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Udemy3D ModelingPaid courseBeginner levelCertificate

Create Background Art in Adobe Photoshop (Udemy.com)

Learn how to Create Art for Animation

Created by: Siobhan Twomey

Last updated January 2024

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What you will learn

  • Become an Animation Background Artist
  • Create Colour Concepts for Background Art and Design
  • Learn the techniques of digital art and concept painting
  • Learn Principles for background art and design
  • Create a background painting for animation
  • Learn digital art techniques
  • learn perspective
  • Create a background art painting for a scene from start to finish

How it compares

Against the other 545 rated Udemy courses in 3D Modeling on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.7 out of 5higher than 75% of them
  • Reviews263#261 of 546 by number of reviews
  • Length3.6 hoursshorter than 68% of them
  • Last updatedJanuary 2024more recently than 63% of them

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Course Description

Background design, concept art, digital painting. All of these skills come together in this course.

Welcome to the world of background art and environment design! This course is going to teach you the fundamentals of creating art for animation, including concept art, color keys, layout drawing and final background painting.

This is your chance to learn the skills and concepts to become a background designer!

You are going to learn how to paint digitally, how to draw backgrounds and how to develop a sketch to a fully realized background for a scene.

In this course you’ll work on 2 background projects that I’ve crafted for you so that you can learn and practice different and varied styles of background art. 

Along the way you’ll also learn all about the principles of background design for animation, as well as tips and tricks that I’ve used as a background artist throughout my career in the animation industry.

In the first project, you’ll get to learn:

• all about the color wheel, and explore color harmony rules.

•You’ll learn about lighting, and how to use light and shadow in your painting.

•You’ll learn to use a specific brush pack and show you brush and painting techniques.

•You’ll also learn how to create amazing atmospheric effects in your paintings and paint up a concept art fantasy scene.


Then, we’ll dive into the world of creating a background for a scene in an animated film. The second project is based on my Pirate Project and for this, we’re going to choose a scene from the storyboard, I’m going to show you how to draw a detailed rough layout with all the elements and props. Then I’ll walk you through my entire process of painting this up to a finished background, step by step. I’ll teach you how to block in flat colours, how to craft shapes and objects within the scene and then how to add layers of textures and effects to make the final painting look like you can step into it and experience it yourself.


This course is packed with insights into the creative process of designing artwork for animation. I’ve worked really hard to make sure that in every video you can learn something new, from practical photoshop tips and techniques, to advice on how to speed up your workflow and be a better, more efficient background artist.


When you join, you’ll have access to the downloads I’ve left for you, you’ll also be able to contact me directly, get feedback on your work and ask me any questions that you have.


This course distills everything I’ve learned over my 15 years experience creating art for animation. I’ve worked as a professional background designer for animation studios in Dublin, and Vancouver, for clients such as Disney, Sony Pictures, HMH Publishing and I’m really passionate about teaching the skills and processes that took me on that journey, so that your can have the opportunity to learn this amazing skillset. In my opinion background art is the best job in animation, it’s rewarding, highly creative and above all it’s easy and enjoyable!

So I hope you are ready to start your journey to becoming an animation background artist.

See you in the course! :)

Siobhan.



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Instructor Details

Siobhan Twomey

My background spans the disciplines of drawing, painting, filmmaking and animation. I studied Film in Dublin, and spent a semester on a scholarship at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU in New York. I later studied drawing and animation. Since 2005, I have worked in studios in Vancouver and Dublin as a professional Background Designer and Environment Artist. I've also worked as a storyboard artist, concept artist, and I have directed a number of short animated films.

All in all, I've worked for over 15 years as an Artist, Illustrator and Animation Professional. I've provided artwork for studios whose clients include Disney UK, Sony Pictures Animation, HMH Publishing, to name a few.

I also have an ongoing painting and drawing practice, and I paint portraits on commission, and exhibit my work in galleries. My passion is to teach others the whole spectrum of art skills that I've learned and developed over the course of my career.

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Reviews

4.7

263 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Opeyemi Adetayo on 12/9/2025

I loveeee loveee this course ..it’s simplified everything. I have learnt and I’m looking forward to learning more from you. Thank you so much

By Charles DeFiore on 5/21/2024

This was a good course. I wish that it was a bit deeper in explanations and demonstrations. For a person just staring out in Photoshop or this type of art, more detail may be needed to solidify the concepts. Personally, I had no problem following what was done and there were a number of techniques that were new for me. Overall, I thought the course was worth it.

By Michael Brown on 8/10/2022

I took this course for fun, and I loved it! The instructor presents each section very clearly and it is easy (and fun!) to follow along. I've learned so many great techniques that will be useful to both break down complicated background pieces as well as build them up in an organized step-by-step way, and I am looking forward to referring back to this treasure trove of lessons while working on my own projects. Thank you so much!

By Laura Estrada Pérez on 3/9/2022

I love how all the technical and theoretical aspects of digital painting are explained in a way that's concise, compact, informative, and to the point. The emphasis is on learning by experience and getting to try things out yourself as soon as possible, which I really appreciate!

By Henriette Grobler on 11/7/2021

This course is amazing. I found it very helpful and I learned a lot so far. I'm terrible at backgrounds, that's why I have taken this course. I wanted to get better at it and also at the same time understand how it all works. The course is very clear and shows you in easy to follow steps how to master this skill. I really enjoyed it.

By Coman Flash on 7/25/2021

It really gave me a great understanding of how backgrounds are shadowed and textured now even watching cartoons i can see the linework and how it was done this has really helped me make professional level backgrounds and apply this process to any of them i highly recommend it thank you so much for this i really appreciate it

By Vincent Fehr on 6/23/2021

Amazing so far. Love the class and using the iPhone 12 Pro to watch this was a breeze. No issues what’s eve. I would have loved a more stronger connection with airplay to send to the AppleTV. All in all, minor issues and ones that I could live without being fixed! Good job Udemy team!

By Christine Bensley on 4/19/2021

This was bar none the best UDEMY course I've taken. The instructor was made to teach. She didn't teach like she was DOUBLE parked like 98 per cent of the instructors on UDEMY. Things were explained well carefully slowly and completely most of the time The course flowed. I will be months working with the course and all the great things offered in it. I was thrilled to hear her say she was going to do more courses like this. I CAN"T WAIT!!!

By Fawaz on 2/16/2021

Well informative course which I highly recommend for beginners who would like to learn a step by step background design. Siobhan is a nice and great teacher. I learned a lot from her. She explained paintings, lighting and shading techniques in photoshop. Thank you Siobhan for this course. Can you create a new course on "Character Painting" and apply the lighting and shading effects to the character? I would love to learn how characters can be placed in environments / space.

By Blak on 9/24/2020

Yeah, I do believe that this was a really good match for me. I will be coming back to it constantly to get re-introduced to the course. But there were some jump cuts on some of the details that i was looking forward to. Mainly being "How to Set Dress" it just kinda jumped past it. On the other hand it was touched on constantly so i honestly can't be mad because it is an amazing course. And any one who is just starting out or is Intermediate will learn a lot from this course.

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Overall Score : 94 / 100