Help with my method

[Babar]

I keep making backgrounds, only to find out half the way in that I made some huge fatal flaw. So I thought that I could get help with at least 1 BG, and then be able to use that for all the stuff I make.

This is supposed to be a moderately rich manor room some 200 years ago, somewhere in England. The main required things that are required are the 2 chairs facing the way they're facing (I realised there need to be 2 later on, so the initial sketch had only 1), the cabinet type thing, and huge windows to the north and east. The rest is just fancying up the image.


I wasn't sure about the historical accuracy of potted plants, so I removed that. I wanted to add a lamp on the cabinet table, but I wasn't sure about that either, so I removed it till later.


Here it is, somewhat neater, with the wall and nearer chair perspective somewhat neatened up. I'm already noticing problems, like the large scaling that would occur if the player moved to the bottom of the screen (you can't go out that way, though). The raised platform near the window is a sort of resting place where someone might sit to enjoy the sun while reading their book. I'm not sure if this design is anachronistic, but I've seen this sort of thing in some old houses.


Now I've coloured in the main things (the window colour is transparent, not blue). I suppose red and green clash horribly, I may want to change that, but I can't think of a better colour combination (heh...I'll probably make a very bad interior decorator). The perspective of the back chair and cabinet may be a little odd when the character is walking around, I guess I should have had the vanishing point in the centre of the room (I tried doing that, but then the raised platform to the right looked very weird). The table legs may also not be so good.

This is how much I've done so far. Perhaps someone can tell me the other, better way to have reached here, and what should have been done different? What should I do from now? I'd really appreciate it.

[Khris]

It's a nice start, but the right chair and the table are too slanted(?) (while the table's foot isn't, btw.).

About stuff that did/didn't exist 200 years ago:
I'm pretty sure the Romans had potted plants.
But lamps (as in electric, with light bulbs) didn't exist, I believe rooms where lighted using oil lanterns or candles.
Not sure about the huge panes of glass, either. Big windows, yes, but heavily tiled, so that a single pane wasn't bigger than a quarter of a standard modern window.

[Babar]

Thanks for the quick reply, KhrisMUC! I'm not sure what you mean by the right chair and table being slanted. You talking about the viewer's right? The rounded table? How is it slanted?

Thanks also for the info on the potted plants. About the lamps that existed then, would they have the same basic shape as a modern lamp (except use oil instead of electricity)? Perhaps I could add a candelbra somewhere above? And the windows....I suppose I can keep what I have if I put big "grill" type things inbetween? I don't think tiled windows would be a common thing in a house....

[Khris]

Yes, the viewers right. The small round table, the red rug and the right chair (facing left) suggest a higher vanishing / view point than the left of the room.
Going from the cabinet, the horizon is just above it.

Tiled was the wrong word I guess, what I meant was it's doubtful that glass manufacturing was advanced enough to produce huge, smooth window panes, so big windows were made of smaller ones hold together by those little intersecting beams. Like in Colonel's Bequest.

The lamps probably looked like this: click

Hanging a candelabra from the ceiling is a good idea, I'd hang it pretty high though to avoid it suggesting a low ceiling. Maybe just the bottom part being visible would look convincing enough.

[cat]

The room looks quite nice and functional. However, i would rather think of finding it in a 60's or 70's James Bond story or something like that. You have to - as KhrisMUC already said - tile the windows. Additionally I'm not sure about that kind of bank below the windows. I think it also doesn't fit into the 19th century.

[Khris]

It just came to my mind that rich people 200 years ago probably had furniture and other stuff that's even older. Antique dealers must have existed back then, right?

Here's an eBook about interior decoration I came across featuring many (bad quality) pictures of old windows, furniture, fireplaces and decorations.

[Babar]

Updated the table and carpet as mentioned. I'm not very good at perspectivating round things- I'm too lazy and usually take the shortcut. Not sure about the chair, though. Here are the perspective lines I've been using:



EDIT: Just a note, historical accuracy is not the topmost priority. Sure, I don't want to have an electrical lamp there, or huge metallic doors, but the I'm hoping that slightly inappropriate building styles, or blocky furniture (I'll be doing some etching type stuff into it later, haven't gotten that far yet) can be sneaked through.

[cobra79]

Here is my really quick take on it.



I googled "victorian interior" and most of the rooms were pretty cramped. Dark wood and heavy furnitures.
Your room looks more like a really expensive apartment in NY or a ship's cabin.
I always try to keep the walkable area in the lower third. Maybe a chimney or big paintings are a good idea too.

Edit: Oh and yes I work the same way as you do. I do some fast sketches until I am satisfied with one of them or combine the elements I like and only then I would worry about 100% correct perspective. Once you have the basic outline you can color it.

[Monsieur OUXX]

There is a problem in your perspective :

you seem to be very attached to the vanishing point, but pay attention to the fact that there must be a vanishing point for every parallel lines in your scene, even the horizontal ones...

This means that the back wall must be distorted a bit, because even if lines are ALMOST parallel (the vanishing point is very very very far to the right), they have to converge anyway. This will make your scene more realistic.

[Khris]

Afaik, lines that are perpendicular to the line of sight don't converge.
But using a few extra vps will make the scene look more dynamic, that's right.

[ildu]

Yeah, two-point perspective is a way to make it more dynamic, but in a scene as simple and non-geometric as this one, it's hardly of any use, and will most likely just confuse you. Since this is a very dynamic scene in itself, I would concentrate on using good composition to represent what you want to show with this bg, rather than gunning for perfect perspective.

When I first saw this, the reaction was that this was some sort of zeppelin airship lounge. The large windows, scarce living area and the kind of deco style suggest some kind of 1920's fantasy zeppelin environment. From here on I would suggest coming up with a good equilibrium of colors for the interior. The next step would be drawing the background seen through the windows. Finally, you could add to the depth by putting in some foreground objects.

[pslim]

I don't think the composition is bad at all. It just needs more stuff crammed in to give it that cramped, Victorian feel like cobra79 mentioned. Victorians were very showy and status driven (sound familiar?), so if they were very rich they probably had all manner of chronologically-appropriate knick knacks and luxuries filling the available space. Plants or candy dishes on tables, fancy armoires against the walls, more curtains with fine embroidery, elaborate desks with hidden compartments, possibly even embroidered cushions on the divans.

And I would also suggest a cat in the lower left corner sleeping. A little sleeping animal is a pretty common weight to throw into the less-emphasized portion of a portrait scene and it'd be cute. :>

It could benefit, maybe, from perspective adjustment but if you're not that concerned about perfect perspective it might be worth putting your energy into other aspects of the bg. Just my two cents, anyway.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Afaik, lines that are perpendicular to the line of sight don't converge.

Theoritically no, but they should to make the scene more "alive".
If not converging, the scene looks flat just as in an isometric arcade game.
If converging, you deal with a kind of "fisheye" effect, as if the scene was shooted with a camera. (see under)


It not only makes the perspective more professional, it also allows to enlarge the view (otherwise, you cannot put many things in the foreground because it's too tight (see under)

The point in my post is not to show that this scene must have a fisheye effect, but i advise to correct a bit the fact that :
- in the actual state, the character will walk "easily" left or right, BUT
- will have to walk a lot (or with a big scaling) from top to bottom.

[ildu]

Well, that's a step further from two-point perspective. That's spherical perspective. Two-point might help in making the scene more dynamic, but I don't see why Babs would need a wide FOV for the scene. It kinda passes past realism over to stylization. Nevertheless, nice illustration of your point .

[Babar]

Thanks for all the help so far! I tried including more stuff to give it a fuller look, but I think the problem is that I have no walls in the picture- so no paintings, no mirrors, no wall designs, no light fixtures, no fireplace, etc.
M. Ouixx, I don't think I'd be capable of doing a 2-point or spherical perspective right now. I was told many times that my BGs were all head-on 1p perspective with only parallels, horizontals and verticals, so I tried something a bit different with this, and I'm already in trouble  .

Anyhow, here's what I have so far:

Apologies for the lack of any concrete changes after so much time, but with every new thing I added, I saw more problems and difficulties

*I added more objects (in the shape of the new foreground couch and plant), but the lack of perspective of the plant is too obvious. I tried making it more "from the top", but then it stopped being recognisable as a plant. I even tried added another table as a foreground object between the lower two couches, but the perspective made that look weird as well.

*I tried fixing up the window, but I have no idea how to make it windowy. I added the grill, and am not sure how well that went, but later on noticed a few pictures (by searching "victorian interiors) that showed panes as large as what I had. I tried opaque blue, but (as someone already mentioned ) it made it look like an airship's lounge. Hell, infact, it still looks like an airship lounge, hovering miles above the earth. I tried making it opaque with distorted glass letting in blue and green squiggles (something I've seen in these sort of grilled windows), but wasn't really succesful in that either. Right now it's just a semi-opaque blue layer.

*The window also caused a problem with the drawing of the garden that's supposed to be on the other side. I tried bushes, a path, etc., but it all seemed to prominent, and drew attention away from the important parts IN the room. I even tried blurring it all, but that just looked silly. Even as I have it now (incomplete), it's messing with the colour scheme of the room. It seems that back then they liked their reds and golds, but I've already used those two colours, so I have no idea what to do with the carpet.

[cobra79]

It is quite difficult to change an existing picture, that is why the sketch phase is so important. It took me almost 30min to come up with this. You can change the colors and shading - it is just to highlight one point. If you notice that your windows are too big, you will have to change them. 
Btw the "couch" looks more like a flat-screen TV, but I had no other idea myself and of course I was to lazy to paint a picture in the frame.

[Groogokk]

*The window also caused a problem with the drawing of the garden that's supposed to be on the other side. I tried bushes, a path, etc., but it all seemed to prominent, and drew attention away from the important parts IN the room.

I think that is because there are not enough objects inside the room that would keep your attention from wandering off to the outside. The windowsills need more than three cushions in the corner - they need a clock, lamps, a candlestick, a statuette, books and plants and maybe letters. Not to forget a bottle of sherry and glasses. 

If you want inspiration, I can recommend the comic book "On the False Earths" (originally called "Sur les Terres Truquées") by Mezière and Christin, which has some nice Victorian interiors; the same goes for "Le démon des glaces" by Jacques Tardi.

[ildu]

- You've got two nasty tangents in the image that kinda clash. The first is the carpet edge merging with the foreground couch edge. The second one is the foot of the couch merging with the side of the foreground couch. You should always look out for obvious tangents.

- Cobra did a great job with the walls. If you don't want there to be that much wall, you could frame the image by adding walls to both sides of the window area. The garden behind the windows was probably too distracting because the colors were too saturated and varied. If you only have a low saturated greenish hue range that you draw the whole garden with, it shouldn't be a problem. For variation if you have to add other colors than green, keep em to a minimum and choose low-saturated ones. The image desperately needs a background.

- The bind in large curtains is usually very low (around the height of 1/3 or 1/4 of the whole curtain). If you lower the binds, it'll look more majestic and you can really create some nice atmosphere with a deep arching curtain.

- The bg is still looking empty which is partly because it hasn't been properly framed. For example, the plant should be way larger. If you're having trouble with the design, just draw a silhouette over a photo of a plant. The foreground couch isn't really recognizble as a couch and there's really nothing you can do about it, short from making it brighter and adding detail to make it more like a couch. I propose you change it to another item, though.

- There's basically a lack of lighting in the scene. That's why everything is looking quite flat. Establish a light source and draw shadows accordingly.