Step 18: Building a Background - Custom

For our final background, we are going to create a grassy plains background. Instead of hunting around trying to locate an appropriate picture, we will simply make our own from scratch. The graphic to the right gives you an idea of what you want to end up with (keep in mind that your background WILL NOT look exactly like mine, but it should be close). Let's begin by getting our file open...

1. Open Cartoon

An extremely important thing to keep in mind here is that we will be putting our character in another outdoor scene, so we need to give her the appropriate lightning...

2. Repeat directions 3-7 from Step 17 to give Catgirl her outdoor lightning

We will be creating a background ourselves, so we do not need to move Catgirl around. Instead, we need to select the Background layer and begin working...

3. Make only the Ink and Background layers visible (if you do not have a good background layer any more, you can simply create a new layer behind everything and name it Background) and select the Background layer
4. Click the Set foreground color box to open the Color Picker
5. Make sure Only Web Colors is NOT checked

The first thing we will do is add color to our sky. We would usually just click around in the color box until we found a nice skyish color we liked, but we can actually use the color options in the Color Picker to specify an exact color. Let's go ahead and do that now, just so we have some experience doing this...

6. Set the following options in the Color Picker window (see the image below)
   H: 210
   S: 75
   B: 100
   
7. Click OK

The 'H' option sets the hue (or color), the 'S' option sets the saturation (or amount of color), and the 'B' option sets the brightness. What each one of these is and what exactly they do was covered earlier in another step.

We will now use a gradient to give our sky some color variations...

8. Make sure the Background layer is selected
9. Select the Gradient tool (it is located where the Paint bucket is)
10. Click somewhere around the end of Catgirl's tail and drag your cursor to the extreme upper-left hand corner of your Photoshop desktop, as in the graphic below...
    
11. Release the mouse button to apply the gradient effect... (it should look something like the graphic below...)
    

The gradient tool will fill our layer, or if we had something selected then it would just fill the selection, with whatever color is chosen. The direction you drag (in other words, if you had dragged to the right the light part of the color would be on the right) and how far you drag (if you had stopped on his elbow then most of the top left of the background would be white) determines what gets colored and how dark. In this case, we need to be careful to drag off the image file because if we do not, then too much of the upper-left hand corner of our image will be white. With just the extreme corner in white, as in the graphic above, we can include some clouds (hold one...we're getting to that...) and our sky will have the appearance of an actual sun-lit sky.

Our sky is now in place, so let's go ahead and create the grass...

FOR THE STEPS THAT FOLLOW, YOU CAN PLACE ALL THE PIECES OF THE BACKGROUND ON THE BACKGROUND LAYER, OR YOU CAN INSERT SEPARATE LAYERS FOR EACH ITEM - YOU CAN DO IT HOWEVER YOU WANT, BUT KEEP IN MIND THAT IF YOU PLACE EVERYTHING ON THE SAME LAYER THAT MISTAKES WILL BE MUCH HARDER TO FIX.

12. Make sure the Background layer is selected
13. Activate the Brush tool
14. On the Brush options bar, open the Brush Preset picker (the graphic below is pointing at what you need to click to open this up)...
    
15. Click on the arrow on the top right-hand corner and locate the locate the Natural Brushes 2. Click it, and find the Pastel Light brush like the below graphic indicates (it is the brush selected with a 118 pixel wide tip and will have 'Pastel Light 118' pop up when you point at it).
    
16. Click the Set foreground color box and set the following options to set a nice green, grassy color:
    H: 85
    S: 100
    B: 30
17. Color the lower-half of the image (look at the graphic below) and don't worry too much about making the top of the grass look perfect as you will be covering up where the ground meets the sky on both sides of Catgirl; also, your grass does not have to follow the same shape as mine, but it should be close
    

Now we can add in some clouds...

18. Use the Brush preset picker (you do know what that is, right? I mean, come on, I showed you back on direction 14...and this is only direction 18...you do remember...please tell me you remember...) to select the Pastel Dark 64 brush (remember, if you hover over a brush it will tell you its name...well, it won't tell you, I mean the program doesn't talk...it will show you its name...duh...)
19. Put some clouds in the sky - it does not matter where you put your clouds (you do not have to match the graphic below), just add them in where ever you feel like it, but don't go overboard
    

Alright, time for some grass on the hill. This job USED to be easy when Adobe provided grass-shaped brushes...but since the update they no longer exist. We'll have to use something else now...friggin' Adobe...

20. Make sure the Background layer is selected
21. Set the foreground color back to the previous shade of green
22. Use the Brush preset picker, and under Faux Finish, choose the Veining Feather 2 brush and keep its Master Diameter around 50 pixels (look at the graphic below - you want to choose the brush labeled 2)
    
23. Draw some grass along the horizon line. Don't overdo it, just do enough to make it look like grass (grass made of FAIL in this case.)
    
    

Now it's time to make a concrete path winding behind Catgirl.

24. Make a new layer and title it Path.

25. Choose a gray color (I'm not going to tell you exactly what shade of gray. I'm pretty confident in your color choosing skills) and choose the Pen tool. MAKE SURE YOUR PATH LAYER IS SELECTED.

26. Start making a path. You learned how to make curved lines in Adobe Illustrator. It's pretty much the same here, and you can work off of the picture itself. When you're done it should look something like the graphic below.

27. Go to Paths. If you can't find it, go to Window -> Paths. Load the path as a selection.

28. Use the Paintbucket Tool to fill the selection with the gray color. You can delete the Work Path once you're done with it.

29. Repeat steps 26-28 to make the half of the path winding behind Catgirl. Your picture should look something like this now.

Now it's time to add some texture to the concrete.

30. Use the magic wand tool to select the gray concrete. Use the Pastel Light 118 brush and, with a lighter shade of gray, paint quickly over it to give it a slightly textured look. Do the same with a darker shade. Don't paint too much on the path in the distance, or else we'll lose the effect that it's far off.

31. Deselect, then use the Magic Wand tool again to only select the close half of the path. If you select the entire thing with one click...I'm not going to explain it to you to fix that. I've already told you what to do.

32. Go to Filter -> Texture and choose Texturizer. Under the dropdown Texture tab, select Sandstone, and play with the settings to your liking.

Now for the grass.

33. If it's on a seperate layer, you can just select that layer. If not, then use the Magic Wand tool (the Magic Wand tool is your frrriiiieeeennnndd) to select the green. Go to Filter -> Filter Gallery and experiment with different styles to see which one makes the grass look more realistic. (Again...I beleive in your Filter-choosing skills.)

OK, our background is coming together. We only need a few more things at this point: trees and some shadows.
I'm afraid this is where the step-by-step instructions end and your attention and creativity begin...

You will do these three things on your own.

I have faith in your ability to do this...

Here are some quick pointers to get you started...

Trees

• Choose the color you wish to use for the tree bark and use a round brush to color it in - keep in mind that you DO NOT have to choose the same color as I chose
• You can use a variety of methods to simulate the texture of the bark such as: a pattern brush with a different color, add in some black and smudge it, airbrush in some black, create a shade layer for the bark, or any other way that works - just remember that it needs to look realistic, and the more realistic the higher your grade
• There is a leafy brush that you could use for the foliage, but you could always make your own. I'm pretty sure you'll make a better grade if you go the extra mile and try it on your own.

Some Shadows

• You can use the same method you used to add shadows in Steps 14, 16, and 17 (you did add shadows in those steps, right? hope so, as you will loose valuable points if you did not)
• Note that in the graphic above and to the right that there are a variety of shadows around - this is a good idea for several reasons:
  1. we do not specifically know what direction the sunlight is coming from as the sun is not in the image (but remember that we shaded and highlighted Catgirl with the assumption that the light was coming from the upper-left of the image) and we do not know if there are any additional light sources
  2. we do not know what other objects are around Catgirl that will cast a shadow behind her
  3. a variety of shadows add a sense of depth to the image
• Place shadows at various spots in the image, but again do not go crazy with them, and do not make them too dark

EXTRA CREDIT CHANCE! Once you have finished creating the required elements of your background (sky, clouds, grass, trees, shadows), you can take a quick minute to add in one other element of your choice - if you would like. You don't have to, but it is a good way to give your image some individuality. For example, you could add in a flock of birds flying by (PLLLLEEAASE none of those horrible kindergarden "M" birds), some flowers, or some other little element. Again, its up to you if you want to do this, but it will get you some extra credit if you decide to take it on.

When you have everything looking the way you want, you will need to save Catgirl in a separate file so that you can return to the Cartoon file to complete the steps that follow...

30. Click File
31. Click Save As... [be sure the Format: box reads: Photoshop (*.PSD;*.PDD)]
32. Surf to your Cartoon folder within your main folder
33. Go into the Background folder within your Cartoon folder
34. Name the file Custom (be sure you name it correctly - if you name it wrong you will loose points!)
35. Click Save
36. Close the Custom file
37. Remember NOT to work with this file in the future - it should be left with the custom background - when you move on to Step 19 you will need to open the Cartoon file back up and continue working with it

Now move on to the next step...