Two WIPs + My Current Art Challenge
Added 2025-09-19 21:06:59 +0000 UTCLife’s been a little hectic lately. I’ve been working full-time the past few months (fingers crossed it sticks long term), moved into a new place, prepping for my next mentorship, keeping up with YouTube… and I’ve got something big coming up that means I need to make a lot of new art. Can you guess what it is?
Even with all that, I’ve been itching to draw again. But this time I don’t want to fall back on my usual safe zone. Most of my characters end up on flat backgrounds, graphic and simple. Safe.
Lately I’ve been looking at artists who do everything - characters in full scenes, lit properly, with story and atmosphere. People like Max Grecke, SamDoesArt, Ramon Nuñez, Loish. Their work feels complete and alive. I’ve always wanted to paint like that, but honestly it’s overwhelming to even know where to start.
The challenge
So here’s the strategy I’ve been trying out:
I find an image on Pinterest that already has an interesting background, composition, and lighting setup. Instead of doing a straight study, I use the background as practice (since that’s where I struggle most), and then I drop in my own character. The idea is to match the lighting and mood so it all feels like one piece.
That way I’m practicing backgrounds and lighting, but still creating something original with my own story and character design. It feels manageable but still pushes me in the areas I avoid.
What I’ve noticed so far
Even just a couple WIPs in, I can see where I struggle:
My values aren't strong when I get caught up in details
I tend to flatten the lighting on the character
I struggle finding the same lineart style for both character and BG
But that’s exactly why I’m doing this. It’s exposing the weak spots I’ve been ignoring.
What I’m sharing
So in this post I’ve uploaded two WIPs from this challenge so far. I want to show you what this process looks like while I figure it out, not just the polished results.
Thanks for being here and supporting me! I’d love to hear your thoughts - if you have tips, artists I should check out, or even just your own approach to tackling backgrounds and lighting, let me know in the comments.
