I'd rather gnaw off my arm than draw another background...

[BeefotronX]

A couple things I thought of for 3D sets that I haven't gotten really around to working on yet:

• Painted panoramic backgrounds for distant landscape in outdoor sets.
• Build up a library of reusable elements like electrical fixtures, mass-produced furniture, vehicles, and so forth.

[Killbert-Robby]

Backgrounds can really make a scene, however my problem is if I do a background... I'll "zoom in" and add more detail... then more... then more... soon its a mess of lines.

You gotta learn where to draw the line.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
PUN!

[Spuzo22]

I hate drawing backgrounds myself! It must be done though or the reader would be lost after awhile!

[Blackhole]

usually my characters plus their speech balloons take up 98% of most panels so usually the background ends up being unrecognizable.

[Harishankar]

I feel it all depends on the location. Rooms are easiest. Outdoor locations are toughest.

And also the camera viewpoint matters a lot for an effective background. Having a flat background without depth is worse than having no background at all.

[Hereville]

Here's something I recently started doing when I had a long scene that took place in a forest... but it only works if you draw your comics digitally.

I started a separate file, which I named "forest elements." Every time I had to draw a tree, I drew it on a separate layer from everything else in the panel, and saved a copy of it in that file. After I had built up a few trees, I started drawing just one new tree per panel (whichever one was closest to the foreground); all the other trees would be recycled from my "tree library." This allows me to get the feeling of a detailed, full woods without having to draw three or four trees anew every panel. Since word balloons and figures cover up the other trees -- plus, I alter them a bit digitally (stretching them to make them taller, rotating them to change their angle, etc) -- I'm pretty confident no readers will notice the reused trees. You can see an example of a page created using this method here.

I wouldn't say that this is "quick," exactly, but it's certainly "quicker" than producing the same page without the tree library would have been.

[Harishankar]

Yeah, the advantage of digitized backgrounds is definitely the reuse factor.

I also suggest that you draw one large background, and then use small portions of it in your individual panels. That might work in scenes where you need to show the characters in different places within the same areas.

[Eve Z.]

I hate backgrounds myself. But sometimes I draw them, sometimes I don't. If not, I prefer using a color gradient and then work on a blurry background based on that colour, that only suggest what I must have in the background (people, buildings, trees, sky, etc.). it works well and it doesn't make me lose the characters either.

[Prettysenshi]

A method I plan to use to improve backgrounds, I haven't implemented it yet, but I hope to, is to just make a full page of just the setting of your scene. That way, once it's established, it's in the reader's mind, and you don't have to draw a background so detailed for every panel. If you do that for every scene in a chapter, I think that helps.

[Orinocou]

I started a separate file, which I named "forest elements." Every time I had to draw a tree, I drew it on a separate layer from everything else in the panel, and saved a copy of it in that file. After I had built up a few trees, I started drawing just one new tree per panel (whichever one was closest to the foreground); all the other trees would be recycled from my "tree library."

I also have a method similar to Hereville's. For a recent scene I did involving a teapot (short and stout), I drew the handle, spout, and body on separate layers in its own file. Then I would change the position of the handle and spout to the front or back of the body in order to give the impression of changing viewpoints. After that, I flatten, copy, and paste the thing into the actual page. I call that sort of thing a "sticker".

Another trick I use is the making of my own textures, like rock walls for a cave scene. These textures can then be made into shapes, the color changed, etc. so the reader doesn't catch on that I'm being lazy. I actually have a folder called "homemade backgrounds" with these stickers and textures (plus other stock scenes that I reuse).

Obviously, if you wanna do this, you'll have to put in some forethought, and do some background drawings. But in the end it'll save time, and the wear and tear of your teeth gnawing off your arm.

By the way, Hereville, I really liked that sample page!