Photoshop & Procreate

Ayumi Sugimoto explains her thought process for developing a striking background environment to match her project brief

Within the Japanese animation industry, we make nearly all our anime in 2D. That’s why we need to create a concept for the background art that works in harmony with the style of the characters in any given project.

For instance, my team recently contributed to the background art for the popular series SPYxFAMILY and Mushoku Tensei. During the creation of the background scenes for these, we didn’t immediately start drawing. Instead, we started off the process by developing blueprints and planning out all of the furniture and props in the room before we delved into the line work.

The background art in Japanese animation is characterised by its detailed depiction and use of colour. Another feature that’s unique to 2D is that we deliberately lie about the expression of light; in other words, we’ll sometimes exaggerate the shadows and reflections of light to make the whole scene come together. It’s also important for the backdrop to blend with the anime characters, which aren’t realistically 3D. There’s a tendency to draw in detail such as the texture and pattern of each piece with the 3D feel.