Art Help/advice on picture background?

[Lindus]

This is going to be a gift for a friend at school, but I'm very horrible at backgrounds (both deciding on one and drawing one). I'd really really appreciate some opinions on this, as I haven't gotten any good feedback from rl friends or on TheO.

Firstly, I'm not too certain what the background itself should be. I was thinking possibly a forest or another greenish background, but would that be too much of one color? I'm also not sure how I should draw the background when I pick one. The character's pretty smack-dab in the middle and is pretty big, so perhaps a more simplistic bg?

[URL=http://img240.imageshack.us/my.php?image=linkcopy8hm.jpg][IMG]http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/1927/linkcopy8hm.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Please, if you think you've some helpful advice, don't hesitate to share it with me! I have a knack for ruining pictures after finishing the main character. ^^;

[Retribution]

[size=1]Well, I'd say that it's very well-done thus far. I'm going to recommend that if you don't feel like drawing out a background scene, just draw the Hylian shield or something -- I think that'd work well.

If you really want to draw a scene in back of him though, you could easily use Photoshop to move him onto a bigger canvas where his position was more fluid. Then you could draw a background on a separate sheet (or on the computer, if that's how you do it), scan it in, and set it as the lower layer.

Both ways could work, I think. And a word of advice on drawing these things would be try to keep the background in mind as you draw your main character. It might even be a good idea to draw them at the same time. Right now, you have a really detailed character, but nothing else. I think you might've spent too much time focusing on Young Link, and now you have to deal with the rest of the page. Perhaps you could spread out your focus next time?

But you draw [i]really[/i] well, and your coloring is pretty good too. Definitely keep up the good work.[/size]

[Delta]

[COLOR=#656446][SIZE=1]^ 2nd'd with emphasis on the last paragraph.

A background of foliage is fine but if you don't wanna use green, may I suggest a dungeon-themed background instead? Add in stone walls, a dingy floor and a few torches here and there, yeah? Sure-fire way to give your piece that fantasy-adventure feel (not to mention bricks are easier to render than a myriad of leaves ;P).[/SIZE][/COLOR]