Really Awesome To See The Process - Blog Posts

I did promise to show my process of making backgrounds so here it is 🙆‍♀️✨

to start off--here's the line layer before I begin adding anything:

I still think this composition is a bit weird, but...eh 🤷‍♀️

next, I compile all of the references I've spent numerous hours foraging for:

these are all from basic google searches; for this piece, I looked for images relevant to the theme, so we have some vintage military manuals, illustrations, even a real army application form that I filled out in Johnny's name 😅 sources for these can vary, but I've had good luck perusing ebay listings for a lot of these scans 👍

next, I kind of just...scatter them around the page, seeing what fits where, keeping the figures as the focus but letting the background fill out around them:

I then start adjusting them more, utilizing various overlay options (hard light/ pin light/ multiply/ color burn are usually my go-to ones in PS) it takes some fiddling to see what looks best:

then I add a few more personal additions for flavor ✨

next, I adjust the colors a bit:

then I adjust the colors even more, bringing out the electric blue and pink to make it pop

here's the full bg without the figures:

and here's the completed piece:

as you can see, I did add a few more elements in the end, as well as adjusting the colors further with the addition of the fully rendered figures 🙆‍♀️

all in all--this is pretty much how I create all my backgrounds, like a fun little scrapbooking project~