background and layout design

i’ve never been good at drawing backgrounds. for some reason it just never works out for me. i guess i’m more interested in drawing goofy characters. thankfully ghostbot is brilliant at both. roque whipped up some beautiful background designs that completely stand on their own as art pieces. his sense of color and space make them really engaging. in the video, it’s hard to focus on the background because of all the wonderful action happening in the foreground. but it’s definitely worth your time to watch it again with an eye bent towards the great environments.
in ghostbot’s timeline on any project, they usually jump right on backgrounds and layout just after the animatic is complete. layout involves positioning all the key elements in the frame to create an interesting and functional composition. if this composition doesn’t work, then the entire scene can fall flat. sometimes layout are done in black and white, or shades of grey, just to block out the light and dark and large and small areas.
for this video, the backgrounds had to be relatively simple. strong graphic shapes, pleasing subdued colors. they couldn’t conflict with the action, but had to enhance it. enhance the mood.
here are a few layouts from roque:







-pete

next: the art of collaboration