Discover the process of creating a background for a digital image, specifically focusing on adding and adjusting elements like exhaust and a mountain range. The article also emphasizes on using tools like the pen tool and image trace to add depth and diversity to the artwork.
Key Insights
- The article demonstrates how to create a background for an image by adjusting existing elements such as exhaust and by adding new elements like a mountain range.
- Various tools like the pen tool are used to create, adjust and add depth to the elements. The pen tool, for instance, is used to create mountains and add shadows to them.
- The article also explores the use of image trace to add diversity to the artwork, although it concludes that this method may make the background too complicated and inconsistent with the design of other elements in the image.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
In this video, we're going to be creating the mountains for the background of our image. So let's begin first by adjusting our exhaust and moving it below.
To do this, we'll hit CTRL+A with the Exhaust layer as the only layer unlocked, and we're simply going to drag it down while holding Shift so that we drag only vertically, and we'll move it to about here. In addition, let's also move our rocket up a bit by selecting our “Traced Rocket” layer and unlocking it. From here, we'll drag a selection over it and drag it upward while holding Shift to about the top half of our Artboard. We'll now need to make some adjustments to the top of our exhaust streams, so let's utilize our Lasso Tool, where we can drag a lasso around the anchor points that we’d like to move.
From here, we can hold Shift and press the up arrow key until our exhaust reaches the rocket. We'll then hit V and press CTRL+Shift+A to deselect. Here we now have a little more room to add to our background. Now, let's lock our “Traced Rocket” and “Exhaust” layers and create a new layer for our mountains. From here, we'll title this “Mountains” and hit ENTER.
In order to create our Mars background for the rocket scene, we need to add mountains that resemble the Martian landscape. We can do this a couple of different ways. The first, and probably easiest way, is to simply create them ourselves using the Pen Tool.
We'll select the Pen Tool and choose a color from our swatches that resembles Mars. In this case, we'll select our orange. From here, we can click and drag mountains of our choosing.
Feel free to draw the mountains however you'd prefer, and let's cover the entire bottom. Finally, move this layer to the bottom beneath our exhaust. Next, with our mountains, we'd like to add shadows. So again, with the Pen Tool, we'll hit CTRL+Shift+A to deselect, and then change our Fill to a slightly darker color.
We'll click OK and remove the Stroke. Now, we'll simply add some shadows to our mountains. Hit CTRL+Shift+A, and feel free to be creative in this process by adding diverse shadow shapes. Press CTRL+Shift+A again once you've completed the shadows. After finishing, we can review our results.
As we can see, we have a diverse mountain range. However, it feels a bit gimmicky and too two-dimensional for the current design. In this case, I think we want something more varied and less flat. So within the Mountains layer, let's select all the objects by clicking to the right of the layer and simply press the Delete key.
Next, let's try a new approach to creating our mountains. To do this, we're going to import an image. We'll go to File > Place, and from here, let's import our mountain range PNG and click Place.
Next, we'll click and drag it across the canvas so that it spans from one edge to the other. Let's also hide our exhaust for now, as it's not necessary while creating the mountains and background. From here, let's utilize Image Trace on our mountains so we can convert them into vector shapes that define our background. We'll go to Image Trace, and as
We can see, the image only has two colors. Let's open the Image Trace Panel and change the preset from Default to Three Colors.
Now we have a bit of color diversity, so let’s expand the result and see how it looks using our orange and darker shadow orange. The first thing we’ll notice is that we have three colors, but we need to reduce this to two. To do this, we’ll double-click the image and select the white area in the center of the mountain.
Then go to Select > Same > Fill Color to select all other white areas in the image. We’re going to fill them with the darker mountain color. Hit I to use the Eyedropper Tool and sample the mountain color. Then press V, and as we can see, we’ve also filled the background sky. We'll simply click that element and hit the Delete key to remove it.
Next, we need to change the color of the mountains to orange. Select one of the remaining shapes and go to Select > Same > Fill Color. With the color selected, go to Fill and choose the desired orange color. Do the same with the shadows—select one shadow, go to Select > Same > Fill Color, press I to sample the mountain color, and then double-click the Fill and adjust it slightly darker. Click OK.
Then hit CTRL+Shift+A to deselect, press V on the keyboard, and exit Isolation Mode to view your changes.
While I like that these mountains have a little more visual diversity and uniqueness, they feel too complex for the current design and don’t match the simplified aesthetic of the rocket. In this case, using Image Trace may be too detailed and inconsistent with the rest of the illustration. So once again, let’s select the entire group and press the Delete key to remove it.
Let’s now save our work by hitting CTRL+S on the keyboard. In the next video, instead of using Image Trace or creating our own mountains from scratch, we’re going to use our mountains image and trace them using the Pen Tool.
See you there!