Pro tip: stop using garbage resolution references for your backgrounds

I keep seeing people post these sick character designs with backgrounds that look like they were pulled off a 2005 flip phone. It kills the whole piece. I spent 3 hours last week redoing a cityscape because my reference was 800x600 and the building edges came out blurry. Don't be lazy like me. Has anyone else noticed how much a crisp bg makes or breaks a portfolio piece?

2 comments

2 Comments

phoenix8453d ago

@anthony165 brings up a solid point about pulling from stock sites, but scaling down high-res photos still leaves you editing out all the random people and signs that don't fit your setting. How much time are you spending on cleaning up those backgrounds compared to just hunting down a cleaner original reference? I'm curious if the saved search time gets eaten up in Photoshop later.

anthony1653d ago

Yo have you tried just using stock photo sites for your backgrounds? I started grabbing free high-res city photos from Unsplash and scaling them down instead of hunting for the perfect reference, and it saved my ass on a comic project last month. Way less headache than trying to upscale trash.