Thread by @Lowtwait

How to go from storyboard to final background design for TV animation.

A step-by-step thread:

First things first: perspective.

I take that storyboard panel with its wonky, quickly drawn angles, and I fix the perspective.

In this case, I laid down grids to define the walls and floor planes.

No vanishing points. I eye-balled this one.

Then I roughly draw in everything using the grids as guides to put every object in perspective.

I refine composition, placing things at correct distances and giving them correct scale.

I avoid and resolve tangents.

This sometimes takes trial-and-error. That's fine.

Then I trace over with the final black line, adding details and textures along the way.

This is the most fun step for me, giving the location its personality.

The black line drawing is what goes to a background painter to take it to the next level.

My finished background design:

An unnecessary step, but sometimes done to help guide the painters, is to shade in some simple lighting.

I rarely do this so I can keep efficient, but the mood was an important part of this shot.

#BigCityGreens #BackgroundDesign

Any questions?

Take a closer look at how I reverse-engineered the structure of the room based on the location of the character in the storyboard.

Though I changed the location of many objects, this preserves the story artist's composition for the character in their environment.

Here's the final shot in color. Nice, somber mood.

Many of the details I drew got lost in shadow but that's alright. This angle of the living room is likely to be used in future episodes with different lighting.