Learn Concept Art for Animation

Master essential software and hardware for background art, with a focus on Photoshop, drawing tablets, and brush packs, to work with multiple layers in animation.

Learn how to set up a Photoshop workspace for background art, including creating an RGB 1920x1080 canvas, arranging layers and color panels, and using brushes, pen, and lasso tools.

Explore the lasso tools (regular and polygon) and the pen tool to create selections and vector shapes, then paint with the brush and bucket.

Understand the day-to-day role of a background artist, painting from an environment brief. Learn to do quick revisions, line work, and color based on storyboard and art direction.

Master staging and framing to create a background that serves as a stage for characters, guiding the viewer's eye and leaving space for action in animation.

apply the rule of thirds as a guide, but prioritize the story point and storyboard-driven production needs to make space for the action; central versus dynamic framing informs the composition.

Learn how to create the illusion of depth in animation backgrounds by using perspective, overlap, and scale—employing a human figure or objects like a doorway or bicycle to convey size.

Develop visual research, drawing, and painting as the foundational skills for a background artist, and learn to collect visual references, build mood boards, study from life, and recall details.

Develop confident line work through structured drawing drills that train straight lines, controlled strokes, circle accuracy, and practice with rotating the canvas and repeating pathways.

Develop your background art through practical perspective drawing, mastering one point and two point grids by drawing boxes and cubes. Build instinctive accuracy toward three point perspective and extreme angles.

Learn to start a background with a quick rough sketch, frame the composition, and block simple shapes of houses, mountains, and harbor, then refine into a finished layout.

Check perspective using a two-point setup, starting intuitively, then map a red grid on a new layer with vanishing points and a horizon, and refine with crop and free transform.

Develop your rough sketch into a more concrete background by refining the perspective grid, lowering opacity, and tracing on a new layer beneath the grid in a free-form, intuitive approach.

Explore 3D structure and edges to add solidity to background art for animation, focusing on roof and timber framing, dimensionality, and confident linework with light weight.

Builds three-dimensionality by shaping solid planks and steps in two-point perspective. Plans the top plane for steps, adds back posts, and envisions a carved wolf head and straw roof.

Trace and refine the background drawing with careful, unhurried detail, using loose organic shapes—like triangles for trees—to contrast with the foreground and plan the background, mid-ground, and foreground.

Explore how to separate foreground, mid-ground, and background into distinct layers to control animation depth, enable compositing, and create camera moves for establishing shots.

Block in flat colors with a limited palette, starting with a sky color. Then define foreground shapes—houses, forest, and mountains—using the pen or lasso tools.

Finalize flat colors by converting vector shapes to raster layers and painting with the pen and elliptical marquee and lasso tools. Organize foreground, midground, and background into layers for animation.

Finish flat colors, then test snow textures using various brushes on separate layers to explore how texture and value influence the overall composition.

Adjust values to enhance depth by balancing foreground and background contrast, and craft a dawn sky gradient. Use hue/saturation and layer tweaks to refine lightness and saturation.

Paint snow with layered shadows and painterly textures, refining roof drifts and edges using the pen and lasso tools, then add depth with the curves editor and hue adjustments.

Finalize the forest by combining a stamped spruce forest brush with hand-drawn trees, using stylization to create depth toward a distant mountain.

Hand-paint timber textures on individual planks with layered color and texture brushes, adding occlusion shadows and careful light on beams for depth.

Apply subtle textures to timber houses on a base color, use 2–3 brushes, vary brush strokes by distance, and keep textures cohesive yet distinct with snow contrast and stylized trees.

Add shields to houses by drawing circular shields, skewing with free transform, merging layers, duplicating elements, varying them slightly, and painting small details by hand for legibility from afar.

Refine foreground elements to create three dimensionality, add subtle color contrast and highlights on the sword and skull, and apply final touches for a cohesive, rendered look.

Deliver a final pass that uses subtle textures and varying marks, a light sunrise glow, and atmospheric perspective to create depth, inviting you to complete your painting and share it.