Since reading excessively about Andrew Dobson's shitty London poster (in which he photoshopped a cropped Big Ben right into the background), I've been doubly on-edge about my method of doing backgrounds that have to be immediately recognizable as London landmarks. For fear of being compared to him, I feel the need to come right out and say that there have been instances where I've traced from photos and then painted over my tracings, and the main reason I do this is because my ability to draw architecture freehand is a little bit less than abysmal. It's for the sake of time and clarity that I do this, particularly since my schedule's been busy with grad school, but I'll admit there's really no good excuse for this kind of corner-cutting when it comes down to artistic integrity.
One thing I can say, however, is that doing this is teaching me a lot about the way buildings are constructed and proportioned. It's definitely not the same as 'shopping things in, but it's not half as admirable as the people who can draw buildings from reference and actually make them look like what they're supposed to be. This is my ultimate goal, and I'm hoping that by the time this comic has concluded, it's something I'll be able to do. One of my goals for the summer is to get faster at freehand environments, and to have more of a personal voice in them; all of the non-landmark enviros in Doomsday are done from my head, but I feel they're looking pretty stiff and I'd like to make less use of the line tool. Any tips from other artists would be welcome on this front.
I guess I'm just thinking about this more now that I'm working on chapter five, which incorporates a lot of really specific backgrounds in the beginning. Hopefully you'll see what I'm talking about in a few days, and even moreso, hopefully you'll see a change in the character of the environments as the comic progresses.
