Anime Backgrounds / Landscapes

[Anonymous No.4214049]

Hi /ic/. Anyone got any tips on how to draw landscapes and backgrounds such as those you'd see in the animes?

[Anonymous No.4214050]

[Anonymous No.4214052]

>>4214050

[Anonymous No.4214054]

>>4214052

[Anonymous No.4214055]

>>4214054

[Anonymous No.4214188]

>>4214049
I think that the only real way to learn to do backgrounds like these is to just study the shit out of the ones that have the style you're going for.

[Anonymous No.4214195]

>>4214188
Pretty much this. You can also attempt plein air to study actual lighting and train your composition skill. If you are uncomfortable with public painting you can always take a photo and study it at home as well.

[Anonymous No.4214205]

>>4214049
Study painting, focusing on landscape. They're not doing much different than a traditional landscape artist does. (Big hint - the key to landscape is mastering lifelike values)

[Anonymous No.4214222]

>>4214049
Do studies of your favourite backgrounds, of real images of landscapes and try and replicate the style. Once those start looking pretty good move on to combining elements from reference images ("this temple from this image into the environment in this image"). Also research the workflows of your chosen medium and how other people have managed to achieve the style you're after, for example if you work digitally you could search for "Ghibli style painting in photoshop" etc.

[Anonymous No.4214228]

Paint over photo

[Anonymous No.4214275]

Hey OP, hope you don't mind me jacking your thread to dump some anime BG inspo

Starting with the legendary Hiromasa Ogura

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[Anonymous No.4214349]

>>4214049
https://mega.nz/#!FwxTjCzb!UUA7q439hDfDwwb35HatsxXeexgYxogSntRXvjo5qms

https://mega.nz/#!V0Z02brY!reGMsECiklsWNb8mk2pFWFIrzrdrx6pt-QxUtnWkoMY

[Anonymous No.4214351]

Backggrounds form A Letter to Momo, not sure who the artists are

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[Anonymous No.4214359]

Well, most anime BG artists use poster color, and you can't get them in the west, unless you special order them, paying much more than they're actually worth. So don't do that. Learn gouache instead, since it's the closest equivalent you can get in the west easily.

Now, watch every James Gurney video on YouTube. He doesn't do anime, but he will teach you how to work with the medium, and he used to work painting BGs for at least one animated film.

After that, look up videos of people painting anime backgrounds. There are plenty of them on YouTube, but you've got to look at the ones with the Japanese names and descriptions if you want the authentic experience. They'll be using NICKER poster color for the most part, but it's close enough to gouache that the lessons still apply.

That's my advice on how to get started.

[Anonymous No.4214361]

>>4214359
Senpai, it's $40 for a set of 12 Sakura Poster Colors on Amazon. A full sent of decent gouache tubes is going to easily bring you over $100.

[Anonymous No.4214363]

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[Anonymous No.4214366]

>>4214049
Check these guys out, they aren't Japanese but they should give you insight on painting environments

https://www.youtube.com/user/mattjabbar
https://twitter.com/JDonaldson_art/

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[Anonymous No.4214381]

>>4214361

Well I haven't tried Sakura's poster paints, so I don't know how they stack up against the "industry standard" nicker paints. Use those if you want, then. I just prefer gouache because I can restock without having to order everything online.

Incidentally, you can get a full set of cheap gouache for 17 bucks, so you'll still come out on top, pricewise, depending on what you get.

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>>4214049
Copy what you can, look up Ghibli artists on YouTube and try to pick out their brush techniques.

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[Anonymous No.4214900]

>>4214366
Funny how the soul disappears when a westerner tries to paint the same subject matter.

[Anonymous No.4214909]

>>4214299
>>4214355
>>4214370
>>4214388

okay I'm sure there are at least 1-2 peak pro bg artists lurking here.. so just how does the construction work for something like this? I assume it's a lot of photography involved for the initial concept, but I'm more interested in the foundation of coloring, and rendering everything in such an appealing way

[Anonymous No.4214914]

>>4214909
I can't give you pointers regarding the coloring and rendering but
>so just how does the construction work for something like this?
everything you need to know is explained in "Perspective made Easy", please give it a read and try it for yourself.

[Anonymous No.4214945]

>>4214914
Dumb post, he's asking about specifics about the production of these paintings.

[Anonymous No.4214952]

>>4214900
cause ur a weeb lol

[Anonymous No.4214955]

>>4214359
I subscribe to everything said, this channel is the official Nicker poster color and have many amazing videos. The secret besides the paints is the TMK poster paper.

https://www.youtube.com/user/nickerenogu

[Anonymous No.4214965]

>>4214955
>The secret besides the paints is the TMK poster paper.

And how does it differ from regular watercolor paper and illustration board?

[Anonymous No.4215151]

>>4214965
It accepts the paint evenly without graining and doesn't warp, a similar paper would be Strathmore 400 bristol vellum but not even close to what they can do with the TMK paper.

This westerner also uses the same tools:
https://www.youtube.com/user/mattenande

Now compared to gouache and western paper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHL2B_6nDe4

It's close but it's missing the qualities of the Nicker poster color.

[Anonymous No.4215158]

>>4214909

[Anonymous No.4215177]

>>4215158
This has to be an amateur Photoshop, right?

If not, then goddamn that is some horrible looking art direction. I hate how floaty the character look against the BG. The inconsistency between the art styles of the BG and that of the characters is so pronounced, to the point that it's distracting.

Would've looked better if characters designs were more realistic to complement the BG, or the BG art was more exaggerated or abstracted to complement the character designs.

[Anonymous No.4215186]

>>4214900
I bet a million dollars you would think twice about spouting that bullshit had the artists in question been Japanese.
Anyone who unironically abides by that soul/souless meme is 100% full of shit.

[Anonymous No.4216359]

>>4214909
no one on ic?

[Anonymous No.4216367]

>>4215177

Modern anime is overrun by terrible art direction. Look at Black Clover. It's one of the most hideous things I've ever seen.

Anime genuinely looked better when everything was painted with physical media.

It's akin to how Don Bluth's work degenerated into hideous sludge when liberated from the restraints of actual paint and cels.

[Anonymous No.4216373]

>>4216359

I've done some BGs for animation but nothing at this level. Look up Makoto Shinkai's book. It goes over his methods for creating animation BGs. Basically, a mix of heavy photo reference and CG models painted over in Photoshop.

For an older school example, The Mysterious Cities of Gold art team went to south and central america, took a bunch of photo reference of famous ruins and monuments, and literally traced the photos for a lot of the backgrounds on the show. This was in 1983.

As for my personal methods, I tend to make simple models in Sketchup, print them out, draw over them on a light table to get rid of that overly perfect digital effect, then either paint them with physical media or scan them back in and paint them digitally.

[Anonymous No.4216470]

Does anyone have a full English translation of this book?

[Anonymous No.4216472]

>>4216470

[Anonymous No.4216481]

>>4214279
Good lord

[Anonymous No.4216522]

>>4215177

[Anonymous No.4216650]

>>4215186
soul/soulless is a real thing, the piece in question has soul though.

[Anonymous No.4216652]

>>4216522
Jesus Christ that looks horrible.

[Anonymous No.4216667]

>>4216367
>It's akin to how Don Bluth's work degenerated into hideous sludge when liberated from the restraints of actual paint and cels.
Examples?

[Anonymous No.4216669]

>>4214188
This again
Fairly sure op made dumb thread before even working on any painting

[Anonymous No.4216676]

>>4214900
>>/a/utism

[Anonymous No.4216688]

>>4214303
GITS backgrounds were on another level.

[Anonymous No.4216689]

>>4216367
>Anime genuinely looked better when everything was painted with physical media.
It's not the medium, anon. It's the art direction that's the issue. cel shaded anime had plenty of fucking mediocre looking messes.
Most modern anime have terrible art direction because of limited budgets, over bearing deadlines, and poor use of technique. There are still amazing anime being made with digital medium.
Even some prolific 90's to early 2000's era anime made use of 3D, but the aim was for 3D assets NOT to stand out but instead supplement the over art direction. Theses days, production budgets are so strained the use of 3D looks cheap and jarring, with poor implementation.

[Anonymous No.4216691]

>>4216650
No it is not. We could argue for eons about it but there's not consensus on it because it is subjective. Veteran weebs would find soul where no other would as well as some people will highly enjoy and find soul in works that are vastly considered to have no such quality to it by nearly everyone else. For fucks sake it is this hard ? It's a feeling at most and feelings can not be pinned down and dissected so as to be replicated ad infinitum, feelings are experienced, and for those that are able and understanding enough, they can cultivate that.

I'm blatantly copying this text to a clipboard and will merely ctrl v it to any simpleton fuck that derail threads with this shit of soul soulless faggotry.

[Anonymous No.4216694]

>>4216691
Dare I say? BASED & REDPILLED

[Anonymous No.4216701]

>>4216689
>It's not the medium, anon. It's the art direction that's the issue.

I disagree. Natural media imposes restrictions which in turn fosters creativity and certain stylistic choices. Many of the aesthetic conventions of anime background art is directly tied to the medium.

[Anonymous No.4216726]

>>4216701
>I disagree. Natural media imposes restrictions which in turn fosters creativity and certain stylistic choices. Many of the aesthetic conventions of anime background art is directly tied to the medium.
You can disagree with me, but you're argument is poor desu. To reiterated my point, the key to making good looking anime is the good art direction and good application of techniques. Key word GOOD. A larger budget would only better supplement that. But money wouldn't magically solve a doomed production either.

Using analog mediums does not magically make an anime look good. It still requires skilled and creative artists and animators to make the collective effort. As such, there are PLENTY of shitty and mediocre looking anime from the 90's.
Again, there are still some interesting and creative anime being produced today that use digital mediums. I've recently watched Ping-Pong the animation, and the artists make use of both analog and digital mediums, and the results are some of the most very expressive and abstracted I've ever seen in any anime, thanks in part to solid art direction.

I really dislike when people like you try to make this argument, because it's just reductive at it's core with no regard to the actual skill and creativity and direction of the people involved in the creative process. It just amounts to "old good, new bad" or 'analog is magic'. Or the ever vacuous soul vs souless meme. And really it's more of. nostalgic mindset you're arguing from.

[Anonymous No.4216798]

>>4216726
>Using analog mediums does not magically make an anime look good
It does not but it informs the artistic choices and the end result. If the first anime productions were able to use Photoshop, 3d and the various shortcuts digital tools provides the look and feel of anime as we know it today would never have existed in the first place.

> it's more of. nostalgic mindset you're arguing from
Not at all

[Anonymous No.4216804]

>>4216667
The entirety of Titan A.E.

A big muddy mess of clashing visuals. It's actually really hard to see what's going on in some scenes, and the cgi looks terribly out of place next to the traditional animation.

[Anonymous No.4216864]

>>4216798
>It does not but it informs the artistic choices and the end result. If the first anime productions were able to use Photoshop, 3d and the various shortcuts digital tools provides the look and feel of anime as we know it today would never have existed in the first place.
You mentioned several tool that each have 1000 of ways of apply them creatively. Anime studios like IG and Ghibli and Madhouse in the 90's literally used 3D in their production in ways you probably didn't realize. That is my point, the beauty of digital mediums ARE their flexibly. An artists with skill and understanding of that medium and working under good art direction can creatively use of digital mediums for any production. The use of a shortcut just a form of technique. Artists have devised the use shortcuts in both analog and digital mediums. The tools do not inherently provide the look of feel, the art direction does. By your logic, then all videos games look exactly the same because they all utilize 3D assets. Obviously that is not the case, even with many games utilizing the same game engines.


>Not at all
It seems to be case to me, because you're exactly presenting any strong arguments.

[Anonymous No.4216869]

>>4216798
You mentioned several tool that each have 1000 of ways of apply them creatively. Anime studios like IG and Ghibli and Madhouse in the 90's literally used 3D in their production in ways you probably didn't realize. That is my point, the beauty of digital mediums ARE their flexibly. Artists with skill and understanding of that medium while working under good art direction can creatively use digital mediums for any production. The use of a shortcut just a form of technique. Artists have devised the use shortcuts in both analog and digital mediums. The tools do not inherently provide the look of feel, the art direction does. By your logic, then all videos games look exactly the same because they all utilize 3D assets. Obviously that is not the case, even with many games utilizing the same game engines.


>Not at all
It seems to be case to me, because you're not exactly presenting any strong arguments.

[Anonymous No.4216999]

>>4214337
holy shit how do you even do this with water media?

[Anonymous No.4217046]

>>4216869
>The tools do not inherently provide the look of feel, the art direction does.
Art direction works in harmony with the tools at hand. Different mediums obviously do have a inherent look and feel to them; oils look different to watercolors and vice versa even if they both allow for a wide range of styles. I think you are in a way putting the cart before the horse so to speak by not recognizing the relationship between the medium, the available tools and art direction.

When photographic reference started being used more widely by mid century illustrators as opposed to live models it had a direct effect on compositions. You started seeing more dramatic angles with figures depicted in a bird's eye view that wouldn't have been practical with live models etc. I think it's fair to say that the use of water based media and the practical constraints of a production contributed to the look and feel of classic anime background art even though there were obviously a ton of other factors involved like trends and cultural aspects and such that would play into the art direction. If you have a pipeline now that involves tracing photos and 3d models that will contribute to a different end result than the same team using traditional tools, that's just the reality. The cheapest and fastes methods win. I don't hate digital art, in fact that's what I do personally. I love 3d modeling and digital painting and I think they're fantastic tools that are still in their infancy. I just think they provide certain shortcuts that does not necessarily produce a superior end result.

>By your logic, then all videos games look exactly the same because they all utilize 3D assets. Obviously that is not the case, even with many games utilizing the same game engines.
Actually video games is a great example of what I mean. Take pixel art or low poly graphics for instance - both very distinct approaches to computer graphics that were born out of technical constraints.

[Anonymous No.4217053]

>>4217046
cont.
We don't have the same hardware limitations today so when some indie developer creates a game with pixel art or low poly graphics they have to voluntarily impose restrictions on themselves to achieve a similar look and feel. That is an obvious example of art direction, yet the style was originally born out of necessity. This is an obvious example were art direction and tools are intimately connected.

[Anonymous No.4218068]

>>4214049
Practice plein air painting and illustration.

[Anonymous No.4219332]

>>4216470
This is great! Please post more

[Anonymous No.4219438]

bookmarking this thread

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[Anonymous No.4219753]

I'm surprised no one has posted the BGs from Tekkon Kinkreet yet. Shit was amazing.

[Anonymous No.4219755]

>>4219753

[Anonymous No.4219756]

>>4219755

[Anonymous No.4219762]

>>4219756

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>>4219762

[Anonymous No.4219765]

>>4219763

[Anonymous No.4219766]

>>4219765

[Anonymous No.4219767]

>>4219766

[Anonymous No.4219819]

>>4219753

I have all three of the artbooks from this movie because I like the art style so much, and I don't even like the actual movie!

[Anonymous No.4219822]

>>4219646
artist?

[Anonymous No.4219845]

>>4214900
>Pole
>Westerner

[Anonymous No.4220052]

>>4219845
are you american?

[Anonymous No.4220095]

>>4219822
Hiromasa Ogura

[Anonymous No.4220096]

>>4219332
I wish I had more. Hence me asking for more in >>4216472

[Anonymous No.4220137]

>>4220052
I’m Volga German

[Anonymous No.4220199]

>>4214049
Literally just use these colors and everything you draw will look like an anime background.

[Anonymous No.4220975]

>>4214275
Not OP but that's pretty cool of you

[Anonymous No.4221107]

>>4220975
No problem, happy to share.

>>4219753
Thanks for posting all of these. Great stuff.

[Anonymous No.4221589]

Just discovered this artist on twitter. They have a whole bunch of useful tutorials and process gifs.
https://twitter.com/matal7603/media

[Anonymous No.4221593]

>>4221589

[Anonymous No.4221601]

>>4221593

[Anonymous No.4221602]

>>4221601

[Anonymous No.4221663]

>>4214349
Is that gif from seraph of the end?

[Anonymous No.4222333]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3jhOG2T4mQ

Wish Nicker sold their paints outside of Japan.

[Anonymous No.4223950]

>>4214049
The only stuff I found that isn't moonrunes is by youtubers
https://www.youtube.com/user/mclelun/videos
has a half decent paintover process that includes 3d assets.

unfortunately he keeps experimenting with Blender so some of his latest stuff is just 3d tests.

[Anonymous No.4223987]

>>4223950
Yeah, I've seen his videos around but haven't had the chance to properly go through his catalogue.

This guy also did a 4 part video series on drawing backgrounds. The only videos he did but they're still good for viewing the process.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk-yPGeOOH2IZmhTPkqag8g/videos

[Anonymous No.4224109]

>>4221663
yes

[Anonymous No.4224465]

When I'm looking for backgrounds, what should I type into google? It only comes up with wallpapers, not actual backgrounds from scenes in anime.

[Anonymous No.4224598]

>>4224465
Trying using words like scenery or searching for specific anime backgrounds.

[Anonymous No.4226321]

>>4224465
Try looking at boorus instead. /c/ also has regular background threads

[Anonymous No.4226322]

>>4224465
>>4226321
Try to look for a background in booru, go to its pixiv source then try looking at the recommended works

[Anonymous No.4226841]

>>4214909
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-backgrounds-of-ghost-in-shell.html

[Anonymous No.4227377]

>>4221589
Thanks, that's some helpful stuff.

[Anonymous No.4227383]

I wish I can somehow save most picts in this thread in just one click.

[Anonymous No.4229683]

>>4219664
Do you have the pdf/rar of Hiromasa Ogura's book?

[Anonymous No.4230342]

Angel's Egg kino incoming.

[Anonymous No.4230343]

>>4230342

[Anonymous No.4230344]

>>4230343

[Anonymous No.4230345]

>>4230344

[Anonymous No.4230352]

Does anyone know of any resources for pencil/line only animation backgrounds? I'm taking an animation layout course and i could use as many line drawing examples as possible. Definitely no color and preferably no tone like pic related.

[Anonymous No.4230540]

>>4224598
https://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=scenery+

Thanks, scenery worked well.

[Anonymous No.4230706]

>>4227383
I bet there are browser plugins for that. Search something like 4chan download. If you're using phone there are apps that can save threads as well.

[Anonymous No.4230728]

>>4230352
Search Kazuo Oga then on the settings, choose black and white, there's tons.

[Anonymous No.4230748]

>>4230342
i wish i saw this movie as a small child. I would have been a millionaire by now