Visual Chaos (Patreon)

My backgrounds suck!  That's a given.  They take me forever and they never look very good when I'm done.  I think often (and not fondly) of Page 13, which took me a month to draw, painstakingly trying to add each individual rock.  In lieu of today's comic I wanted to try something different last night and started on a digital painting of a sort.  I may not ever finish it, but it was fun to work on something utilizing a different style and technique than I normally use.

I probably couldn't have picked a more challenging setting to try and draw.  The more ruined the environment, the more details need to be added in order to give it that ruined aesthetic.  Straight lines and flat surfaces look clean and neat and new, whereas ruins have -- in addition to bent/broken lines and crooked surfaces -- innumerable cracks, scratches, scuffs, pebbles, dirt and debris.  I used to look at images like this and wonder how the artist could ever possibly come up with all those different objects sitting in a pile of wreckage.  Whenever I try, all I can think of are like... wheels and rocks and pipes.  Every once in a while, maybe the husk of a car.

However, it's starting to occur to me though that a lot of what I COULD do for creating an environment like this is just what I've started to think of as "visual chaos."  This image kind of showcases a couple of different phases of that.  It's just... kinda... layering colors and tones repeatedly until recognizable shapes start to form amidst the chaos.  It’s still not very fast, but it might be a bit faster than say, drawing each individual piece of debris.  The image gets shrunk down in the end anyway, so spending too much time putting details on every last nut and screw is not only tedious but pointless.  By haphazardly laying down a base color, then adding highlights and tones to sort of emphasize the shapes you already see, I wonder if it sort of tricks the eye into coming up with details you didn’t have to consciously add.

Anyway, just thought I’d share what’s on my mind this week, in case it might help anyone else who is struggling with this kind of stuff.  For all I know, this could be something every artist knows but me.

In any case, there should be a comic going up next week on the 9th!