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inkypoo1 [2019-12-04 10:43:34 +0000 UTC]

An interesting looking bunch.

I think you made a big mistake with this drawing however. This advice is highly applicable to comics, but I think also single illustrations that occur in a time and/or place different from the current time that we live in, and certainly so when a sci-fi setting is being used: backgrounds in these types of settings are an artist's opportunity to not only fill some space around the focal point of a drawing, but to create a sense of place in which the focal activity of the picture is occurring, in this case your characters gathering as a group. You've mentioned that this drawing is occurring in 'New America'. My first questions are "how did New America come to be" and "What does it look like due to what happens there?", and using a background here is your opportunity to show me: show me what 'New America' IS, and why, and only once I understand that do your characters become relevant. Relevance comes from action within a situation, and without a well-laid out situation, characters will always struggle to be interesting and catch readers'/viewers' attention.

It's a shame here because you've clearly put some effort into thinking what New America looks like, and gone to some effort to describe that with the background drawings, but I feel that they're just a little too lacking in...possibly conceptualisation, or if not certainly i execution, to have portrayed New America and these characters place in it.

On a side note, I'm the worst at backgrounds. I know I need to brush up my skills in that department too, but a lot of the time I'm just using fairly abstract patterns rather than settings, which doesn't encourage me to improve. So this advice coming from me... XD

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