Manga and Anime Week
In my experience, backgrounds are often seen as difficult and/or challenging, especially by beginning artists, and many tend to avoid complex ones in the beginning. A mix of scary technical terms such as 'perspective', 'composition', 'lighting', 'values' and so forth is often associated with them, which can easily seem overwhelming. And, since backgrounds can sometimes very much be considered as pieces of art on their own; they requires essentially as many various skills as drawing anything else.
Having struggled my way through this myself, I'd like to share some advice and my thoughts on approaching more com