I think for larger images, it'll be easier for us to work with, especially if you're new to creating backgrounds. It helps to have a larger image first, because it's a lot more difficult to exclude details for those smaller panels. So I think starting with the last large page will work well if you are a beginner to web comics. So that does it for this lesson. In the next lesson, I'll be talking about the color Trinity I typically use when drawing objects in my backgrounds. I like to use at least three colors. That way I can establish the shadows, the highlights, the mid tones, things like that. I rarely use more than three colors because I feel that just over-complicate the image with that said, your project for this lesson is to open up your web comic template. If you haven't created a template, I recommend you check out my first course. We are talking about the base resolutions for creating your web comics. And once you do have a template ready, simply find an image on Unsplash or pixels, something that includes some objects, such as a forest or some buildings. But nothing too complex, don't jump straight into creating a very vibrant and cluttered forest or cityscape. Unless you are truly experienced with doing backgrounds, keep it nice and simple. Try to include more sky or some more flat areas to work with. And just like in this lesson, take that stock image and position it where you feel most comfortable on your web comic template. I'll see you in the next lesson. Bye for now. 3. A Simple Color Trilogy to Start: Hello and welcome back to the course on creating easy backgrounds for your webcam x. Now, we've already established what our backgrounds are going to be for our first two practice images, we have some buildings, some scar to work with. And the first one and the second one we have a forest path. So we're gonna be working with a lot of foliage day. We've got some lights and darks and we're going to also dabbled with. Now, before we start working with those back on images, I want to first establish that I have my own style. And when it comes to it, I like to have simpler backgrounds to help my figures stand out a bit more, as you should see in my examples that I'll be showing on the screen for you. Now, my figures standout because I employ some methods that makes the backgrounds feel a bit more flat. Not so flat that you can't see depth but not so detailed that it clutters the image itself and it detracts from the figures in the image without a mind, what I like to do is simplify the colors that I use. Now, obviously when it comes to the mini images that we could work with, there are so many variations of colors that we can use in a single object, a single plant. That makes things a lot more complicated, especially if you do want to have a detailed background. However, if you want to have simpler background images because you want your characters to stand out as well. Then what I like to do is aim for at least three colors per object, at least when it comes to the basic objects, only ever increase that limit depending on the object itself. E.g. if it's a car that is painted multiple colors, our course have more colors involved with that object. But when I'm working with, let's say a flat color around an object, let's say a bush or a rock or something. I then tried to focus on highlights, shadows, and a midterm, a neutral tone, I should say. With that in mind, let's start with something simple. One of the comics or work with is called mannose. And what I tried to do with that web comic is make my palette very simple. So if I select my custom palette here, you will see that I only work with gray scale and some rates. With that in mind, I'm going to now create a simple object quickly with some line work. I'm going to start with a neutral tone first. So I'll use, I'll use this dark gray over here and select a pen. I like to work with. The ink pen rough. I find that is very useful when it comes to drawing out some comic objects and characters. It gives it more drawn feel without a bean. So perfect. Of course, if I do want to draw something that's a bit more clean, I'll use the basic one, which is the standard drawing tool that is set by default in greeter. But for now, I'll stick with this one over here, the ink for pain rough. And I'm just going to draw a basic rock first. Let me increase the size. The tool, something like 13. Okay. Just a nice staggered image of a rock. And let's just give some depth, depth lines to make it a bit less basic looking. Okay, with that outline simply drawn and now need to look at the colors. Okay, so it's the line work done. I'll select the color layer. Now, my neutral tone over here is the dock. So what I'm gonna do is for the neutral term, let's just say this is where the light isn't hitting directly. So what I'm gonna do is complete these lands here. Like so. I'm going to fill that in and that'll be where the light doesn't hit directly. Where it does hit directly. I'll fill in with a shade lighter. So let's just complete those lines and fill that in name. And then finally, for the shadow line, I'll go for the very dark. Like so. Suddenly I have a basic rock image to work with using only three colors. Of course, if I do want to get even more detailed, I would add more colors. If I wanted to have it even darker. E.g. I. Will then add lactone. If I wanted to have some lighter tones, perhaps more highlights, then I would draw them in like so. Just to have a more detailed rock, this is rather rough looking and it's already too many details, but you get the idea of focusing on three colors or keep things very simple. Now, when it comes to other objects, It's a different story. So let me get a more varied color palette. I'll use the standard concept cookie one over. Yeah. And when it comes to colors, what I like to do again is draw the outlines in a neutral term. So I'll go back to lawn work. So I'll just draw like an apple like object here. I'll fill that in just basic grid. Now I look at that red turn and I'll see that there is a lighter red. I'll use that for highlight. Again. I would fill that in everything. I'm doing this on the lawn work tab right now. So isn't very much necessary to go into colors. And then for the darker tone, obviously a darker red. Just to get that shape. Yes, it's a rather rough looking apple, but you do get the idea. It all comes down to establishing what the primary colors you're gonna be using for that object. Or what color do you use for the neutral? Turn the lights and darks and try to keep it simple. And it's gonna be the same sort of thing that we apply to the background. And I do have a technique I'll be talking about to create more unity and the colors. But let's do another example very quickly. Let's say it's a bush. I'm just going to draw the standard cartoony looking bush, like so. And I'll fill that in with a neutral color. I'll then take a darker tone and create more staggered sort of look. This will just add some detail in dibs when it comes to push itself. Fill in some strange areas like so. Just make sure that doesn't break up so well. And then finally allowed to turn for the highlights. Again. Just break that up a bit more. It's very rough, but if you have many of these in a background, it does fill out nicely. And that's pretty much the system that I use when it comes to these colors. If I wanted to, I could also try and add a bit more detail and depth to them. If I want to, I can use black and just outline them so that really stand out a bit more. But I feel that when it comes to working with colors that the outline for them does detract from the background. It just makes things feel even more flat. Considering that I'm trying to keep the detail of the object very simple so it doesn't distract from the figures, but also at the same time. I don't want it to feel so flat that it feels like it's a stage prop way, it's painted cardboard on top of each other. Taking an example from one of my comics, you'll see here that I have one bush which I have done without an outline, and one that I have done with an outline and another one over here just on the fence post. But when it comes to these two bushes, I feel the one that does better with the background is the one without the outline. The reason being is it's still stands out against the background, so an outline really isn't necessary. And at the same time, if I was to cover up this side of the image and farmers to block out this one over here, then it would have more focused on the figure itself. But if I was to cover the bush on this side, then everything has a strong outline and is less of a presence when it comes to the figure, the same thing applies to this amine shown in this image. We have a lot of things going on and I've used two outlines to help establish the background. There's an outline here to establish the further background of V here. And this one to establish the closer one to help these capitals look a lot more clear. But otherwise, when it comes to the trees and foliage, everything doesn't have an outer planets that's sort of blending in together and helps get a lot of the foliage. It does create an interesting background to put more diamond dynamic to work with. But when it comes to the figure itself, the figure does have an outline. So the figure stands out a lot more. Of course it does help that the palate itself crashes when it comes to the blues. But when it comes to this figure itself, having our plan is an additional step to draw focus to it. And that's something that we're going to be establishing as well when it comes to these example images. Your project for this lesson is to simplify your palate and how much detail you want to include in each object. I recommend practicing with smaller objects, individual bushes at an apple or a rock, whatever works for you. It can also be more standard objects, radio, because even a bike or even a character tried to make your palate simple enough that a reader will be able to glance at the panel and understand what is they understand where the light is coming from. You'll notice that when it comes to a lot of backgrounds out there, especially the ones that include color. They tried to simplify it as much as possible so they figures standout. When you're working with black and white, it does become a bit more difficult, but still there are attempts when it comes to artists to make the backgrounds field, but more vague, bit more washed out. In order for the figure to really stand out. The only time they really define a background is when there are no figures that need to be focused on. And you simply wanted to tell the story through the background images. So when it comes to the background, tried to find a way to simplify them a number of colors you use for a specific color. So if you have a green bush tried to simplify to three greens, a shadow or highlight, and a neutral tone. Once you have finished your practice, you can join me in the next lesson. We're, we're gonna be tackling something that seems a lot more complex. The foliage seen here with the forest path. But I'm gonna be showing you a trick in greeter that makes it a lot easier using the paint can. So I'll see you in the next lesson. For now. 4. Draw Foliage The EASY Way: Hello and welcome back to you. Easy quick background creation cause for your web comics. Now, in this lesson we're gonna be tackling what seems like a very complicated and difficult background to work with. But as I said at the start of this course, we're going to be making these backgrounds quickly and easily. We don't want to spend too much time creating a background. We want to complete web comic pages as quickly as possible. At the same time, we still want to make sure they look good. So now, when it comes to more complex backgrounds like this. So now when it comes to a complex background image like this, the first instinct of an artist is to break it down into sections and draw them individually. Take up Tom, try to be a bit more fine tuned when it comes to each individual thing. E.g. this tree here, there's a lot of branches. We want to make sure they just rot. Even if we join over an image, we want to make sure that we draw over it accurately, after all. But that's still takes a lot of time, especially if this is going to be a background for only a single panel on a single page rather than a large image like this. And if it takes too long, that can also affect your confidence, that can affect your speed, your level of production. There's a lot of detractors. Yeah. If you're not willing to spend so much time tackling the complex background. So I'm going to be talking about a simple trick. I know when it comes to drawing foliage. And that is using the paint can. Now, a paint can is great for filling in spaces that are large, flat, at sometimes bit tricky to work with, especially if you don't close off your lines, just rot. But when it comes to drawing in forests and actually becomes little bit easier than you think. So what I'm gonna do here is I'm going to, first of all, I'm going to lock the image itself because I don't want to draw an image. I'm going to change the opacity of the image here to, let's say 75 seems good. So what I'm gonna do first is select Background inking. This will be just above the image itself. I don't want to select a layer below the image. I want to draw back the image otherwise at OPIA underneath and we don't want that either. Again, if we want to move quickly rather than join it from scratch, we could select a simple brush tool. We can select the color and we can simply just start drawing over everything, like so. But if you moving so fast and a haphazardly, you'll still make you'll still mess up here and then it'll still take a lot of time as I said earlier. Okay, So what I'm gonna do now is select the paint can tool. I'll then go to Tools Options, which is the tab right next to palette here. Then two options. You'll see that they are quite a few when it comes to the paint tool. The one I want to draw attention to first is the threshold tool. So if I was to select a color quickly, let's say something like a, a very dark green for this one. I think that's maybe a bit too dark. Let's go for maybe the screen. I think that'll work. And you see a phi click here trying to fill in this space. It doesn't work so well. It's not filling out as much as I would like. So what I can do to fix that is increased the threshold. By increasing the threshold, the color spreads a bit more when it comes to its color range. As you can see how that worked a little too well. And it filled in quite a lot of the docs here. But if I was to make this image disappear and he would look at that. Well, that's a lot of your work already done when it comes to doing the background. Of course, if I want to lower the threshold, just let's say maybe to five or six. Click on image. Let's see if it'll become a little bit better. Okay, that's not bad at all. I can fill in another dark area here. And that leaves some areas to also fill in some highlights. So let's just fill in some shadows here. And then we've got a lot of dogs filled in here. And probably some areas we have which I don't really like that it's filled out. It's easy enough to fix now because I can take a tool, select the size, and just erase we don't want it to be filled in. So just like that, if I want this color just for the trees only, and I'll use a different color when it comes to the grass. There's no problem doing that. But now let's go back to the palette. Keeping this threshold just so high. We'll choose a lighter tone, let's say this green. Still under the exact same layer. And we'll start filling. It in like so. I don't particularly like this green, it seems a little too brown actually. So I'm gonna go for maybe, maybe this green bit too strong, I should say. Let's go for maybe the screen. That's a bit better. I'm going to increase the threshold just a little bit, just so I can fill in quite a lot of those gaps. That works. Now you see here when it comes to the finer things, when it fills in, it's filling in a bit too much. Now I forgot back to two options. That's because I've adjusted law grow. What this means is that it will grow outwards by a pixel or two more processor. I have it set to two because Greta tends to have a problem when it comes to working with colors. We have drawn an outline. It won't go beneath that outlined by pixel to, and that can create this funky line. I guess I should show that all first of all, especially if this is something you need to, and I don't have any grow involved. Now if I paste, if you look closely, you'll see that there is this nasty little white line here between it. So it isn't feeling that complete. So I can fix that by adjusting the grow by one pixel. One pixel isn't so bad at all that there is still just a slot vague line over here. So I think true pixels minimum is just fun for fixing that problem. It's much better than what? You can adjust it by mole. But of course, as I said, this does affect it on the smallest scale. When it comes to working with the tool for this reason. However, I can still proceed pushed forward. We don't want it to be so detailed as I said earlier. And since we do have some detail when it comes to the trees already been some jagged artist. Let me undo that. What we're gonna do to fix that is just simplify the colors that we use in the image itself. On small triangle to use only three colors. This is our highlights and neutral turn. We obviously got to fill in a darker tone eventually. But right now I'm just trying to fill in as many gaps we have. A halide term should be. These are still pretty dark trees, but once more, I'll show a trick later in this course for a bit more unity. Of course here. And then we'll do some touch ups at the pain can simply just want filling and that's no problem at all. It's still saves us time in the long run. So let's take a look at the sofa. Okay, that background is shaping up, okay? But now we've got some gaps here. Some gaps are good. That'll work well when we have some sky and some further background. But then some gaps we gotta fill as it has an image with a lot darker color. And I think what we'll do is we'll take a very dark color, let's say like this. And this time we will click on the background colors layer. And we'll just fill that in like so. It looks a little messy right now, but when I add the border lines around it, it will look a lot better. Of course, need to actually round off this area. And to round off this area, I could also then take the time to draw it, but at the same time, I could take a section out like so. Copy that paste that I could copy that paste that lifted up and drag it like this. Maybe bend it at an angle so it looks a little different or squash, it doesn't look so repetitive. And that'll fill it out nicely. And then I can fill in the rest with some odd touch ups here and air. And returning to the background color. Like so. Okay, with that coming along, what I'm gonna do now is attend to the grass. Again. All that's left to do now is full on a path and once more we can pick a color that is just most suitable. Now it looks a little messy right now. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take a nice simple color, go to this layer quickly, fill it in. This will just block out anything, yeah, along the edges. Bring back the image itself. And we got a quick background here working on other colors. I feel just don't work well with each other, but it works well with this example. And when it comes to creating some unity, when it comes to colors, That's something that we'll still be able to do through some careful fixes here and name. And another little trick that I'll be showing you later. What did supported right now is going around the image funding bits and pieces that you are not happy with. You might need to readjust them. And it's not a problem to do that because it's much easier to make adjustments than it is to do something entirely from scratch. And this isn't going to be the focus of your image either. Because if you do plan to include a figure in your drawing, then of course you want to draw your attention, your reader's attention to that. But for now, we're going to leave the image as it is, and we're going to come back to it when we cover the sky and how to create some more color unity with what we have here. Your project for this lesson is to work with the stock image you have chosen. That includes a lot of foliage using trees, grass, something like that. The simpler the better you can choose an image that is far more simple than this one. There's no problem in that. But it's all about adjusting your paint can, it's about making adjustments. And you'll find that in 15 min or so that it took me to make this background. It would take you much longer to finish a single tree if you were to draw it in detail with a simple drawing tool rather than using the paint can trick. Now although these are some tricks that we can use to speed up the process, I still recommend you take your time when doing this, especially if you're new to creating web comics, you'll find that as you get more comfortable with the tools, it gets a lot easier to create these backgrounds. So in the next lesson, we'll be tackling the building image over here. I'll see them. Happy painting. 5. Structuring Background Buildings: Hello and welcome back to course on creating quick and easy backgrounds for your web comics. Now, in this lesson, we're gonna be focusing on buildings. In the previous lesson, we talked about creating some feisty environment. And it was a real focus on simply getting in the form of the forest. So we use the paint can to trick to easily fill in these details using an image. With that reference unmanned. We can also adjust the image as need be. Make tweaks here and there. E.g. if we don't want to treat, we can erase it. If we don't want a shadow here. We can fix that as well. We select the colors, add, we make the adjustments as necessary until we've got an image that we are happy with and with the paint can trick. It was very easy and very quick to do. Now, when it comes to the buildings, using the paint can isn't the best way to go when it comes to buildings, you'll find that there are some details that you want to include. At the same time as we mentioned earlier. We don't want the environment so detailed that it detracts from the figure that'll be in the frame. So we can use the paint can tool trick when it comes to the forest and mountains in the background, if we do want to include them. But when it comes to the buildings were better off setting up some line work and using the paint can to fill in the gaps. And it's going to take a bit longer. But with a reference to work with, it's very easy to do the loan work. We have to do is select our line tool and Krita or whichever program you are using. Select your suitable brush. I'm gonna go with the rough pentagon. I go to my background inking layer and lock it and select a color I find most suitable for this larger buildings. Here are like the details of the tops here for the building. The frame area. Obviously, I won't be using the logo. That is, yeah, Mason's health care. I'll use something else or I'll just not include anything. It depends on how simple I want image to be. And I'm going to use the paint tool to fold in. Because I think I liked the hills and forests to the background. And that'll help ground the buildings as well. So let's find the pinkie toe threshold. Actually a darker brown. Fix that in the inking layer. So remember that you have your own creative freedom to do whatever you want when it comes to an image. If there is something that you wish, you want to add to an image, you are free to do so. Just in case I haven't mentioned it already. You do want to keep this as simple as possible. Just like when it came to the forest, we don't want to have so many details. It distracts from the rest of the image. You won't be able to complete this as quickly as you would a forest scene, because you'll be working with more line work and focusing on these structural details rather than a shape and form. But at the same time, if you keep my earlier advice in mind, you should get through this background fairly quickly as well and be sure to join me in the next lesson, we will talk about adding this scar, stars and clouds. I'll see you then. Bye. For now. 6. Establishing Skys, Clouds and Stars: Hello and welcome back to your quick and easy background creation course for web comics. In this lesson, I'm going to be adding scar to the example images that we've already created. Now what I want to cover is simply a scar turn that best suits the time of day that you're going for. Stars and clouds. If you are familiar with creature, it has various tools that can help you do this. And I'll be going through the tools that are used to create quick and easy backgrounds. The first decision I want to make here is to decide which of these two images will have a day back on and which one will have a notch background image to use for a night scene is gonna be the forest one here. And the day one for this scene over again. The reason being is because the forest already has a lot of cool tones to it. So that should make it easier to set a Nazi and feeling. Whereas when it comes to these buildings, that's going to take a bit more effort when it comes to creating a feeling of not. That's something we'll talk about in the next lesson when it comes to tone. But for now let's create a scar that we can work with. Our first scene. I'm going to select a palette concept cookie again, because it has a lot of useful colors that work well with each other. And I'm going to select a blue, but not something that is too dark. I think either this blue or this one. When creating a scar, I'll have the layer beneath all the colors and line work we've created so far. So I've created a scar layer here just above the background film. Now to fill this in quickly, I'm gonna be using the basic pen. Again. Just going to have that set to a size and just fill it in like so. Now this isn't enough, just yet. Obviously, we're going to have to add some details to it to make it stand out a bit more. I think one of the best ways to do that is to add a set of stars. Now, I like to use this sponge tool here because it helps create these water splits that work well with creating stars. I feel that as you can see here, the color is just too much. So in order to rectify that, I'm going to remove them here and maybe change the opacity to something like 14. And then select the color to a thinner one name. Then select the color I've been working with. And using the same tool, maybe at a higher opacity and go over it. Like so. This will dilute the stars quite a bit. I'll blend them bit more into the scarf. And I really works a lot better. Now, previously, I used to use this tool over here, but I found that it didn't work out so well. Because when it came to brightest stars, it just washed over too much. And to blend that in is a lot more difficult. Besides, I feel that having irregularly sized stars really adds to it as well. And it's that simple to create a Nazi, just establish the scalp. But if you have a keen eye, when it comes to colors, you'll look at this image and see that it doesn't really work well with each other, is it uses a lot of cool tones and blues. But at the end of the day, these colors don't really go into each other so well. And that's something that we're gonna be fixing in the next lesson when it comes to turn. But as for now, this is the best and easiest way to create a nut Scott, if you want to take this further, what I recommend is using a watercolor brush, I use this font point watercolor brush n is large one over here. This is the wide areas spread water ZBrush, and this is just the water sea spray. So I could take this wide area one. Let's take another dark color here. I'm thinking something more grayish. And what we can do is if I apply enough pressure is add clouds to the scene. What's important to understand here though, is that you are trying your best not to make something, to brand to a quiz. And be sure to note where you're getting most of your light from. So in the case of this scene, the light is coming from this direction. Hitting the ground. So let's say that's moonlight. We will take a broader gray. That's a bit too much. Let's just decrease the size and decrease the opacity just a touch as well. And that should do it for clouds. Of course, if you do want to make it a darker naught with, let's say a moon that isn't full, you will have darker clouds, you'll have less Harlan's. Now when it comes to creating a daytime scene, it's very much the same method. You select a basic tool brush. Like I said, I like to use the normal pen brush. I select a blue which are like, and I feel goes with the scene. And I simply fill it in like so. Now seen as this is daytime, there won't be any stars. But if we want to include clouds, we again need to consider the time of day. So let's say that this is a midday scar. In fact, I think I'm going to change that blue to something a bit more. Baby blue instead of turquoise. Does this look? I feel it's a bit too dark. Let's try. That is way too turquoise. Let's try this one. Yes, I feel that one will work. Now, let's take out once you brush again. Now as it is DateTime, I'm going to go straight for something a lot brighter instead of a gray tone. And I'm just going to see what it's like if I work in some clouds. Let's just raise the opacity a little bit. Now considering the day Tom, this is what a midday cloud would look like. But let's say that the sky is just for a moment. The sun is setting. Now we're going to start including more orange and purple tones in order to add to that feeling. And it's as simple as that. If the sky is turning purple at sunset or sunrise, you would add a hint of purple to the Cloud. So let's lower the opacity and just go over the cards here in the and you've got some clouds that help give a hint at the time of day, but for now let's leave it at midday when it comes to the clouds. And this is really how simple the scars should be. At the same time, you don't even have to include clouds. If you do like to have a simple scene, like are often like to have as well. Sometimes just leave this blank as is. It can be a clear sunny day and there's nothing wrong with that. Now, it's all about getting your colors to work well with each other. Now, while these colors aren't exactly bad, it's not too much of a clash. It's not hard to look at. In the next lesson, I'll be talking about creating a tone when it comes to your background. And this is something that will be overlaid over your figures as well. That brings us to the end of this lesson. Your project for this lesson is of course, to create the sky in your background, as I said before, doesn't need to be too complex. If you're going full midday scene and there aren't any clouds in the sky. That is simple blue background works just well. However, if you are creating a Nazi, I recommend choosing a darker blue. And if you are creating stars, do well to blend the stars into the scar. You don't want them to stand out too much, but you also don't want them to be Non-existent. And it helps break up the solid scar. And it lets the reader know the time of day or osha to say the time of night. And after the next lesson, we'll have a more polished and ready to use background for our web comics. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you then. 7. Setting Tone the Easy Way and Creating Color Unity: Hello and welcome back to your course on creating quick and easy backgrounds for your web comics. In this lesson, we're gonna be talking about creating a certain tone and color unity to your web comic. Now, to show off how this works, I've taken some examples saves have created from one of our web comics. Now, as you can see from these pages, this one and this one, the colors aren't exactly bad, but they still don't really work that well with each other. The figures certainly stand out in this one, e.g. but again, I feel that it stands out a little too much. There's not enough kinda unity when it comes to everything. Because although the colors or the background seemed to work well with each other, the figure doesn't work that well with it. And the road here in the first panel certainly doesn't work as well as it should. So yes, these colors stand out, but at the same time, this doesn't create a sense of ambiance. Everything is a little to cut out, a little too clean. So to give it a greater feeling of unity when it comes to color, I add a filter layer. Now, if I activate this layer here, you will see that this adds a layer of light that helps things blend into each other a lot more. Suddenly the scene has a lot more color unity and has a feeling to it. And the figure in the scene also blends in a lot better as does the road here. Right now it's opacity is set at 40%, but depending on the scene, the opacity of this layer can change. So if I was to put it at its highest, you will see that it is really one or two colors. Sometimes more depending on the scene. The darks and the lights. I use typically cool tones when it comes to Nazis or shaded areas, and warmer tones when it comes to bright areas. If I go to the cover page for the chapter tomorrow we've comic series. Again. You'll see that the colors, they don't work as well with each other as I would like. Things don't stand out so much. So I add a filter. And now suddenly there's a lot more color unity. And when it comes to this scene, there's a shaded area and is a well-lit area. So if I was to increase the opacity of this, you will see that there is a darker shaded area here, the top corner and medium shaded area. And a light source. Then adjust the opacity to what I'm comfortable with. And once I see that, That's okay. I feel that the background is a lot more complete. And so returning to our practice images, let's see if we can't give it the same polished and finished look as those other examples. When it comes to the Nazi in here, I want to make sure that there is a light source when it comes to this area in here and also in this distance part of EGN. And in the wrist I want to have a darker filter. So I create a layer that is above all of this. And I am going to adjust it to 40% right now and unlock it. And let's just dabble with the colors until we find something we can work with. So I'm going to take this darker blue. I'm going to work with the basic paintbrush. Let's just use the fill tool to see how this looks. Not so bad, but I feel that this takes away too much of the car. So maybe I'm going to lower the opacity on this. Filling in all the darker areas where I feel that it needs to be filled in. Some points over here. Similarly here, the paint can to help me become a bit more precise when it comes to this. But in some areas it's better just to free George. And don't really think too much about it. It is just the lighting system. I'm just vaguely filling in those areas. Again, that's not bad. Let's just up the color. I feel that it's not dark enough. So I'm going to go for an even darker blue and just fill that in. Alright, let's take it down to 40% and have a look at that. It's not bad. Maybe I'll take it down to 35. And with that, I'm going to also then fluid in a lot quicker by removing all the other layers. Increasing the opacity of this filter. And I'm going to add a lot of blue in the lighter areas. Let's seen already feels a lot more complete than the previous ones. Of course, I can adjust it as necessary. I can work with other colors to help give me different effects. But I feel that there's really just capsule. It's everything. The colors now flow into each other a lot better because we are using two simple colors to establish the darks and lights in the scene. So this one was fairly quick and easy to do. When it comes to the buildings, is going to take some more key. We need to now consider again the time of day that we're using in this scene. Let's make the filter 30% and decide, do we want something that's a woman feeling day or colder feeling day? Because that then, once again establishes the color that we're going to use for the filter. So if it's a call to feeling day, I might add a more grayish, bluish tone. That's more of a misty day. Let's find a bluer tone to work with. Let's go for something like this and lower the opacity, let's say 20%. Everything now has a vaguely blue tones, so it feels like rain is on the way. Everyone to make that a bit more, we raise that up a bit. And yes, that already feels like it's going to be a very cold day. So by having this now cold blue turn, it feels like rain is on the way. It feels like it's a very cold area. But now let's lower the opacity again and keep experimenting. If we want to have something more of a warm day, we don't want to go straight into a bright red or orange. Because then we get something like this that's more of a sunset look than anything else. If we go for neon orange, how does it look? It looks like a really hot day, Doesn't it? I'll select a more orangey Ofwat. And then when it comes to the cooler areas, I'll select a blue tone or purple turn even better. Goals. When it comes to orange, purple works well with orange, blends well with it. And we use that to fill the shadowy areas in. I feel that the bluer tones work very well with each other. If I wanted to now I can keep adjusting until I feel that I'm happy with it. Maybe make it peach tone of orange tone again, something a bit brighter, maybe this one. And keep playing with this until you feel you have something that you're allowed to happier with. Keep adjusting opacities, working with different colors. Try to aim to use the cooler shades when it comes to the cooler shadows, when it comes to the warmer areas, warmer lights, you don't have to use two colors to help establish where you're warmer and cooler areas. Or you can use more, does really depend on the scene and what kind of feeling you are trying to create. But now, if I was to remove the filter from this scene, you'll see that the colors stand out a lot more, a lot more crisp. But then the ambiance of this scene is lost. There's less of a unity than there was before. And if I go back to the forest scene and remove the throat to the colors aren't there, but again, they stand out a little too much. There's not enough unity. But with the addition of the filter, everything comes together a lot better. Your project for this lesson is to create a filter layer above your background and also preferably above the layers that are going to have your figures. This is because your fingers are going to be in the same area. They're gonna be in the same scene. So they're gonna be affected by the same lights and darks of that time of day of that scene. Typically, I like to create a filter layer before I start doing the figures because this gives me a good idea of what the scene is going to feel like. It also helps me select the right colors to use. If I'm including a new figure object or something like that. And if you've been following along with your own background, you should find that this filter layer really helps to create a finished product failing. This is a background that you can use for cover page or four simple panel. But that's not all for this course. In the next lesson, I'll delve more into some tips and advice that I would give for creating more polished backgrounds and advice and include in your fingers and so on. So if you're interested in more tips and advice on creating some quick and easy backgrounds. I'll see you in that lesson. Thank you for watching and bye for now. 8. More Tips & Advice, Where to Next?: Hello and welcome back to your course on creating quick and easy backgrounds. Now, in this final lesson, I want to give you some additional tips and advice when it comes to creating impactful and interesting backgrounds. Now one of the first things I wanted to tell you is that when it comes to backgrounds, they are, are the other half of the storytelling. The background and the figures and how you include them, tells a lot of the story more than the dialogue could. One of the ways that I like to do this when I'm creating my webcam x is when I'm changing this scene or the perspective, or from moving forward in the story. I like to establish a larger shot of the scene rather than one that's close to the figure itself. So when I'm switching from one scene to another, in this example here, I switched to a larger shot with the two figures barely seen here on the ramparts of this causal like wool. Because I want to read it to know that this isn't the same area that the previous page ad. And I also want them to know that there are some key elements in this scene, e.g. the gate and the wall and the hint over territory tower behind it, things like that. Now I could have easily skip that page entirely and gone straight onto this one where these two characters are conversing. But I wanted to make sure that the reader knows that these two figures aren't just floating in space. I use the background to help tell the story. So having this page to establish the two figures and the scene itself, before I get a close up to these two figures, is a great storytelling method than simply skipping that page. It is a little extra work that it does pay off. It's also good to have larger shots now and then, because most of your pages will be like this one where you have many smaller panels. You will have simpler backgrounds because you want to focus more on the dialogue and the interactions between your characters. But sometimes having larger grander shots in your web comics such as this one, will add a lot more to your characters, as well as give a better idea of the scene. If action is going to take place, this is very important because you want your readers to know where the action is taking place. You don't want it to be in a floating area where there doesn't seem to be any structure. You want to ground the scene every now and then. It's also good to use the colors and tones in your backgrounds to help demonstrate the passage of time. So take these four panels, for instance, the figure here is slowly changing. Eventually the figure is no longer in the scene. This already gives that idea that Tom is parsing. However, by adding a new color tone with each panel, I can express to the reader that a lot of time is passing. Not just a few minutes, but perhaps a few hours. Again, it's another great way to use the background to tell the story. And it doesn't have to be any dialogue included. Of course, you can include it if you want to fill in the space. But this much is enough for the reader to understand that Tom is parsing. Another thing I want to mention is you must look for ways to help your characters stand out in your scene. If I go back to a previous page, take this one, e.g. the color palette, when it comes to the figures, is not too different from the background. I'm working in grayscale. So things kind of blend well together no matter what, when it comes to this web comic. And I still want my fingers to stand out a lot better. The way I go about doing this is that I tried to include more detail in the figures than in the background. I find this is incredibly important if I want my fingers to stand out. But when it comes to a more varied color palette, I like to make my figures standout by giving them a black outline. This will help me separate a lot of the features of the character, but also separate the figure from the background a lot better. The character doesn't blamed so easily into the background of these scenes when there's a black outline around them. E.g. if I was to take this away, this figure blends in way too well into these colors. By adding a black outline, it stands out a lot more. And I only do this for the figures. That is the important thing. When it comes to the colors seen, I want to make sure that my figures or have a black outline to stand out. But when it comes to the objects and the scenery. I'd like to leave them without a black outline. I give them a basic color outline if the same goes for it and leave it at that. This is another way that I can make sure I still have understandable background. The reader can look at this and understand watches in the scene. But at the same time, that background isn't outlined. So that means it blends in a bit better and my fingers stand out a bit more. Let's mole if I was to take this offline way, everything blends in a little too well. My character loses definition much like the background, despite also having an outline similar to the background itself. That was a black outline. It stands out a lot better. Again, this is more of a style choice, but it's also one that has a practical effect when it comes to my web comics. You of course have your own style, so this might not fit what you're looking for. But if you do find that your backgrounds are a bit too complicated, you need to find ways to help your character stand out better to make things feel a lot less cluttered. And this is a technique that is often employed when it comes to web comic creators. They want to make sure that the important details stand out, that it doesn't become a mess of detail the reader struggles to look at. So let's look at another example page. I've created here, several panels. But in these two panels here, you'll notice that there's barely any background. Only use some color tone to help separate the fingers a bit better to make them stand out. But I don't include any of the bushes that might be there in the background or the walls or any other details. This is because I want the focus to be on these characters or want them to stand out a lot better. This shows that you don't need to have a background for every panel either. You can have simplified backgrounds once where they are just colors. And then the focus is simply on the character themselves and speech bubbles in that scene. And of course, if you do want to include speech bubbles, It's always good to have space for them. And if you plan to include a lot of texts, this is especially important because if you were to work on a background that is so detailed, only to end up blocking it with text and speech bubbles. You will waste a lot of your own Tom, Tom that could be better spent on working on other important details and your web comic. Or perhaps progressing if the story with a new page. When it comes to my black or white comics, whether it'd be malice or simply one that has only black and white and gray tones in-between. I like to give them simple backgrounds to help the figures stand out a lot more. Of course, this does depend on the scene. If the scene is going to be only a background, then I'll be sure to add a lot more detail. Maybe break a few of those rules to help create an interesting background. With most panels, these are the rules are followed when it comes to these two comics. And finally, one of the most important tips is realized that the backgrounds or one of your best storytelling tools when it comes to web comics, it isn't just a focus on the figures and the speech bubbles and it takes that you include, it's also the backgrounds themselves. They can set the scene. They can help you tell a story that can help convey the passage of time. It can help the reader understand that the character is going on a journey. These are all great reasons to include a background and should be noted when you're plotting your webcam mic. You don't want to include the background, just to include a background. But these are, some of them are more personal techniques that you can use to help create better backgrounds. Of course, if you have a style of your own and backgrounds are gonna be done a certain way, then by all means, do it your way. Having your own unique style is a great way to make your comic rarely stand out. These are some of the techniques that I've noticed and other web comic creators. And certainly these are techniques that are trying to employ when creatine my webcam x2. And that brings us to the end of this lesson. And in fact, the course. I really hope you enjoyed this course and you use these methods to create some quick and easy backgrounds. Have a web comics. You'll be surprised how impactful these techniques can be, especially if you plot them out well enough and you place your fingers well on them too. If you have any questions that you'd like to ask me when it comes to creating web comics, or perhaps share your work. You can do so in the project section, or ask me a question and a comment section. If you're interested in looking at some web comics, I'm now working on to web comics on is called cryptic pons, which is the color web comic you see now. And my first web comic has started and still continuing to this day is malice, which is this black and white medieval web comic you see now you can find both of these web comics on the two major platforms, web tune and to pass. But you can also access them on my Patreon page. If you want to see them in a greater resolution or see them earlier, you should see a link to that on the screen now, but this is a course where you can ask your questions and also promote some of your work. If you have started a web comic on any of these services, then by all means, tell everybody in the comments below or in the project section, I look forward to seeing your work and I wish you the best of luck in creating new web comics. Thank you for watching. Good day, good nut, and happy drawing.